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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I want to start with this, Rasmussen Reports: "'Republicans See Their Party as Leaderless' -- Who is in charge here? Sixty-eight percent of Republican voters say that their party has no clear leader according to Rasmussen, another 17% are undecided, just 5% view either McCain or Michael Steele as the party's leader." I have already dealt with this. The Republican Party does not have a leader, and it will not have a leader until the next presidential nominee of the Republican Party is decided upon, and in that period of time, that will be four years, or...

Email from Michael Steele: "On the heels of President Obama's national press conference last evening, I had my first face off with DNC Chair Gov. Tim Kaine. The battle is joined. As you all know, the Republican Party is unified in our opposition to the Democrat spending spree that is being jammed through Congress today. We have 219 Republican congressmen and senators, and 216 of them voted against this Democrat plan." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907aj9ZX0B4

A Republican source says newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has requested the resignations of the entire RNC staff and signaled a dramatic turnover at the party organization. Some aides may be retained, though Republicans are under the impression that Steele will lead a large-scale changeover in the institution, which has about 100 staffers. Obama's new team at the Democratic National Committee also requested mass resignations. Many, including communications staffers, have been told their last day is Feb. 15.

The House Democratic Caucus spent more than $500,000 in taxpayer money over the past five years for its annual retreats at resorts in Pennsylvania and Virginia. On Thursday, Democrats will head to the Kingsmill Resort and Spa in historic Williamsburg, Va., for the three-day planning powwow. The resort boasts multiple championship golf courses, a full-service spa and six restaurants.

The House Democratic Caucus spent more than $500,000 in taxpayer money over the past five years for its annual retreats at resorts in Pennsylvania and Virginia. On Thursday, Democrats will head to the Kingsmill Resort and Spa in historic Williamsburg, Va., for the three-day planning powwow. The resort boasts multiple championship golf courses, a full-service spa and six restaurants. Individual lawmakers pay for most of the expenses related to retreat lodging through their campaign committees, but the Democratic Caucus subsidizes some of the costs for what aides consider “official business” — to the tune of nearly $100,000 each year, according...

Steele has his work cut out for him. There are seven steps he might take to set the party on the road to recovery. First, Steele should offer to debate DNC Chairman Tim Kaine coast-to-coast on the Democrats’ stimulus plan and the economic crisis. This is the number one issue on voters’ minds, and for once the Republicans are making headway. The public is souring on the House Democrats’ spend-a-thon disguised as a stimulus bill. And Republicans have an attractive message: cut the pork, reduce taxes, and, if we must spend gobs of money, do it on worthwhile infrastructure and...

The war in Iraq will be a major issue during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, DNC chairman Howard Dean told several hundred people at the west entrance to the Pepsi Center this afternoon. "Every single one of the Republicans running for president thinks we ought to stay in Iraq, maybe for as long as 50 years," said Dean. "Every Democrat thinks we ought not to be there." The gathering was held to mark the one-year countdown to the 2008 convention.

On Sunday's This Week, George Stephanopoulos not once but twice, referred to Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as “Speaker,” a title she would presumably get if Democrats win back the House this fall. So, a Freudian slip by Stephanopoulos, a one-time staff member for the Democratic House leadership himself when they were in the majority? Before signing aboard the Clinton campaign in 1991, Stephanopoulos was a floor assistant to then-House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. Interviewing Congressman Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who suggested that if Democrats win control of the House they will pursue impeachment, Stephanopoulos countered:...

Peacenik moonbat DNC Chairman Howard Dean gleefully declares defeat for America.    (click here to see it reeeeeeeally large)  

Governor Dean wrote the following op-ed for national distribution:John Roberts is a decent family man and a bright, articulate, thoughtful judge. He has a quality absent in previous right wing candidates like Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork, namely a judicial temperament that makes litigants feel that they have been respectfully heard whether they are on the winning or losing side of a verdict.But John Roberts is the wrong man for the job. Despite the fact that the White House has withheld key documents either out of incompetence or a fear that those documents might prove embarrassing, we have learned enough...

Unrepentant after a week of controversy over his inflammatory remarks, Democratic Chairman Howard Dean told party leaders yesterday that casting traditionally liberal issues in moral terms is a key to breaking Republicans' eight-year hold on the White House. Dean acknowledged that he sees his party's national campaign apparatus as being "30 years behind" the one fielded in November by the Bush-Cheney campaign, and said the solution is for Democrats to be tough, describe themselves boldly and get organized in all 50 states. "People want us to fight, and we are here to fight," Dean said during a quarterly meeting of...

Man, Dr. Dean is exactly “what the doctor ordered” for the Republican party this year as the manic driven Democratic National Party Chair continues to rally the base of his party while losing the rest of the dems in his hate driven rhetoric aimed at you and me, hard working Americans. In a speech to rally the base of his party last week, Dean had the audacity to say that Republicans who had time to wait in line eight hours a day must not be honest hard working Americans contributing to society. Excuse me, has Dean lost his mind? He...

New figures reveal that Dean has done a woeful job of raising money for the party since he became party chief. After essentially matching the Republicans in fund-raising in 2004, the Democratic National Committee raised $14.1 million in the first quarter of 2005, while the Republicans raised $32.3 million, according to the Federal Election Commission. Dean attracted about 20,000 new donors, but the Republican National Committee picked up 68,200.

As conscientious followers of politics are doubtless aware, the better sort of American liberal is troubled by the unprecedented vituperation that has stolen into the public discourse. The Clintons refer to it as "The Politics of Personal Destruction" -- well said, Bill and Hillary. They, and concerned citizens like them, recognize that this inflammatory rhetoric comes, in the main, from the right -- or as they put it, "the extreme right." Dr. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, likewise is alarmed by the abusiveness from the right or more generally from Republicans whom he has recently identified as...

Democrat Tim Roemer won a Congressional seat in a Republican state, Indiana. As a member of the 9/11 Commission, he had strong credentials on fighting terrorism. Yet his bid for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee went nowhere, and for one reason: as a practicing Catholic, he opposes abortion in most cases. "It was a very difficult mountain to climb from the beginning, and people tried to hang a radioactive anvil around my neck on abortion," says Roemer. "They threw a couple of kitchen sinks and then some at us, with phone banks and mailings and efforts to derail...

Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called on the head of New York's Republican Party to apologize or resign Wednesday over remarks linking the Democrats to a civil rights lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists.

Howard Dean won the chairmanship of the national Democratic Party over the weekend and quickly began looking for a home in Washington. "This is really goodbye to Vermont, for now. There's lots of work to do," Dean told supporters. Eyebrows were raised after it was revealed that Dean's wife, Judy, will not be joining her husband in his move. "She has a career as a doctor, her patients require her attention," said one Dean friend. The Deans will join the growing ranks of "commuter marriages," with both partners living in different locations. Developing...

WASHINGTON — Howard Dean won the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) yesterday, vowing to lead a crusade back to power by competing for values-minded voters in "red" Republican states while continuing blistering criticisms of President Bush that rank-and-file Democrats love. "Today will be the beginning of the re-emergence of the Democratic Party," the former Vermont governor and presidential candidate said to cheers and applause from party activists and leaders. "We are going to take this country back for the people who built it." The 447-member DNC elected Dean by acclamation, his triumph locked up in recent weeks as...

From C-Span.org - IN WASHINGTON Dean To Be DNC Chairman The final day of the DNC Winter Meeting takes place Saturday, first with remarks by outgoing chairman Terry McAuliffe, followed by the vote for the new chairman, expected to be former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. Afterwards, McAuliffe formally transfers the chairman's gavel to Dean.

Here's the dilemma Democrats faced as they staged the enormous and expensive "Tribute to Chairman Terry McAuliffe" at Washington's National Building Museum Thursday night: How do you pay tribute to a man whose main legacy was losing elections? And the answer was: awkwardly and painfully. After the standard gala-evening beginning — "God Bless America" sung by the Urban Nation Hip-Hop choir, an emotional tribute to McAuliffe from actress Ciceley Tyson, and a slide show of McAuliffe's tenure at the Democratic National Committee projected on huge screens around the room — the program got underway with a dream-sequence video of McAuliffe,...