Politics - Politico

At least one part of former Rep. Eric Massa’s hourlong, train-wreck interview with cable-television host Glenn Beck rang true to his fellow House freshmen Tuesday: the grim description of the intense and time-consuming fundraising pressures that dominate the lives of junior members.

President Barack Obama is pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go further than Obama has previously disclosed to strip the final health care reform bill of the narrow deals aimed at appeasing specific senators.

In a sharply focused snapshot of the bitter fight over health care reform, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius confronted insurance executives Wednesday at their annual conference, challenging them to divert millions in anti-reform advertising dollars toward cutting premiums.

The House of Representatives accepted the resignation of Rep. Eric Massa on Tuesday, just hours after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer dismissed as “absurd” and “untrue” his claim that he was pushed out because of his opposition to the Democrats’ health care bill.

The yearlong debate over health care reform — a titanic contest involving big ideas, passionate convictions and lofty principles — is headed toward a highly unlikely endgame: a clash between parliamentary procedure attorneys.

A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush administration is denouncing as “shameful” Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists.

From its loud and highly visible protests at summer congressional town hall meetings to its September march on the streets of Washington, the tea party movement has left a profound mark on the American political landscape since it burst onto the scene a year ago.

To the big donors who financed President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, the decision to make his chief fundraiser the gatekeeper for White House social events is a promise of access to come.

Michelle Obama said Wednesday that her year as first lady has allowed people to finally get to know her after the combat of a bruising campaign turned her into a “caricature” to some voters.

The expected clash of Texas titans never quite lived up to expectations in the GOP primary for governor: During the past year, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has watched a 25-percentage-point lead evaporate and transform into a double-digit advantage for Gov. Rick Perry.

AUSTIN — Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie and Scott Brown scored recent Republican victories by singing from the same political hymnal: focusing on kitchen-table issues, criticizing Washington without demeaning the president and keeping their distance from the GOP’s most polarizing figures.

Asked this weekend to grade her performance as speaker, Nancy Pelosi gave herself an “A for effort.”

Six months after leaving the Obama administration, former green jobs czar Van Jones is staging a public comeback, directing his love at the Republicans who helped push him out of the administration – whether they want it or not.

Obama exaggerated. Boehner lied. Reid was incorrect. Ryan is wrong.

Democrats wake up after Thursday’s health care summit staring down another deadline to get their bill done, exactly four weeks until Easter break.

It could be one of the biggest PR flops since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault.

President Barack Obama’s “summit” Thursday is officially billed as a meeting of the minds with congressional Republicans  — but, in truth, Republicans are the least of his concerns.

Hispanics make up nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population, but a new study shows that they’re almost nonexistent in high-level staff positions on Capitol Hill.

The GOP’s first demand for Thursday’s health care summit was simple.

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress.

President Barack Obama released a $950 billion health care reform proposal Monday aimed at pleasing the warring wings of his own party and bringing along skeptical voters, in part by including a provision to put off an unpopular tax on high-cost health insurance plans until 2018.

LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama’s Western swing this week showcased the two fronts he’ll be defending in the midterm elections: old guard Democrats, such as Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, and the new guard, exemplified by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) three years ago, a young man in a dolphin costume dubbed “Flipper” stalked the corridors to draw attention to presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s policy flip-flops.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is getting her hands dirty.

Since Richard Nixon was president, the Conservative Political Action Conference has provided the American right with an annual occasion for self-evaluation. On Thursday, when some 10,000 activists gather in Washington for this year’s conference, they will find themselves part of a conservative movement significantly different from how it was during the Bush administration, or even in 2009.

In January, with White House officials privately slamming Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez for bungling away Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, Sen. Chuck Schumer rose to his colleague’s defense during a closed-door Democratic lunch.

Early polls suggest Arizona Sen. John McCain leads former Rep. J.D. Hayworth by a healthy margin in the GOP primary. Among conservative radio talk show hosts, however, McCain is losing by a landslide.

Any day spent talking terrorism isn’t automatically a good one for the Obama administration, given the Republicans’ traditional edge on the issue among voters.