Responding to the firestorm following his Meet the Press appearance, Newark Mayor Cory Booker took to Rachel Maddow‘s show on Monday night to set the record straight. Upset with how Republicans are “manipulating” his words, Booker said he’s stands firmly with President Barack Obama — but also affirmed that he’s been an independent Democrat for a long time, and won’t hesitate to speak out.

A memo sent out by a Republican pollster has been making the rounds online for its conclusion that the party needs to embrace gay marriage as part of its platform because of recent trends showing increased support for this important social issue. Jan van Lohuizen, who worked as a pollster for George W. Bush in 2004, made the case that the GOP should be fighting for gay marriage as a conservative issue, by emphasizing that “freedom means freedom for everyone.”

On CNN’s State of the Union today, host Candy Crowley talked with Newt Gingrich in some depth about the current state of the Republican party. Gingrich defended the GOP from claims that it is not diverse enough, pointing to people who help make the party more racially and ideologically diverse. Crowley told Gingrich during the interview that a common perception of Republicans is that they’re just a “conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect big oil.”

As The Maddow Blog points out today, RNC press secretary Alexandra Franceschi recently shared that, as she sees it, the 2012 agenda for the party is not distinct from those under Bush/Cheney, simply a new version. “I think it’s that program,” she said in an interview, “just updated.”

During an interview at New York City’s 92nd Street Y over the weekend, former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman told journalist and political commentator Jeff Greenfield that the current Republican party has at least one thing in common with communist China. He later appeared on Morning Joe to discuss his comments and the manner in which they’ve been covered by certain outlets.

Mitt Romney‘s strong wins in Maryland, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. seems to have finally convinced even many doubters that he will be the Republican party’s presidential nominee. And if Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are hoping for any 11th-hour miracles involving a large swath of superdelegates switching their vote, they may not be so lucky, because many of these superdelegates are now publicly coming to terms with the inevitable.

On Thursday night, Daily Show host Jon Stewart gave viewers a glimpse at the romantic, wholesome family comedy Three Men and a White-Haired Man-Baby. (Seriously, Newt looks ADORABLE as a man-baby.) Stewart said that the other three candidates did not hesitate to treat “newly-minted front-runner” Rick Santorum “like they was his papa,” calling him out on various issues and bits of legislation that have proved problematic or that he’s seemingly flip-flopped on over the years.

Mitt Romney is skipping CNN’s debate pre-Super Tuesday in Atlanta on March 1.

New York Knicks’ guard Jeremy Lin has revived the team, propelling the Knicks to a seven-game winning streak and pulling them back to an even 15-15 record. Lin’s story has drawn attention from around the world, and has some people thinking much bigger than just the NBA. “I have seen tweets urging Jeremy Lin to run for the Republican nomination for the Michigan senate seat,” noted Salon’s Andrew Leonard. Others are comparing Lin’s rise to Rick Santorum’s in the GOP race during the same week. As Lin has proved his doubters wrong, he’s come to symbolize something much bigger in the presidential election. Here are three lessons that commentators say the GOP can learn from the Harvard-educated starlet:

Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos founder, is launching an initiative aimed to make the Republican primary even longer and, in the process, give Democrats a boost. Calling it “Operation Hilarity,” Daily Kos is urging Democrats to vote for Rick Santorum in states that have open primaries and caucuses. Why? Because, among other reasons, “it’s freaking hilarious.”

The View‘s Elisabeth Hasselbeck is none too happy with how the folks at NBC handled last night’s GOP debate in Florida, calling the debate “crappy” and accusing the network of displaying an anti-Republican bias.

Chris Matthews went head-to-head with flailing Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Gingrich had strong words for fellow GOP opponent Mitt Romney. “He’s not going to be the nominee,” Gingrich boldly declared.

Whether or not you find yourself in line, politically, with the opinions espoused by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, can we all agree here that, when the man is on, he is ON? I almost wish I could bottle his passion up in a bottle and spritz it on some of his more boring colleagues, who shall remain nameless… or on some influential names on the other side of the fence who either aren’t outraged at The Trumping of the GOP, or who are and choose to remain quiet.

Reality television star Donald Trump is teaming up with right-wing news outlet Newsmax to moderate the December 27th presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

Thanksgiving Day is among the most challenging days for Mediaite editors to find subjects to cover. The site’s “bread and butter” are topics that come from the intersection of media and politics, but on this day we also like to join the rest of the nation by taking pause, and giving thanks to how fortunate we all are. So finding a clip that simultaneously hits notes of spirited political discourse and Thanksgiving cheer (basted with a healthy dose of pastiche nostalgia) is something of a holiday miracle.

The Congressional Super-Committee which rose out of last summer’s debt deadlock in Congress has a deadline approaching, and it appears nowhere near cutting a budget deal with hours to the deadline. With that in mind, both the Democratic and Republican chairs of the committee– Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, respectively–took to the Sunday talk show circuit to explain their impending failure, with Sen. Murray blaming Republicans for not having a mentality of “shared sacrifice” while Rep. Hensarling argued Democrats wanted to raise taxes exorbitantly.

George Will really doesn’t like Newt Gingrich. On the This Week round table this morning, Will began his comments on Gingrich, now a frontrunner, by stating that his candidate “embodies everything disagreeable about modern Washington,” going on to laugh at the idea that Gingrich was hired by Freddie Mac as a “historian,” and, as a final blow, speaking more glowingly of even Rep. Ron Paul than of Gingrich.

A new poll from Fox News contains a wealth of fascinating results, but I have to agree with Dave Weigel that the most eye-catching is the fact that Republican primary voters most trust Newt Gingrich to carry the nuclear football, and by a wide margin over his rivals. Gingrich tops closest competitor Mitt Romney 30%-17% for nuclear trustworthiness, but the existence of this question in a field that includes Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann is, itself, a chilling prospect.

On Sean Hannity‘s show Tuesday night, Ann Coulter warned the GOP that they should be careful in who they select as the nominee, suggesting that Mitt Romney would be the best choice to run out as the nominee. “[Barack Obama]‘s going to be tough to beat. The idea that we’ll just pick the most right-wing candidate without any concern about who’s going to win is suicidal for the Republican party.”

On The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell said that Herman Cain may be making the rounds on Fox News shows, but he has less to say about the harassment allegations against him when up against “real reporters.” He brought on Touré to discuss Cain’s recent revelation to Georgia Republicans that a forthcoming report would vindicate and absolve him of the allegations against him, although the discussion veered towards the topic of Cain’s special “role” within his party.

Televangelist and mogul Pat Robertson — a man whose name is practically synonymous with the Religious Right — likely took 700 Club viewers by surprise today when he opined that the Republican base is losing support by “pushing” what he described as “an extreme position.” Robertson expressed worry that Republican front runners are going to [...]

Thursday night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart tackled the big headline of the day: The death of Muammar Gaddafi… Specifically, the right’s reaction to the former dictator’s passing.
Stewart kicked things off by offering a “Dic-Tip.” (Ay, you guys… D: D: D: ) His advice to dictators? “Don’t hide in holes.” Because you will be found and probably killed, and people may celebrate by tossing their young children while others fire guns into the air.

It’s a given that cable news talking heads charged with guiding political discussion have to weigh in on presidential debates. And, since everyone out there in cablenewsland is talking about the same thing, it often falls on hosts and their writers to come up with a fresh, new angle through which to view these debates so they’re not merely rehashing the same thing everyone else has been saying all throughout the day. Since we’re in the habit of giving mad props where mad props are due, kudos are due to Rachel Maddow and her team for discussing the debate and its participants in a way that was, you know. Different!

Democrats are not the reason the Tea Party exists. But by ignoring the Tea Party — or in many cases, mocking it — until it was far too late, Democrats were ill-prepared to deal with the fallout that led to an unmerciful electoral defeat in the 2010 midterm elections. For instance, at one point Democrats were doing Republicans’ work for them. They figured tying the Tea Party to Republicans would yield a negative reaction from voters. Nope, not really. Instead, the Tea Party energized the Republican base and created the wave that rode the GOP to victory.

Have you noticed that there seems to be a revolving door at the top of the GOP presidential polls? First it was Michele Bachmann, replaced shortly by Rick Perry, only to be supplanted by Herman Cain and/or Mitt Romney (depending on the poll you are reading.) You know who else has noticed this? Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough who repeated his “flavor of the month” mantra in an entertaining exhibition of “I told you so” style commentary.