Cillizza’s core question to his panel was whether or not punchlines can ever be elected president (they can’t.) And while MSNBC detractors might see the following segment as just another example of a progressive cable news outlet hitting a conservative candidate, the issues raised by Cillizza and his panel, are completely and totally legit. The reference of Cain’s oversimplified rhetoric to a Simpsons parody is at once a great pull, and a horrifying comment on the state of today’s political discourse. Yesteryear’s satire is today’s reality?

Sidenote: it’s time to include Chris Cillizza in the list of growing talent at MSNBC. His interim hosting of Chuck Todd show is a pitch perfect example of how a print columnist can make a seamless transition to television. Cillizza exhibits smarts, humor and a relaxed nature that makes one think that he could/should have his own show on MSNBC in the next year.

Watch the clip below, courtesy of MSNBC:

It is true that Palin gets more buzz than nearly any other Republican political figure right now (evidenced by her position as the most powerful TV Pundit on Mediaite’s Power Grid) but not all of the buzz she has received has been positive. As the old Native American saying goes “the wind at the top of the totem pole blows a little harder,” and not all of Palin’s buzz has been good buzz. Which, it appears, may have be taking a toll on her political standing.

Writing for the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza and Jon Cohen report:

For the first time in Post-ABC News polling, fewer than six in 10 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents see Palin in a favorable light, down from a stratospheric 88 percent in the days after the 2008 Republican National Convention and 70 percent as recently as October.

In one sense, the poll still finds Palin near the top of a list of eight potential contenders for the GOP nomination. The former vice presidential candidate scores a 58 percent favorable rating, close to the 61 percent for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and 60 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and better than the 55 percent that onetime House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) received.

But Palin’s unfavorable numbers are significantly higher than they are for any of these possible competitors. Fully 37 percent of all Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now hold a negative view of her, a new high.

In another first, fewer than 50 percent of Republican-leaning independents — 47 percent — hold favorable views of Palin.

Palin hasn’t spoken about a possible presidential bid recently, but she has made the year 2012 a focus of her anti-Obama rhetoric, posting on her Facebook page that “it can’t come soon enough,” focusing on the White House’ “war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production.”

As long as Palin continues to participate in the political dialogue of the day, she will be likely be considered a presidential candidate. Though as these poll results show, her chances of getting elected (as of now) appear to be getting dimmer, not brighter.

The post, co-authored by Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza, leads with yesterday’s report of Brown’s sexual abuse:

Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s new book is set to release on Monday, and in it are details of sexual abuse a young Brown suffered at the hands of camp counselor.

The bombshell revelation — combined with a “60 Minutes” profile set to air Sunday — reinsert Brown into the national political dialogue at a key juncture for him and will undoubtedly add to the political intrigue surrounding the senator.

The book is titled “Against All Odds.” But with Brown riding high in his home state and nary a Democrat yet running against him in 2012, you’ve got to wonder: is Brown an odds-on favorite for reelection?

See what they did there? They pegged a story on Brown’s reelection chances to his soon to be released book that just so happens to discuss how he was was abused as a kid. Its certainly possible that this was an inadvertent choice of words, but it seems more likely to be a tone deaf choice of words at best, particularly in light of Nir Rosen‘s recent fall from grace for his inappropriate “jokes” about the sexual abuse of Lara Logan at the hands of Egyptian demonstrators.

(H/T Andrew Beaujon)

RNC Chief Administrative Officer Boyd Rutherford is quoted as telling Derek Flowers, a member of the RNC’s political team by email “We will not be able to pay off the vendors this week.”

Cillizza reports Flowers, who had previously told vendors he would stay on the job until every bill was paid, will instead be leaving his post at the RNC today.

Capitol Hill paper The Hill has previously written about the RNC’s spending problems, suggesting that so much money was spent in 2009 that the RNC was left “with its worst election-year cash flow this decade.”

The spending has played a key role in the future of RNC chair Michael Steele:

The RNC had $22.8 million in cash and no debt when Michael Steele was elected chairman at the end of January, but has since seen its cash on hand drop to less than $9 million at the end of November.

Over the previous five months, while governors’ battles were being waged in New Jersey and Virginia, the committee saw its cash reserves drop by a full $15 million. Through November, the committee spent more than $90 million last year, which is nearly $20 million more than the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The head-stomping people also remind Matthews of Joe Miller‘s private security team up in Alaska who handcuffed the reporter to the chair. What is the deal with these people who are “supposed to be good old American Tea Partiers?” Morever: “When are these people going to start wearing uniforms…I mean it isn’t far from what we saw in the thirties where political parties started showing up in uniforms.”

Actually, I think we are still pretty far from the Tea Party (or any other political group in this country) doing anything to justify a Nazi comparison, how about, people in large crowds frequently act like idiots. Or as Chris Cillizza calmly notes, “at the end of campaigns passions get very inflamed and sometimes people act inappropriately.” Matthews remains unconvinced. Watch below.

The ad is, in fact, downright charming. In it, Hickenlooper muses that he must not be “a very good politician because [he] can’t stand negative ads.” He then claims that every time he sees one he feels like he needs to take a shower and, unfortunately, he sees them a lot. This is, of course, all played over footage of Hickenlooper, fully dressed, stepping in and out of the shower. The whole thing is kind of adorable, like watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington right after a screening of In the Loop.

Still though, Chris Cillizza over at The Fix points out that one of the only reasons Hickenlooper was able to stick so closely to the high road was that he doesn’t have much of a chance of losing:

“While the ad is creative and effective, there are a few mitigating factors that suggest it may be tough for other ‘outsider’ candidates to copy it in their own races.

First and most importantly, the Colorado Republican Party has imploded in recent weeks.
Former Rep. Scott McInnis, long touted as the party’s strongest nominee, watched his political stock plummet in the wake of plagiarism charges. That left room for little known Dan Maes, himself struggling under campaign finance fine, to oust McInnis in the Aug. 10 primary.

With Maes as the nominee, it’s hard to imagine the Republican Governors Association spending any money on the race and it’s equally difficult to see Maes raising the sort of money on his own to compete with Hickenlooper.

That financial mismatch means that the race isn’t much of a race and Hickenlooper’s pledge of no negative ads is somewhat penalty-free. He gets the benefit of looking like a different sort of politician without running the risk of losing the race to a better funded — and better known — Republican who goes negative.”

Aw man, so Hickenlooper might not just be a really nice guy? Oh well. It’s still a pretty darn entertaining ad, even if it does give us concern that Hickenlooper may, in fact, be a never nude. Remember, there are dozens of them.

While the #nerdprom hashtag was out in full force last year, it actually did not cross over into mainstream coverage all that much. I used it in the headline for my coverage at the Daily Beast (“Why The Nerd Prom Matters“) and Chris Cillizza used it on his WaPo blog, The Fix (“Twittering Nerd Prom“), but it was largely the province of the online-and-Twitter-savvy. Cut to this year, where there are now 33,800 Google hits for “nerdprom” and 17,500 for “Nerd Prom” – plus all sorts of headlines: “Real Nerds Skip Nerdprom‎” (New Republic); “Kim Kardashian plays chess at DC’s annual ‘nerd prom’‎” (Telegraph UK); “Rate The Celebrities from Nerd Prom!” (HuffPo) and, my personal favorite, this from the venerable WaPo “Reliable Source” column, veteran of many a WHCD: ““Nerd Prom” no longer: Celebrities steal spotlight from press, president, politicians, at White House Correspondents’ Dinner and after-parties.” From zero to being a “no longer” of a years-long tradition in 365 days flat. That’s quick work for a meme.

I can only find two places confirming that Cox started the #nerdprom meme: Dylan Stableford at The Wrap this year and Cillizza last year. I’m sure there are more, but it seemed worthwhile to get this important piece of WHCD history officially on the books.

It should be noted, btw, that Cox did not coin the actual phrase “Nerd Prom,” just applied it to the WHCD. “I think ‘nerdprom’ was coined to describe Comicon,” Cox wrote me in an email. “But I think I helped make WHCD into nerdprom east.”

Indeed it was, and indeed she did.

Related:
PHOTOS: NerdProm 2010 [Mediaite]

*A clarification on the usage of the term “Prom” for the WHCD: According to Washingtonian Magazine editor Garrett Graff,
Anne Schroeder was the first to
usen “prom” in reference to the WHCD, in the “Names & Faces” column in the Washington Post. Graff, who was then writing FishbowlDC, used it for the WHCD cateogory (see the exhaustive “Prom” list), first using it in April 2005.

**It must be noted: the phrase gained its own version of immortality a solid two decades before any of this, on Saturday Night Live with nerds-in-love Todd and Lisa, aka Bill Murray and Gilda Radner. The original “Nerd Prom” sketch is below.

Photo via Vanity Fair.

Last night Chuck Todd told Chris Matthews (video below) that he thought Bayh has just recognized he had reached his career ceiling in the Senate and there was no where else to go, which strikes me as a bit of a weak argument especially considering all the accolades heaped on Ted Kennedy for his lifetime service to the Senate.

Bayh said in his statement yesterday that he “does not love Congress” (honesty? Either way, so much better than I want to spend more time with my family) and that “Congress is not operating as it should…There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not being done.” He also said that staying in the Senate is “not good enough” and that “I believe I can best contribute to society in another way.” Which sounds awfully similar to Sarah Palin’s remarks when she announced she would not finish out her term as Governor of Alaska. Is Bayh also considering an eventual White House run? By leaving now he’ll be detaching himself from all the nonsense and bad decisions currently dragging Congress down, which could make a run down the line (if not in 2012 than after that) that much easier an unfettered.

By leaving now he is also screwing the Democrats. Big time. Rachel Maddow seems to think that was part of “conserva-dem” Bayh’s plan: “the initial reaction inside the Beltway was that Bayh was giving the party he belonged to, but never seemed to like that much, one last sucker punch on his way out the door.” This is because today is the filing deadline for any Dem who wants to run in the Democratic Senate primary and none of the candidates considering it have nearly enough signatures. Considering Bayh made this decision on Friday the fact he took till today to announce does strike as rather scheming. No primary means the Democratic party of Indiana has to pick a candidate to run. But he has also screwed the Republicans, says Maddow, who had they known he was out of the race might have run a different slate of candidates (ones who could win?) against him. Basically, in one fell swoop Bayh has screwed everyone, everywhere, except maybe himself. Videos below.

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