What's going on tonight?

I couldn't agree more with Josh's assessment of what a coup hiring Rachel Maddow would be for Meet The Press, but alas, it never seemed terribly likely, especially considering what a rising star she is in the 6p/9p time slot. David Gregory doesn't seem to have that problem.

This in from The Huffington Post:

David Gregory will take the reins as moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," the Huffington Post has learned. Gregory has been a leading contender for the permanent spot since Tom Brokaw stepped in as interim moderator following Tim Russert's death in June. [...]

Brokaw will conclude his duties as interim moderator this weekend, when he will interview President-Elect Barack Obama.

NBC is denying it:

An NBC spokesperson responded to Politico: "I don't know where they are getting this. We have nothing to announce."

Oh, really?

UPDATE: The Observer reports that Richard Liebner, Gregory's agent, wouldn't confirm or deny the HuffPost report.

To my mind Gregory is about the safest and least interesting pick of any of the contenders. As host of Road To The White House, Gregory has been passable at best, demonstrating nothing unique or particularly interesting in his hosting style and in fact has been a top purveyor of the obsession so many inside the beltway journalists have with false balance and the DC conventional wisdom. As some time substitute host of MTP he's been fine as well, but just sort of a pale imitation of Russert. If it is in fact Gregory, perhaps the task of taking over an institution such as MTP will raise his game, but at first glance it appears to be a signal that NBC has no interest in advancing Meet The Press in a post-Russert era but rather merely putting it in neutral.

It's official. Obama's choice for National Security Adviser is  General James L. Jones. I must admit that of all of Obama's choices, I find this one the most compelling because of General Jones' breadth of experience. During his military career service, General Jones served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and Commander of the U.S. European Command from January 2003 to February 2007. Previously, General Jones served as the 32nd Commandant of the United States Marine Corps from July 1999 to January 2003. All this is well known. Less widely known is that since March 2007, General Jones has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. General Jones selection as the NSA thus bridges two key components of US national security that must be included in our national security debate going forward -- military and energy. As the Institute's website notes:

Energy underpins America's economic prosperity, national security, and global competitiveness. Yet our nation lacks a comprehensive energy strategy. Policies are often based on short-sighted objectives, complacency, or contradictory rules and objectives. The Institute is committed to putting the best ideas forward for an all-encompassing, long-term plan that can put the United States on a path to a secure, prosperous, diverse, and clean energy future.

The Institute has just unveiled its Transition Plan for Securing America's Energy Future, an energy policy roadmap with 88 concrete recommendations and detailed timelines for President-elect Barack Obama and the 111th Congress. From the preamble Solutions for Securing America's Energy Future:

Global demand (for energy) will increase by more than 50% between now and 2030 - and perhaps by as much as 30% here in the United States. We must develop new, affordable, diverse, and clean sources of energy that will underpin our nation's economy and keep us strong both at home and abroad. Our energy future must address growing shortfalls in infrastructure capacity and emerging environmental issues. And looking ahead, even the most optimistic among us must conclude that we are not well positioned to anticipate nor prepared to meet tomorrow's energy needs.

A new Public Policy Polling survey (1,276 LVs, Nov. 29-30, MOE +/- 2.7%) of the Georgia Senate race shows Saxby Chambliss continuing to hold a steady lead over Democrat Jim Martin in tomorrow's run-off (11/24 results in parentheses.)

Chambliss 53 (52)
Martin 46 (46)

If Chambliss does win tomorrow, it looks as though it will be due to a combination of overwhelming support among white voters and a not high enough turnout among African-Americans to put Martin over the top.

Chambliss is up 71-28 on Jim Martin with whites. For Martin to win the runoff with that performance, the electorate would have to be 34% African American. Given that it was only 30% for the general election with Barack Obama at the top of the ballot and that early voting was less than 23% black, that does not seem particularly likely.

Chambliss's advantage among white voters on Nov. 4th was similar: 70-26. What is way down is the percentage of early voters who are African-American. Sean Quinn reminds us:

Whatever turns out to be the case, at the close of early voting Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State's office 345,564 had voted, and 22.5% of those votes were African-American, an ominous dropoff from the 34.5% of black early voters for the general election.

But with the uncertainty surrounding the turnout, this race should still be considered anyone's game.

Still, according to Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Martin Matheny, thousands of volunteers were hard at work across the state knocking doors in the rain and making phone calls on Jim Martin's behalf. The lines on Election Day will be much shorter than during the general election, given the much shorter ballot, and Democrats here think that most of its voters are going to turn out on Runoff Day itself.

You guys have really stepped up to donate to Jim Martin over at our Road to 60 ActBlue page. Since being added to the page on Nov. 6th, Martin has received 71 donations for a total of $3,342. Great work. Today, however, I encourage any last minute donations to go through the DSCC. Every donation of $5 or more made up until 9pm Eastern tonight will be matched 2 to 1. So give to Martin HERE to help the GOTV effort on the ground. This entire election is about turnout and your dollars can still have a very real impact.

I want to welcome Charles Lemos to becoming a regular contributor here at MyDD. His site where he has blogged most regularly, By The Fault was one of the best reads of a Democratic partisan blogger during the election this past year (I first came across his writing around August). His background extends well beyond politics, which is something I can appreciate, and which adds to his insight into both American and international political blogging.

MyDD will have a lot of changes in 2009, including a new blogging platform that will integrate social activism for our efforts at political change (more on that next month). We have some of the best Democratic political bloggers on the net here, and Charles will make a great addition to the team.

The Hotline has the details:

Sources close to Rep. Dennis Moore (KS-03) say that the congressman will not run for re-election in 2010. It's unclear if he will launch a Senate bid instead; Sen. Sam Brownback is stepping down that year and is expected to run for governor.

Via a spokeswoman, Moore said today: "I am honored to be serving the people of the Third District and have every intention of continuing my work in Congress on their behalf."

[...]

Moore, a former Johnson Cnty. Dist. Atty and Army reservist, was re-elected in November to his sixth term.

We have been watching this race for quite some time, and suffice it to say that although the Democrats have quite a dry spell going in Kansas Senate races dating back to the 1930s the race in 2010 to succeed Sam Brownback has a real potential of being competitive.

For some time it looked like Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius would be the Democrats' best choice in 2010, though if Barack Obama taps his long time supporter for the Cabinet a Senate run would almost undoubtedly be out of the question. Yet Dennis Moore, who has consistently been able to win in a Republican-leaning district (it has a Cook PVI of R+4, meaning it tends to lean about 4 percentage points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections), could be a formidable candidate in his own right.

Moore certainly is not the most progressive Democrat in the House. In fact, his progressive punch score of 80.65 puts him in the most moderate quintile of the caucus. That said, considering that Todd Tiarht, who very well might be the Republican Senate nominee in 2010, scores just 4.83 out of 100 according to Progressive Punch, Moore would certainly be a more palatable choice.

Tiarht does have a lot more money in the bank right now than does Moore -- $1,182,697 to $354,441 -- and, as noted above, Democrats have been shut out in Senate elections in Kansas for the last 70+ years. That said, Moore could make this open seat race competitive, so these early inklings are a positive development in the Democrats' hopes of winning this Senate seat (even if it makes it less likely that Democrats will hold on to Moore's congressional seat).

Today The Guardian does a write up of one of the sites that is indispensable to the work I do here at MyDD -- Memeorandum.

If you want to know what's happening in the world, then Memorandum will tell you - at least in a couple of areas. It's an automated news clipping service, known in the trade as a "news aggregator". It provides headlines and short texts updated every few minutes, with links to the original sites, much like Google News.

Memeorandum is based on the idea of "memes" or ideas that spread across the web (along with a pun on memorandum). Someone publishes an interesting story, other people find it, discuss it, and link to it. That's how the web works. Small stories come and go quickly, while big ones generate lots of comment and dominate the page for hours.

[...]

Google also follows links and assesses content, but Memeorandum is embarrassingly better than Google News. Google reckons that the more coverage a story gets, the more important it is. Unfortunately, broad coverage takes a long time to develop, so Google News can run hours or even a day behind Memeorandum. This is fine for casual consumers, but if you're a news junkie - or a journalist - it's hopeless.

There's seldom a day that goes by, whether a day or on the weekend, that I'm not on Memeorandum at least a dozen times. While I'm able to cycle through my normal slate of blogs and news sites in my favorites, catching a great deal if not the vast majority of the day's major stories, Memeorandum more than fills in the gaps, catching stories I otherwise wouldn't have a chance to see. Of course the way I found the article above... was through Memeorandum.

For more on Memeorandum, read Joe Gandelman. But for now, how are you getting your news these days (outside of MyDD, that is)? What sites aren't we reading that we should be reading?

Update [2008-12-1 16:51:9 by Jerome Armstrong]: Memeorandum has been the best-kept secret on the web. Here's the other like-minded sites I use:

Memeorandum.com (aggregates top stories on political blogs)
BlogPulse.com (tracks trends)
ShiftingTheDebate.com (tracks popular political videos)
BuzzTracker.com (tracking buzz on blogs)

Ben Smith:

Senator Clinton intends to remain in office through confirmation," emails spokesman Philippe Reines.

UPDATE: Says New York Governor David Paterson in a statement: "In order to appoint the best possible candidate to replace Senator Clinton, I am consulting with a wide variety of individuals from all across New York State. I expect to announce Senator Clinton's replacement when the position becomes officially vacant."

This isn't a surprise; were it the other way around (Hillary Clinton announcing her resignation from the Senate before her confirmation as Secretary of State), it would have been huge news. But as is, this was to have been expected.

Only nine times in the history of this country has the Senate voted down a cabinet nomination. Not one of those nine failed nominees was a sitting United States Senator. Why? As John Dean explained in "The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court" when discussing Richard Nixon's potential nomination of Robert Byrd to the Supreme Court, the Senate is extremely unlikely to reject a nomination from its membership because a rejected nominee would have the power as Senator to seek retribution against members voting against him or her, through filibusters, through holds, and the like. In the not too distant past, the Senate has rejected a former member, John Tower, but again, former members, unlike sitting members, don't have the capacity to hit back against Senators voting against his or her nomination.

This isn't to say that Clinton would otherwise have difficulty getting through the nomination process, because I don't think she will. That said, when one has leverage in politics, there is no reason to give it away for free, so it makes eminent sense for Clinton to hold on to her Senate seat until she is confirmed.