Paul Waldman is a contributing editor for the Prospect and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The midterm elections for Congress are a little more than nine months away, and they can go one of two ways. Democrats can lose some seats, but not so many that the fundamental balance of power in Congress is changed. Or they can be obliterated, lose the House, and maybe even lose the Senate as well. If they're going to avoid disaster, they have a few things they need to do.
Over the weekend, we learned that David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama's presidential campaign, will be returning to Washington to oversee the Democrats' efforts to avoid an electoral disaster in the fall.
Sen.-elect Brown navigated the Russell Senate Office Building on Thursday for his first appointment with Sen. John McCain.
A National Guardsman, Brown said in the interview that McCain was his senatorial model. "I have great respect for Senator McCain," Brown said of the Arizona Republican, who was one of his first establishment backers. "I've known him for a while, long before this, and you know he is a war hero and kind of a maverick independent thinker."
He added, "I've told my leadership already that I'm not a rubber stamp for anybody."
