Last week, Wisconsin Democrats were on offense, winning two races against Republican state senators in a historic slate of recall elections. Yesterday, however, the situation was reversed, with Democrats defending two of their lawmakers from GOP attempts at recall. The state senators in question – Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin – were among the 14 state senators who left Wisconsin in an attempt to stop passage of Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union measure earlier this year.

To Politico’s Roger Simon, Rep. Ron Paul was “shafted” by the national press, despite his strong second place finish in the Ames Straw Poll. “Any fair assessment of Ames . . . would have said the winds of the Republican Party are blowing toward both Bachmann and Paul,” writes Simon.

Three days out of the gate, and Texas Governor Rick Perry has already had his first gaffe in the Republican presidential primary. Speaking before a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Monday, Perry called loose monetary policy and act of treason, and made not-so-subtle threats about the physical safety of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, should he happen to find himself in Texas.

In their despair over the debt-ceiling deal, liberals have admonished President Obama for his failure to use the “bully pulpit” and take his case to the public. Political psychologist Drew Westen offered a lengthy version of this argument in last week’s New York Times, lamenting Obama’s failure to capture the public’s imagination and act as a national advocate for liberalism.

If you'll permit a little cross-self-promotion, I had a piece in Sunday's Washington Post, which opened this way:

Here's the problem with our politics. Conservative eminence grise Norman Podhoretz writes the following in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend:

If this were a normal political environment, it would be safe to assume a GOP House majority through the 2012 cycle. After all, at 240 seats, it would take another wave election – the third in as many cycles – for Republicans to lose control of the House. But the politics of this moment are highly unusual: Te economy is teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession and the new GOP majority has eschewed moderation altogether, opting instead for brinksmanship on the nation’s finances, and a hard-right agenda of deep spending cuts and attacks on reproductive health care for women.