The GOP takeover in the states - Washington Post

The intense focus on the coming struggles between President Obama and congressional Republicans obscures one of the most important and underreported results of the midterm elections: the GOP takeover in the states.

Republicans picked up at least 675 state legislative seats Nov. 2. As with the increases in the House, that gain is the biggest any party has made in state legislative seats since 1938 and is far larger than the GOP's tally in its 1994 landslide. Given the distribution of those gains, Republicans have the power to work their will in the states in ways they can't begin to think about doing in Washington.

Before the midterm elections, Democrats controlled 27 state legislatures outright. Republicans were in charge in 14 states, and eight states were split. (Nebraska, which has a single legislative chamber, is officially nonpartisan). Today, Republicans control 26 state legislatures, Democrats 17, and five have split control. In New York, officials are still determining who is in charge in the state Senate. Republicans control seven more legislatures outright than they did after 1994 and the most since 1952.

Add the results in the gubernatorial races, and the picture brightens even more for the Republicans. Before the midterms, Republicans controlled the governor's mansion and both legislative chambers in only nine states. Today it is 21 states. Democrats are in full command in 11 states, down from 16, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

The changes came in some unlikely places. The NCSL says on its Web site that Alabama's legislature is in Republican hands for the first time since Reconstruction. Republicans hold the North Carolina Senate for the first time since 1870 and the Minnesota Senate for the first time ever.

The heavy losses Obama and the Democrats suffered in congressional races across the industrial heartland were matched or exceeded by losses in state legislative races. Republicans control legislatures in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Those states also now have Republican governors, except Minnesota, where the contest hasn't been called (although Democrat Mark Dayton is leading).

Democrats are still in charge in many states along the coasts, including California, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland. But Maine's legislature and governor's mansion flipped from Democrat to Republican. Where Democrats hold legislative power in the interior, it is often in places where they are far more conservative than the national party, such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia.

Republicans didn't take power in the states by means of incremental gains. The shifts in many places were truly dramatic. Republicans gained more than 100 seats in New Hampshire (which has the largest state House delegation in the nation at 400). That came just four years after a huge Democratic wave hit New Hampshire.

In Michigan, the state House flipped from 64-42 Democratic to 63-47 Republican. In Minnesota, the state House went from 87-47 Democratic to 72-62 Republican. In Iowa, Republicans went from a 12-seat deficit in the state House to a 20-seat majority.

In Texas, Republicans will have at least 98 seats in the new state House, according to NCSL figures. That is a gain of at least 23. Texas Monthly's Paul Burka, who has followed state politics for three decades, called the results of the midterm elections in the Lone Star State "an annihilation bordering on political genocide." Democrats may not be a factor in state politics for a decade, he wrote in a column for the magazine's December edition.

The impact of this Republican tidal wave in the states will be felt in a variety of ways, starting with redistricting. In states where the power lies in the hands of legislators and governors, Republicans are in a strong position to draw congressional and legislative boundaries that will help lock in their gains for future elections. Republicans couldn't have timed their big victory any better.

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Is Facebook about to offer email? Reports say it plans a 'Gmail... - San Jose Mercury News

Print   Email   Font ResizeBy Mike Swift

mswift@mercurynews.com

Posted: 11/12/2010 07:31:19 PM PSTUpdated: 11/13/2010 12:21:13 PM PST
Facebook may be on the verge of offering e-mail to the 500 million members of its social-networking site, making it the largest e-mail service on the planet.

More significantly, the offering could lead to a fundamental transformation of e-mail. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are already scrambling to retool their e-mail services to build them more around people's social connections. Facebook would have a tremendous advantage because it owns a vast trove of data about people's relationships and would find it easier to graft e-mail onto its existing social services such as photo-sharing.

Facebook has invited the media to what appears to be a significant announcement in San Francisco on Monday morning, adding a

prominent hint that the news could involve a new e-mail service -- a press invitation bears a message icon. However, while tech blogs hummed Friday with speculation that Facebook will release "a Gmail killer," the Palo Alto-based company declined to confirm or deny those rumors, and a source with knowledge of the social network's plans said at least part of the speculation was incorrect -- adding even more uncertainty.

If it is announced, a Facebook e-mail service would allow its more than 500 million members to communicate with anyone inside or outside the walls of the social network. If they use it, Facebook would leapfrog the 361 million global users of Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo Mail's 273 million users and Gmail's 193 million

users, according to comScore.

However, a Facebook e-mail service would be most remarkable not for the size of its network, but for how it could use its web of social connections to transform one of the oldest -- and perhaps still the most important -- functions of the Internet.

"There is a huge opportunity for these guys to fundamentally change the nature of e-mail," said Matt Cain, an analyst for the research firm Gartner who expects Facebook to unveil an external e-mail service Monday.

Imagine, Cain said, a Facebook system that could prioritize mail from any external source based on the closeness of your relationship to the sender, or that allows you to easily flip a one-to-one e-mail exchange into a conversation with a group of friends.

Facebook now offers an internal message service that is less functional than most Web-based e-mail, and only allows members to communicate with other Facebook accounts. But Facebook may hope to use a new external e-mail service to capture even more adherents, said Augie Ray, senior analyst for social computing for Forrester Research. Forrester says that while about 90 percent of U.S. adults check e-mail regularly, only 59 percent use social networking tools such as

(PrintExpress PDF Export. - IPA S)Facebook or Twitter.

An e-mail service "makes sense just largely from a reach perspective. Facebook has grown so large that we forget that it still has room for growth," Ray said.

And by adding e-mail to the Internet's most popular photo-sharing service, smartphone location-sharing service and social gaming site, Facebook would make an even stronger claim as a hub of personal communications, placing "Facebook as much into competition with AT&T as it is now with Google," Ray said.

The tech blog TechCrunch first reported in February that Facebook was working on an e-mail service, internally dubbed "Project Titan." And while it is possible that Monday's announcement will be something more modest, both TechCrunch and VentureBeat claimed Friday to have confirmed the e-mail service with anonymous sources.

Google and Yahoo are working to make e-mail more reflective of people's personal connections by adding social-networking features to existing e-mail services. Google had disastrous results when it based its Google Buzz social-networking service on people's Gmail contacts, running into a privacy Waterloo when it automatically imported people into the service. Yahoo, the most popular U.S. e-mail provider, recently launched a new version of Mail that allows users to broadcast their status on both Twitter and Facebook -- just as if they were actually on those sites.

Unhappy with Facebook's unwillingness to let people export their contacts from Facebook into a service like Gmail, Google last week blocked Facebook from allowing users to import their Google contacts directly into the social network.

Gmail is the hot property in e-mail right now, with its global audience up 21 percent during the 12 months ending in September, while Yahoo Mail and Hotmail have both lost share, according to comScore data.

Given Gmail's momentum, a Facebook e-mail service "puts tremendous pressure on Google," Cain said. "Gmail is the place to be, and all of sudden, in one fell swoop, Facebook can enable e-mail for 500 million users, and I would suspect there is a huge overlap."

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.

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'Assistant leader' for Clyburn - Politico

Rep. Jim Clyburn will serve in the newly established No. 3 spot in the minority leadership, "assistant leader," if Democratic lawmakers agree to outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plan to create the office and elect the South Carolina Democrat to it.

Pelosi, who is running for minority leader, announced late Friday that she would be nominating Clyburn for an unnamed No. 3 post in the Democratic hierarchy — a move that wold stop a pending showdown between Clyburn, the current majority whip, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) for the job of minority whip in the next Congress. 

Continue Reading Clyburn, in a letter to Democratic lawmakers Saturday, urged them to accept the proposal.

"To me, the best way to resolve this issue, maintain diversity in the leadership and cohesion in our Caucus is to pull up another chair to the leadership table with a substantive, well-defined portfolio that will contribute in a meaningful way to our important work and to regaining the majority," he wrote."With your support of Nancy's proposal, I hope to continue to work towards building consensus within our Caucus and bridges to communities and constituents across the country."

Hoyer has not said anything publicly since Pelosi's original announcement of a deal around 11 p.m. Friday night.

Pelosi announced the new post and her plan to install Clyburn in it, in a letter to colleagues earlier Saturday. "Should I receive the privilege of serving as House Democratic Leader, I will be very honored to nominate our outstanding colleague, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, to serve in the number three House Democratic position. I will also ask the Caucus to designate that position as Assistant Leader," Pelosi said.

It was not immediately clear — though seemingly likely — that the role of "assistant to the leader" would be eliminated or redesignated. That job, currently held by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), has been seen as a potential bargaining chip for Pelosi since Van Hollen announced he would seek the top Democratic slot on the House Budget Committee last week. Though Clyburn would be ranked No. 3 under Pelosi's plan, the existing assistant-to-the-leader position is not considered part of the elected leadership hierarchy, as the Democratic leader has effectively had sole authority to appoint its occupant.

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