Ah, may you live in interesting times:

With the 2010 election year barely under way, two senators and one governor — all Democrats — ditched plans to run for re-election in the latest signs of trouble for President Barack Obama's party.

Taken together, the decisions by Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota as well as Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter caused another bout of heartburn for Democrats as they struggle to defend themselves in a sour political environment for incumbents, particularly the party in charge.

As 2009 ended, Democrats watched a string of their House members announce retirements and one congressman defect to the GOP.

Some of this is just going to be natural attrition. But it's also obvious that, once again, liberal Democrats have underestimated the power of the media attacks against them, and as always have not even figured out the need for an effective response, let alone how to formulate one.

Rising Hegemon: Winning friends and influencing people

Economist's View: The question for financial markets is how deep the regulatory repair needs to go.

Corrente: Required listening...

Fables of the reconstruction: Nice framing. Certainly not elitist.

Whiskey Fire: A Rasmussen survey indicates a startling increase in the number of folks who identify as Democrats. Not surprising since after almost eight years of G-Dub, and six years of total GOP control, there's not one single policy they can point to and say, "this was a success." But they do have this.

Steve Audio: Steve cites the estimable Charles Pierce, who knows how to spot it, and cut through it.

Last week, at the debate for Republican presidential candidates, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) made the ridiculous claim that U.S. troops and their families are, by their very nature, conservative. “[M]ost Americans, most kids who leave that — that breakfast table and go and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family — most of them are conservatives.”

That certainly fits in with the conventional wisdom. We've all heard the narrative -- there's a tie between the Republican Party and the military. The troops and their families prefer the GOP to Democrats.

Fortunately, that's just not true.

As much as they try to put on a happy face, their interest in having an active roll in politics is limited to attacking brown people. Case in point. The NRCC started a YouTube contest five weeks ago:

(T)he NRCC launched a project to get supporters to create their own campaign videos attacking Democrats. If successful, this project would defy a pattern where Republican grassroots activists never take action into their own hands.

The NRCC also said:

After the judging panel views the videos, the top five videos will be hosted on NRCC.org and voted on by the general public.

They only got "FIVE" submissions...Chris Bowers votes for...

Chris Cillizza:

Kentucky: The biggest news of the night was in the Bluegrass State where former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear (D) crushed Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) 59 percent to 41 percent. Fletcher had long been seen as a dead man walking politically; ethics problems in his first four years in office had badly hamstrung his reelection chances. Beshear restores Democratic control to the Kentucky governorship, an office that the party has held for all but four years since 1967. Elsewhere on the ballot, state Auditor Crit Luallen (D) was reelected with 59 percent, a margin sure to stoke speculation of a challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) in 2008.

Virginia: Republicans appear to have lost control of the state Senate, as at least three Republican incumbents and a GOP-held open seat have gone to Democrats. The race we were watching most closely -- the 34th district battle between state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R) and Chap Peterson (D) -- turned into a rout, with the Democrat unseating the incumbent 56 percent to 44 percent. Democrats' gains are yet more evidence of the rapidly shifting demographics in the Commonwealth. Sen. Mark Warner (D) anyone?...read on

Kos says that the RNC is claiming victory!

The "Battered Spouse Syndrome" has hit the Congressional Democrats. Again.

House Minority Leader John "Cry Baby" Boehner got the vay-puhs (can't you see him clutching his pearls in horror?) from Rep. Pete Stark's harsh words after the SCHIP vote last week...what delicate sensibilities the minority party has! My gosh, it's almost as if Rep. Stark was heartless enough to be glib about the lives of our troops in harm's way. So naturally, because we can't have mean words or insinuations that our President isn't a Very Serious Person, Boehner introduced a privileged resolution to censure Pete Stark.

Chairman Bennie Thompson moved to table the resolution (which basically meant that they weren't going to consider it; all these ridiculous parliamentary procedures give me a headache) and the resolution was tabled with a vote of 196-173.

Howie at DWT:

You might be interested in knowing that 5 Democrats voted with the Republicans on condemning Rep Stark and another 8-- all reactionaries-- voted "Present," refusing to come to Stark's defense. You can probably guess the names of the disgraceful 13 Democrats. Howie has the list here.

Despite the tabling of the resolution, an apparently chastened Stark did formally apologize:

(thanks to TPM for vid)

It never stops. Nothing like job security for the Crooks and Liars staff, though:

Down with Tyranny:

[Former Romney financier] Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS [Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, founded by Lichfield] were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse." ...not much has been heard about this in all the yelling and screaming over Hsu even though [Litchfield]'s been bringing in far more money for Flip Flop than Hsu has brought in for Democrats.

DWT wants to know if Romney, Orrin Hatch, and other Lichfield wingnut beneficiaries will return the money or donate it to charity, as Democrats have announced they will do with the Hsu donations. We're waiting....

Via Kos, it appears the Kansas Republican Party, deeply divided between moderates and far-right activists, is pushing party loyalty to the extreme.

The state Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee so that it can punish officers who endorse or contribute to Democrats. [...]

Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political scientist, suggested the loyalty committee could prove a "public relations disaster."

"Ironically, it smacks most of the Communist Party," Beatty said Monday. "That's the kind of public irony that most parties try to avoid -- the party of freedom telling people they have no freedom."

As TBogg said many years ago, “Nothing quite says ‘freedom’ like being compelled to recite a loyalty oath.”

Bonddad Blog:

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline hit a record high of $3.18, rising more than 11 cents over the past two weeks, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday. [..]

How long until this starts to impact consumer spending? I don't have a clear answer, but when gas prices hit records in May the picture isn't that good.

As a rough rule, every penny increase in gas prices lowers consumer spending by $1.3 billion.

Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. Have the increased costs (it's about $3.48/gallon in my neighborhood) forced you to abandon your plans for the long weekend or adjust your driving during the week?

UPDATE: Despite being the majority party since 1994, and being the minority party since January, Minority Leader John Boehner laughably blames the high gas prices on....wait for it....the Democrats.

Rasmussen Reports conducts a national tracking poll of 15,000 voters per month, and in its latest round of polling, they found fewer and fewer people who wanted to identify themselves as Republicans.

The number of Americans calling themselves Republican has fallen to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. Just 31.9% of American adults now say they're affiliated with the GOP. That's down from 37.2% in October 2004 and 34.5% at the beginning of 2006. […]

The number of Democrats has grown slightly, from 36.1% at the beginning of the year to 37.3% now. Those who claim to be unaffiliated have increased to 30.8% this month. That's the highest total recorded since Rasmussen Reports began releasing this data in January 2004.

Add it all together and the Democrats have their biggest net advantage — more than five percentage points — since January 2004. In the first month of 2006, the Democrats' advantage was just 1.6 percentage points. Last month, 32.8% of adults said they were Republicans and 36.8% identified themselves as Democrats.

Given the past several years, can you really blame people for distancing themselves from the GOP? If I were a Republican, I wouldn't want to admit it either.

– Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report