LIGHTNING ROUND: WHEN PENNSYLVANIA BECAME THE CENTER OF THE POLITICAL UNIVERSE.

• Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge is getting a lot of attention as a potential contender for Arlen Specter's Senate seat in 2010. In a primary against Pat Toomey, Ridge would, according to a new poll, crush Toomey 60-23 percent. But given that Ridge is pro-choice and doesn't even live in Pennsylvania at present I wonder how much this could change. Meanwhile, two other polls show him in a statistical tie with Specter in a general election, and Joe Sestak, who hasn't been given the same level of hypothetical treatment as Ridge, is down 37 points in a match-up with Specter although it remains to be seen whom labor will side with in the race.
• Back in 2006 Bill Clinton described the GOP's use of national-security fear to win elections thusly: "They've trotted that dog out for the last three elections -- and it's got mange all over it." No amount of fear-mongering over Bill Ayers or a secret Muslim heritage seems to have done the trick in 2008 and with the GOP apparently dipping into the same playbook for another election season, one Republican pollster is warning that such an effort could make the party look "out of touch and irrelevant." I'm wondering if that line wasn't already crossed some time ago.
  
• I've tried diligently to boost Karl Rove's emerging career as a political comedian but after repeated attempts to convince him to mix up his material, I think there's just no more hope for Turd Blossom. Here he is debating David Plouffe, lamenting the fact that Obama "is failing to fulfill his bipartisan promise in Congress." Meanwhile, in the real world, congressional Republicans absolutely refuse to concede anything on health-care reform even after the president offered some concessions of his own.
• We now know where Michele Bachmann is getting her almost daily servings of wingnuttery. According to this Dave Weigel piece on the GOP's sudden embrace of Ron Paul's ideas, Bachmann has become a regular fixture at the weekly meetings hosted by the marginalized 2008 GOP presidential candidate: "She was taking notes," says regular participant and conservative scholar Thomas Woods. "She was asking if this or that point could be found in the book. I thought I recognized a sincere person who wanted knowledge, not the usual politician who couldn’t care less about what the truth is and just wanted to propagandize."
• Remainders: Is the right wing trying to turn Janet Napolitano into Janet Reno?; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse starts flexing the muscle that comes with a subcommittee chair; EFCA without card check?; Gingrich is mighty concerned with high-tech weapons none of our enemies possess; and the first shots in the great Birther Civil War of '09 are fired.

--Mori Dinauer