ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:
There's nothing quite like putting lipstick on an identity crisis.
Sarah Palin declared more than her independence from the GOP establishment with her endorsement of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman Thursday night. (That didn't need much more formality, anyway.)
Palin also escalated the war inside the Republican Party — ratcheting up the battle that's been brewing (like so much tea) virtually since President Obama's inauguration.
And if there's a Republican who commands a bigger army at this moment in American politics, name her or him.
“Political parties must stand for something,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page — naturally. “Republicans and conservatives around the country are sending an important message to the Republican establishment in their outstanding grassroots support for Doug Hoffman: no more politics as usual.”
Palin's decision to take sides, and to take the particular side of a conservative locked in a long-shot battle for ideological purity, crystallizes the debate about the future of the GOP.
It ensures that a race for an open House seat in upstate New York is going to be viewed through a prism of tea parties, Glenn Beck, and ideological purity. Two of the highest-profile races on the ballot Nov. 3 feature right-leaning third-party candidates — vessels for the anger that's been percolating all year.
And it all could begin to shape the early 2012 field, with would-be candidates who'd rather sit this battle out under pressure to declare sides.
So this is what going rogue is all about — and it's going to be interesting.
“Her action increased the race's profile as a national test between the GOP establishment and the conservative base,” the Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter writes.
“The New York race is a microcosm of the dilemma faced by parties out of power: How much purity should you insist on from your members?”ABC's Teddy Davis reports. “The Republican that Palin has passed over supports abortion rights, same-sex marriage and legislation that would make union organizing easier. In backing the Conservative Party candidate, Palin finds herself in the company of many TEA party activists, plus former House Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas.”
Game on: “Tea party activists from across the nation are rallying around the House special election in upstate New York, viewing it as the first electoral test of the nascent conservative movement's political muscle,” Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports.
In the other corner… Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “The choice in New York is a practical one,” Gingrich writes in endorsing Republican Dede Scozzafava. “My number one interest in the 2009 elections is to build a Republican majority. If your interest is taking power back from the Left, and your interest is winning the necessary elections, then there are times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within it.”
Can Democrats pick up the GOP's pieces? From a memo going out to Democratic House members Friday, from DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen: “This race presents a unique opportunity for Democrats in a conservative-leaning Republican open seat. NY-23 has not been represented by a Democrat in nearly 120 years (since 1890).”
And: “The 2010 election is not and will not be 1994,” Van Hollen writes.
But the 2009 elections may remind you of 1992. The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib: “There is an important contest under way that will test how the rising ‘pox on both your houses' thinking can affect real-life outcomes. It's next month's governor's election in New Jersey, where the notably unpopular Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine, could win re-election because so many people are choosing not to vote for his notably unpopular Republican foe, Chris Christie, but instead for independent candidate Chris Daggett.”
If this is Round One… “[The] divide isn't likely to go away no matter who wins in New York's 23rd in 11 days,” Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza writes. “The head versus heart dynamic is already shaping up in Florida's Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio.”
Speaking of intra-party warfare… This is breaking four days before President Obama campaigns for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia:
“Senior administration officials have expressed frustration with how Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has handled his campaign for governor, refusing early offers of strategic advice and failing to reach out to several key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in 2008, they say,” Rosalind S. Helderman and Anne E. Kornblut writes in The Washington Post. “A senior administration official said Deeds badly erred on several fronts, including not doing a better job of coordinating with the White House.”
Said a senior administration official: “Obama, Kaine and others had drawn a road map to victory in Virginia. Deeds chose another path.”
The long knife: “Privately, administration officials said they see almost no way for Deeds to win on Nov. 3,” Helderman and Kornblut write.
(Do you need another example of the Obama political operation's willingness to cut off body parts that aren't operating at full capacity? And if the president apologized to Gov. David Paterson, D-N.Y., for trying to strong-arm him out of a race, how does he explain to Deeds why his people are giving up for him 10 days before Election Day?)
And wouldn't you know — the GOP isn't the only party undergoing something of a battle for its soul.
For Democrats, the fight is going on inside the halls of Congress. The latest salvo: The public option is back — take cover in the middle.
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is leaning toward including the creation of a new government-run insurance program — the so-called public option — in the health care reform bill he will bring to the full Senate in the coming weeks,” per ABC's Jonathan Karl, who was first out of the box with the news. “Democratic sources tell me that Reid – after a series of meetings with Democratic moderates – has concluded he can pass a bill with a public option.”
On “Good Morning America” Friday, Karl called it a “dramatic development”: “Reid's actions mean that this idea of creating a new government-run insurance program is now once again front-and-center in the Senate. . . . It looks like there will be no Republican support for this.”
Reid “is taking a calculated gamble that the 60 members of his caucus could support the plan if it included a way for states to opt out,” Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn write in The New York Times. “Mr. Reid met with President Obama at the White House Thursday to inform him of his inclination to add the public option to the bill, but did not specifically ask the president to endorse that approach, a Democratic aide said. Mr. Obama asked questions, but did not express a preference at the meeting, a White House official said.” (He “did not express a preference”?)
A senior Democratic aide: “There is a growing sense that we need to lead on this issue and not wait for it to be offered on the Senate floor. . . . The idea is that it's better to show some fight.”
It's looking like a public option with a state-level opt-out (and if this comes together, does Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., get some kind of trophy?).
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.: “I keep hearing there is a lot of leaning toward some sort of national public option, unfortunately, from my standpoint,” Nelson said, per the AP's David Espo.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine: “A public option at the forefront really does put the government in a disproportionate position with respect to the industry,” Snowe said in an interview with Bloomberg TV's “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.
Over on the other side — under $900 billion: “House Democrats are coalescing around an $871 billion health-care package that would create a government-run insurance plan to help millions of Americans afford coverage, raise taxes on the nation's richest families and impose an array of new regulations on private insurers, in part by stripping the industry of its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws,” Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post.
Maybe not so robust, however: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) drive for a public option in healthcare reform ran into turbulence Thursday when a survey of her caucus showed she needs more votes to pass such a bill,” The Hill's Mike Soragham writes. “The survey ordered by Pelosi turned up 46 Democrats who said they would vote against the so-called ‘robust' public option, according to a Democratic lawmaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
There's endorsements, and then there are steps too far: “President Obama will travel Friday to Massachusetts, one of only two states to implement a universal health-care program similar to his ambitions for the entire country. But he does not plan to use the trip to make his case for far-reaching reform; he will tout clean energy and raise money for the Democratic governor,” Ceci Connolly writes in The Washington Post.
The president raises money for two New England friends Friday: Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., both get a presidential visit, after a clean-energy event at MIT.
Cue the populist rage: “Citigroup Inc., which has yet to repay $45 billion in federal assistance, has more lobbyists than any other company who registered to try to shape legislation regulating the financial industry, U.S. Senate records show,” Jonathan D. Salant and Lizzie O'Leary report. “The New York-based bank, 34 percent-owned by the U.S. government, is listed as a client by 46 of the 1,537 lobbyists who filed with Congress to work on President Barack Obama's push for rules to limit financial risks and impose stricter consumer protections.”
Getting in front: “You would hope after American taxpayers stepped in to save these companies from a disaster of their own making they would be deploying their army of lobbyists to strengthen and not thwart financial reform,” senior Obama adviser David Axelrod tells Bloomberg.
More populism: “I just don't buy this, these brilliant minds out there that went to Harvard Business School are making the world safe for democracy, no they're not,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said on ABCNews.com's “Top Line” Thursday. “They're making the world safe for themselves, but they're not helping the economy.”
Is the recession over? In the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 82 percent say it isn't. 82 percent.
“That marks more than the disconnect between definitions of recession; it also points to the land mines that pockmark the political landscape, threatening potential woe to President Obama in particular and incumbent office-holders in general. Claims of a recovery that few people feel are fraught with the taint of disconnect,” ABC Polling Director Gary Langer writes.
Accountability: “President Obama, in office a month longer than Bush was when 9/11 hit, now owns his presidency,” Peggy Noonan writes in her Wall Street Journal column. “Does he know it? He too stands on rubble, figuratively speaking — a collapsed economy, high and growing unemployment, two wars. Everyone knows what he's standing on. You can almost see the smoke rising around him. He's got a bullhorn in his hand every day.”
The next chapter in the wars with former Vice President Dick Cheney — and the headline Friday is that the White House is firing back, again.
“What Vice President Cheney calls ‘dithering,' ” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, “President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public. I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously.”
“Even more curious,” Gibbs said, “given the fact that an increase in troops [for Afghanistan] sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months.”
ABC's Jake Tapper checks that fact: “It's a bit more nuanced than that. The troop requests to which Gibbs referred were made by then-Gen. David McKiernan. McKiernan started off making individual requests for brigades, and that list kept growing. Officials from that time say that demands in Iraq prevented the Bush administration from fulfilling the requests until just before Bush left office. (Prioritizing troops to Iraq over those to Afghanistan is, of course, a choice.)”
Why the White House wants this fight: “Cheney lecturing Obama on Afghanistan is laughable, but the joke is on him. The ex-veep may not realize this, but he and his former boss exited office as profoundly unpopular men,” David Corn writes for Politics Daily.
No more lockouts — but the Countrywide battle heats up, with two Democrats now supporting GOP efforts to widen the investigation. ABC's Matthew Jaffe: “Rep. Paul Hodes, D-NH, and Rep. Mike Quigley, D-IL, wrote to House Oversight & Government Reform committee chairman Ed Towns, D-NY, and Darrell Issa, R-CA, informing the panel chiefs of their desire to issue a subpoena.”
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., held his first PAC fundraiser in Washington Thursday night.
Politico's Jonathan Martin: “Pawlenty's appearance attracted a significant number of staffers from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year, some of whom have fond memories of the governor's time as a loyal surrogate for the Arizonan during the primary and general election. Also present were scores of aides from Hill offices, some of them still sporting their badges, as well as operatives from the RNC, NRSC and NRCC – many of whom are interested in working on a White House campaign and wanted to see the man who is emerging as the chief establishment alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.”
Said Pawlenty: “We don't have a big enough party to be throwing people overboard.” (Did Sarah Palin hear that?)
(Pawlenty will be a guest on ABCNews.com's “Top Line” Friday, airing at noon ET.)
The Kicker:
“We want to make sure that when we do our 'Kumbaya' moment, that we're all there.” — Rep. John Larson, D-Conn, not singing yet.
For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note's blog . . . all day every day:
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The Republican establishment is welcoming Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., to the 2010 Senate race in Florida — highlighting his decision to run as a recruiting coup, and offering him an endorsement in a competitive primary. 
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