Kristina Schake

Even after Susan Sher left the White House last week to return to Chicago, we can welcome a new transplant to the Beltway: Kristina Schake, co-founder of communications firm Griffin|Schake, joins the administration as First Lady Michelle Obama’s communications director.

From a press release sent out this morning:

“I’m thrilled to welcome Kristina to the team.  Kristina brings a wealth of expertise that I know will make her a tremendous asset in the East Wing,” said First Lady Michelle Obama.  “Kristina has done extensive work throughout her career on child nutrition and community health issues, and that paired with her experience as part of a military family will bring invaluable insight to our work on childhood obesity and our efforts to support military families.  I look forward to working with Kristina on these efforts and more in the months and years ahead.”

Schake isn’t a stranger to working for powerful heads of state as she worked with former First Lady of California Maria Shriver among tackling obesity issues, “stem cell research and early childhood education a national priority and helped change California’s political landscape on renewable energy and civil rights.”

We can expect to see Schake around Capitol Hill starting in December.

photo via Griffin|Schake

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Now that the countdown for Election 2012 (733 days and counting) is kicked off the a GOP takeover of the House and the Democrats keeping the Senate; today is ripe for figuring out what happened the last few months.

ABC News’ The Note sees this as coming full circle since 2008:

In the course of one night, critical gains Democrats had made in Congress over the course of two years were erased as the party in control of the White House suffered a painful loss of nearly 60 seats. As of this morning there were still 15 seats that have not been called — all of them currently held by Democrats. The GOP is likely to pick up some of those, bringing the total number of seats gained by Republicans even higher.

Not to mention this election cycle proved the strength of the “angry vote” over the fabled “youth vote,” which was shockingly absent compared to 2008. CBS News reports that the kids weren’t all right at the polling place and voting was down 18 percent  among 18-to-29-year olds. This year? The “youth vote” comprised nine percent of total voting percentage.

The New York Times rings in with the basic question: was hoping for change too ambitious from a country that can’t wait?

The most pressing question as Mr. Obama picks through the results on Wednesday morning will be what lessons he takes from the electoral reversals. Was this the natural and unavoidable backlash in a time of historic economic distress, or was it a repudiation of a big-spending activist government? Was it primarily a failure of communications as the White House has suggested lately, or was it a fundamental disconnect with the values and priorities of the American public?

For a full list of the Senatorial, Gubernatorial and House races, ABC News has the voting results as they come in.

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It’s Election Day and we’ve got nine hours until the polls close for 2010–now we just have 734 days until the next election, and you can be sure that’ll be on the minds of every pundit as of 12:01 am Wednesday morning.

If you’re planning on watching the day’s coverage, TheWrap highlights every major network’s planned schedules–including the overtly confusing ABC/Breitbart kerfuffle.  Don’t want to wait? Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight claims a 54-55 seat gain in the House by GOP from yesterday–the GOP only need 39 to take control. But as Andrea Mitchell said today during an interview with Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss), it’s still a 34 percent pro-GOP vote and appears to be a “firing” election rather than “hiring.”

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In case you missed it this weekend, a tiny rally was held on a tiny piece of land in downtown Washington, DC. And then The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear blew up in the faces of the very folks covering it, while those attending the event laughed and swayed as if at a revival.

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The midterms are winding down–complete with a Rally to Restore Fear/Sanity in 24 hours–but at least one constant remains: the youth vote.

If not proved by the insane turnout at the Daily Show’s taping on Wednesday at the Harman Center in DC, maybe the Beltway Gang’s other favorite staple can prove it: polls! Over at DCI, Dan Meyers contemplates a recent Rock The Vote poll:

Let’s look at previous midterm elections and voters that were 18-24 years old.  In 1998 turnout among them was 18.5%.  In 2002 it dropped to about 17.2%.  And in 2006 it rose to 19.9% — up almost 3% points.  Participation is higher, as it is in most segments, in presidential election years.  In 2000, 36.1% turned out.  2004 came in at 41.9% and most recently, in 2008, a spike to 44.3%.  2008 was the highest turnout among 18-24 year old voters since 1972 – the Nixon landslide – with turnout at 48.3%.

This year’s estimate: 77 percent. Meyers goes on to couple this with emerging media trends in social networking and communities developed through meet-up culture, which encourages people to not simply say they’ll vote but make sure they will. The social check-in app Foursquare has created a new badge–”I Voted”–for election day so users can show off via Twitter or Facebook that they’ve checked into an election location and voted.

If the “youth vote” remains on a steady rise, then it almost becomes proof positive that voters will keep it up as they enter their next polling place demographics of “home owner,” “married” and “employed.”

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Despite explaining health care reform, the economy and even a ceremonial mug presentation, the takeaway from President Obama on The Daily Show? Dude.

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Let’s forget the Midterm and focus on the more important news: National Journal’s relaunched itself today. The gist of Atlantic Media’s relaunch? Unified newsrooms!

Yes, NJ has combined CongressDaily and The Hotline into itself to form another political media hydra to wage war (and share links with) Politico, CQ-Roll Call and The Hill. But there’s also focus on original video content, faster web production and the new new cover story interview with President Obama 2.0.

The full release is after the jump.

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Jon Meacham

The collective shout of joy from political reporters around the Beltway is well deserved: Jon Meacham’s an editor once again.

The ex-Newsweek editor joins Random House as Executive Vice President and Executive Editor according to a press release published today via the AP. Mike Allen fleshed it out a bit more in his Playbook citing the new role will start in 2011. More important?

Washington now has a powerful new friend in New York publishing. Meacham will have a big checkbook and a huge appetite for great political books, but with high standard (will only take on three or so books a year, which means lots of retail attention to the authors he chooses to work with). A longtime observer of the New York/Washington literary world, when he heard the announcement: “Meacham just became arguably the most influential nonfiction editor in American letters.”

Meacham’s own catalog at Random House includes American Lion on the life of President Andrew Jackson, which also took the Pulitzer Prize.

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Yesterday marked the end of Howard Kurtz’ tenure at the Washington Post and his The Daily Beast debut.

At the end of his final Media Notes, Kurtz writes, “I confess that I enjoyed David Carr’s New York Times line about my job switch prompting the most gasps since Dylan went electric in 1965. But that ain’t me, babe. While I would not have made such a leap even two years ago, it is an evolutionary move, not a revolutionary one, as we all grasp for ways to sustain and reinvent journalism.”
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The ins and outs of President Obama’s televised town hall meeting are as confusing as the impatience in the crowd. Sponsored by Georgetown University and filmed at the BET Studios in Washington, DC, this Conversation with the President kept the same on-edge tone that his previous town hall last month on the economy.

The New York Times cites Obama as being on the “defensive” while essentially bullet pointing the major questions of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, the economy and immigration. The town hall began on the nature of health care and leapt from point to point as the crowd gathered seemed almost giddy with demanding impossibly fast responses to issues spanning the last decade.

Politico runs the age card with their coverage citing poll numbers:

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The Rally To Restore Sanity/March To Keep Fear Alive has turned the 24 hour newscycle into its…well, special friend. The Wrap rounds up the latest details of the October 30th event that will take place on the Mall. Fox News has confirmed it’s coverage with a single camera crew after Jon Stewart announced earlier in the week that Comedy Central will broadcast the event live online and its channel.

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The true theme of the 2010 mid-term elections is clear: panic? No, it’s anger! Wait, no. Oh, right. It’s all about confusing the message.

Whether it’s been increasingly bizarre defense and attack ads courtesy of Delaware’s Christine “I’m Not A Witch” O’Donnell (rightfully parodied by SNL here) or Chris Coons going the “No Comment” route as the New York Times reports. Ignoring the “Mama Grizzly” trope that Newsweek tried to explain, the message behind the Delaware Senate race is tough to understand.

For the Times, Frank Bruni breaks it down as “She: cheerleader pretty. He: science-club-president plain.” This can be applied to roughly 90 percent of politics with ten percent leftover for ads and scandal.

Politico runs the idea that both parties are hemorrhaging members and sacrificial lambs to the media slaughter:

All of it is part of Washington’s biennial exercise in cold-blooded, risk-reward analysis: Figuring out which candidates to fund in the homestretch and which ones to cut loose. It’s the Beltway equivalent of choosing which of your children to put in the lifeboat, as the party committees decide which candidates to throw overboard because they aren’t viable enough to warrant the investment.

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WHC Insider exclusive coverage of the Arianna Huffington book party to celebrate her new book Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class and Betraying The American Dream, co-presented by Hilary Rosen, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale; Anita Dunn, Sally Susman, Alex Slater, Franco Nuschese, Ted Greenberg and Tammy Haddad. MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan will MC the program, which will include special guest Seth Reams, founder of WeveGotTimeToHelp.org.

Don’t wait for the C-SPAN book party coverage when you can follow WHC Insider on Twitter and watch it below the jump,  live , with us tonight starting at 6:30 pm.

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Watch the Dylan Ratigan Show today at 4 pm for a special preview for tonight’s book party for Arianna Huffington’s Third World America.

And don’t forget to come back to WHC Insider at 6:30 pm est to catch the party live as it happens.

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Howard Kurtz sheds the print skin at the Washington Post and joins up with Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast.

According to TV Newser, the long-time media columnist for the Post will become the Washingotn bureau chief for the online magazine built by the house of Brown and Barry Diller’s IAC. Kurtz will keep his show on CNN.

Kurtz has been the media reporter for the Post since 1990. He also famously updates on Facebook.

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