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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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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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 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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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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W:WIE hosts Donna Karan, Sarah Brown, and Arianna Huffington

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 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 watch it live with us tonight starting at 6:30 pm.

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The mystery behind the free Huffington Post bus from New York to DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity is a question no longer.

Announced yesterday on HuffPo and through an email blast for those that signed up, the round trip bus is first-come, first-served and the deadline is sign-up by Friday, October 8th. The bus will depart from the Huffington Post’s headquarters in Soho “early Saturday” and return to New York “later Saturday night.”

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In the midst of a mid-term election, George Clooney may have Ryan Gosling go back to the ghost of 2004′s election. Gosling, whose garnered praise earlier this year at Sundance with Blue Valentine, is being courted to frontline Farragut North according to Deadline New York.

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Republicans in Congress are more upset that a comedian cracked jokes at a hearing than the fact they invited a comedian to crack jokes at a hearing. Just making sure that’s clear before we get into the oddity that is celebrity endorsements.

The AP takes a crack at explaining the true nature of these press ops as those “famous-for-DC” meet with bold face names that grace the supermarket check-out lines.

Colbert’s celebrity is a commodity that California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, who chaired the subcommittee hearing, and the other witnesses that day sought to leverage. Lofgren joked at one point that the last time the hearing room was so crammed with audience members and cameras was for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings a dozen years ago.

Of course, Colbert’s appearance was a joke. He appeared the night prior on The Colbert Report explaining why he was qualified to speak, based on his time as a migrant worker. But the explanation that Congress is now against Colbert is so simple it’s been used in Hollywood for years: ratings and relevance.

At the kicker of the AP article, Carol Swain, a law professor who testified before Colbert, remarked “I have testified before” and credited that because of the high profile star following her, “people heard my testimony.” This is directly what Colbert and Jon Stewart bring to the political world that is mired in otherwise mundane events that just so happen to dictate our government.

Celebrity is intoxicating, but when you have informed satire hiding behind celebrity it becomes a problem for most glad-handing politicos. Even with the upcoming Rally To Restore Sanity now getting a free bus service from New York to DC thanks to Arianna Huffington (complete with Twitter) and even President Obama plugging the rally, according to MSNBC First Read, due to the event’s focus on not foaming at the mouth due to punditry.

Even if Congress bristles at being made fun of, it still secretly swoons over the fact it can say the Dr. Stephen T. Colbert made fun of them for a five-minute viral clip they can show their staffers.

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