Daily reading list 11-15

NEWS:
Losing Its Middlemen, Senate Shifts to Right (Los Angeles Times)  

A changing of the guard from the election helps explain why the Senate -- like the greater political landscape -- has become so polarized. Many centrists are leaving Congress; unvarnished conservatives are arriving in their place.

Plus: Success for Montana's Democrats; A profile of Harry Reid; Warner in '08?; The disappearing Souther Democrat; and op-ed from Thomas Oliphant and Maureen Dowd.

NEWS:
Montana Democrats Reflect on Success (New York Times)  

For nearly two decades, a Democrat with true power in the statehouse of Montana has been about as rare as a palm tree on the high plains. But this week, while Democrats elsewhere are moping through the last days of a prolonged wake, the Big Sky party stalwarts cannot stop pinching themselves.

New Democratic Leader in Senate Is Atypical Choice (New York Times)  

He is a teetotaling Mormon, a former Capitol Hill police officer who opposes abortion and was a cosponsor of the constitutional amendment banning flag-burning. He is a little-known senator from a red state whose considerable skills do not include being a compelling presence on television or behind a lectern.

Speculation Grows On Presidential Bid For Warner in 2008 (Washington Post)  

Web surfers at a site called the Democratic Underground think Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner should be their party's next presidential candidate. So does a guy named Steve, who has started a "Warner in 2008" Internet journal. And among political pundits and the soul-searching leadership of the Democratic Party, Warner's name keeps popping up.

Southern Democrats' Decline Is Eroding the Political Center (New York Times  

The once mighty Southern Democrats are an increasingly endangered species on Capitol Hill. In the new Congress, only 4 of the 22 senators from the 11 states of the old Confederacy will be Democrats, the lowest number since Reconstruction; as recently as 1990, 15 of those Southern senators were Democrats.

Kurds' separatist ambitions pose challenge to Iraq unity (Boston Globe)  

Brigadier Rahim Mohammed Shakur's allegiance to the Iraqi Army is about as solid as the faxed sheet of paper he received two weeks ago, announcing that his Kurdish peshmerga fighters were now regular Iraqi soldiers, under Baghdad's command.

OP-ED:

Thomas Oliphant: Who reelected Bush? (Boston Globe)  

Give or take a nuance, President Bush was reelected because he was seen as a strong, consistent force in the battle against terrorism by just enough voters who disagree with him on most other major issues.

Maureen Dowd: Slapping the Other Cheek  

I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.