I watch a lot of MSNBC. I watch Morning Joe every morning as I wake up and get my work day started at home, and the channel runs (usually on mute) non-stop in front of me at the office. On election nights (which seem to come a few times a week these days), it's usually on with volume for a few hours. I've watched hundreds of hours of MSNBC in the last few months.

So I say this with some level of expertise: David Shuster is the least of our problems.

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Washington Post columnist and Brookings fellow E.J. Dionne is going to be joining us next week to discuss his new book Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.  In the book, Dionne argues that the era of the Religious Right is over and that a new era of religious and secular "intellectual solidarity" is possible and necessary.  Joining him in the Book Club will be:

Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals,
Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good,
J. Peter Scoblic of The New Republic and the Carnegie Endowment,
Richard Parker of Harvard University,
and Brian McClaren of Emergent Village and Sojourners

We're expecting a great conversation.  It's not too long of a book (200 pages), so I'm planning on reading the whole thing over the weekend...

Don't forget, Spring Internship apps are due today!

George Bush went to CPAC this morning and declared Dick Cheney the best Vice President in American history. Ummm, yeah.

Anyway, that reminded me that I just watched Frontline's "Cheney's Law," a disturbing look at the Veep's long-running opposition to the United States Constitution, and wanted to pass it along. Enjoy.

Just want to keep you in the loop as we keep up the good fight to get the new site up and working.

First off, rest assured that we have a master list of all of the things that aren't functioning that we're going through one by one. We're scanning the comment threads and blog posts and reading all the incoming mail and have a good grasp on what's happening. That includes, but is not limited to, the recommend function not working on new reader posts, the reply function not always working in threads, and some folks being logged out by the system mid-session. Our tech guys are tracking down the issues and they should be resolved soon.

If you have any bugs you want us to know about, feel free to use this thread. Alternatively, you can email us a help AT talkingpointsmemo DOT com.

Thanks for your patience.

There are really too many states. My head hurts from trying to keep track of all of this.

Help me.

Update: By the way, anyone able to find any data on Ken's "Security Vote"? If you haven't read the post, it's worth checking out. He basically argues that we should look out for Dem performance in the suburban areas around NYC where 9/11 led to big gains for the GOP. Progress there would mean progress in rolling back the Fear Vote.

Since elections don't have anything to do with how many votes or delegates you win and everything to do with whether or not you under or over-perform expectations, I thought we should get started early molding the media narrative.

As Josh explained in yesterday's episode of TPMtv, polling (as good as it can be) seems to be pointing to a big day for John McCain (with the exception of a handful of states) and a photo finish on the Democratic side. Both nationally and in California, some polls show Clinton up a few points, others Obama. The key thing we're looking at here is that the oldest are good for Clinton, the newest for Obama. That being said, as Eric Kleefeld noted yesterday at Election Central, "Your guess is really as good as ours about what's going to happen."

So what's your guess?

A few links to good reader posts after the break.

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Note: we're having significant server problems, so please be patient while we sort them out. For now, reader blog posts and comments may not appear on the site immediately.

Update: the servers are better now. Comment/post to your heart's content. (fingers crossed)

Bugs aside, for a second, one of our goals in designing this new Cafe was to get you all more involved in producing content by offering you greater access to audience. We're happy to see that, so far, that seems to be working. A few highlights from the last 24 hrs:

FlyOnTneWall has a great piece on the "Five Myths About Super Tuesday" and a Monday Morning Polling Wrap-Up.

fairandbalanced wonders whether the Obama campaign fits into a series of global mainstream revolutions enabled by new media technologies.

Tom Wright argues that it's really moving Congress that matters for the next president's ability to make the so-loved "change."

As you can see on the right there's much more than that, so check out what folks are talking about, recommend the posts you like, and contribute some of your own. A few notes on bugs after the break.

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