Politics

Communications teams are still spinning results from last night's elections, in which Republicans won governor's races in New Jersey and Virgina. Republican Michael Bloomberg was re-elected as New York's mayor, in a race that was much closer than expected. In a highly publicized special House election in upsate New York, Bill Owens defeated Doug Hoffman, who had drawn support from Sarah Palin and other conservative leaders.

Some media reports say the losses in New Jersey and Virgina are a "setback" for President Barack Obama, especially in New Jersey where Obama campaigned up until the last minute with incumbent Jon Corzine. "Neither race should be viewed as strictly a referendum on Obama. But if there is a danger in overinterpreting off-year elections, it is also a mistake to underinterpret," wrote Politico's John F. Harris & Jonathan Martin.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the administration this morning, saying that the losses in VA and NJ, "didn't involve the President," and that results showed it was "pretty clear people went to the polls and voted for local issues." The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz thinks we're all overreacting. "...let's face it, there's a huge hype machine out that's been pumping up the national significance of these off-year results," he wrote today.

[Image: New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie]

Michael Bloomberg won a third term as New York City mayor tonight, defeating Democratic challenger Bill Thompson in a race that was much closer than his last campaign against Fernando Ferrer. This despite Bloomberg being predicted to spend almost $100 million on his campaign, which is already, "the most expensive self-financed campaign in United States history," according to NY1.

The New York Times reports that when first planning Bloomberg's re-election, his top guru Kevin Sheekey, "urged him to quickly send a warning to potential challengers. He suggested recruiting a high-profile attack dog for the campaign and disclosing it to the press. The choice was obvious: Howard Wolfson, the combative former communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential run."

Indeed Wolfson had a busy day in the press, forcing updates to Daily News stories at 7pm and appearing on NY1, in addition to his multitude of other duties running PR for the mayor's campaign. Wolfson made waves last July when he joined Fox News as a contributor. He also had somewhat of a fallout with Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn in the wake of the aforementioned Clinton presidential campaign. Can Wolfson count Bloomberg squeaking buy as a win? No doubt he'll try.

How big of an effect does your organization's digital work have when it comes to shaping public policy? The answer is maybe more than you would think. Edelman today released its Capital Staffer Index, a five-country survey of almost 400 senior staff in the U.S. Congress and European Parliaments. The results:

96% use online resources for public policy research

54% reported learning of policy issues for the first time online

19% actually changed policy positions based on information and opinions they found online

On the other hand, 60% of staffers reported that they use Facebook more for personal usage than professional reasons. Complete survey results are available at the agency's website.

Election day is tomorrow, and the press teams of several of the high profile races are working overtime to make sure not a minute of time is wasted. Particularly, gubernatorial campaigns in New Jersey and Virgina have attracted attention. In New Jersey, incumbent Jon Corzine (D) is up against Chris Christie (R). In Virgina Robert F. McDonnell (R) is up against R. Creigh Deeds (D).

Corzine press secretary Elisabeth Smith's last Twitter update states, "Lots o polling. All gonna come down to turnout tomorrow." Christie spokeswoman Maria Comella posted this morning, "Last day of the bus tour. New polls out today show Chris with lead, but this is still a close race."

In the Virginia race, McDonnell press secretary Taylor Thornley's last tweet is from 10/27, where she highlighted favorable polling results for her candidate. Deeds Communications Director Jared Leopold's feed is heavy on re-tweets, the last of which is a picture of a campaign stop in Hampton Roads.

At a White House press briefing last week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked about the governor's races, said, "I don't think they portend a lot." However, President Obama spent yesterday at two major Corzine rallies in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. New Jersey is the closer race as the Quinnipiac poll this morning shows it is in a "statistical tie."

First it was Fox News. Now the White House is getting attention for going after a much smaller, albeit influential media outlet, car blog Edmunds.com. In a White House blog post yesterday, titled, "Busy Covering Car Sales on Mars, Edmunds.com Gets It Wrong (Again) on Cash for Clunkers," Macon Philips said Edmunds.com released "faulty analysis suggesting that the Cash for Clunkers program had no meaningful impact on our economy or on overall auto sales."

The blog shot back, stating, "instead of shooting the messenger, government officials should take heart from the core message of [our] analysis: The fundamentals of the auto marketplace are improving faster than the current sales numbers suggest."

Our question is: why are people surprised they are using the blog to communicate in this manner, when they claimed they would do so from the beginning? In the first post on the blog, Phillips wrote, "Millions of Americans have powered President Obama's journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country's future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration's efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement." We've reached out to the White House media affairs team but have not heard back as of the time of this post.

Our FishbowlDC colleagues were first to break the news that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reached out to Fox News SVP Michael Clemente, apparently to broker a peace agreement. Gibbs hosted Clemente at the White House for a very quick meeting yesterday morning.

Mediaite, Politico and others have confirmed the meeting, and that Clemente brought word back to the D.C. bureau. The over-under on the ceasefire is a week at best.

Related: Fox News, White House Back and Forth Continues to Make Headlines

White House's Anita Dunn on CNN: We Will Push Back

How much credit can Glenn Beck's publicist Matthew Hiltzik take for Beck's rise to stardom? According to a story by the Washington Post's Jason Horowitz, a lot. Horowitz published a profile today on Hiltzik, the longtime democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton campaign employee, and how some former allies find his alliance with Beck "shocking."

There are a bunch of money quotes in the story, including this one:

"I love Matt," said Ken Sunshine, a Democratic activist and public relations powerbroker whom Hiltzik regards as a mentor. "I value our friendship, but I wouldn't be caught dead representing Glenn Beck."

It is worth noting, as Horowitz's story does, that Hiltzik has clients on all sides of the spectrum, including Katie Couric, Alec Baldwin, Annie Leibovitz and Don Imus. We spoke to Hiltzik last a few weeks ago when Couric interviewed Beck for the debut of her web show. He acknowledged he was still working with Beck, but like most adept PR pros, wouldn't comment on strategy or even if he set up the interview.

"My job is to look out for his personal business interests and try to weave them in well with his partners...We give strategic counsel, which includes managing the profile of the business," Hitzik told the Post in regards to his work with Beck.

Burson-Marsteller CEO and former Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chief strategist Mark Penn appeared on Fox News' 'Fox and Friends' this morning to discuss Clinton's performance over her first nine months as Secretary of State as well as the eternal question: will she run for President again? "I think she has no interest in doing it again. It was a grueling experience," said Penn.

In reference to the challenges Clinton, and most public officials at her level face, Penn stated that she is "one of those people that every word has been parsed for years and years and years."

Former FishbowlDC founding editor Garrett Graff finds himself at the center of a Washington Post feature story by media critic Howard Kurtz today, "Young editor conquers Capital." At 28, Graff has worked his way up to editor of the Washingtonian magazine.

Graff has experience on both sides of the media fence. He served as deputy national press secretary for Howard Dean's presidential campaign from June 2003 until the end of the campaign. After working on the Dean campaign, Graff was named founding editor of FishbowlDC, a position he held until May 2006, when he narrowed his gigs to the Washingtonian and a book deal.

On his time spent as a political flack, Graff told PRNewser, "I think that for all of the grief PR people get for going into journalism, I think that my time as a campaign flack was some of the most valuable journalism training that one can get. You get a really quick education in good journalism and bad journalism, being on the receiving end of all of it."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on the "Today" show this morning as part of a lighthearted segment on the "Goatee Gamble." The gamble, in case you haven't heard, is a bet between ABC's Jake Tapper and NBC's Chuck Todd.

If the Dodgers win the NLCS, Tapper would grow a goatee and if the Phillies win, Todd would shave his goatee, "his signature look, or a $1,000 donation will be paid by the losing correspondent to the winner's choice of charity," according to FishbowlDC. Well, the Phillies won, and now it's time to settle up.

Gibbs appeared on the segment bearing shaving cream and an electric razor. "Chuck has applied for a presidential pardon and that has been denied," he said. Al Roker egged on Todd to shave it right on the show, saying "It's go time," and "we have three hours." Things got so far as Gibbs squirting some shaving cream into Todd's hand, but alas, he didn't shave the goatee on air.