Congress, Re-election | featured news

Congressional Republicans rejected President Obama’s $3.8 trillion spending outline as nothing more than a political document meant to guide his reelection campaign while putting off any of the tough decisions about ballooning red ink until after the voters have cast their ballots.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) announced Wednesday morning that she will run for her fourth term in 2012. “I’m looking forward to coming back and bringing a strong, powerful voice to Washington, D.C.,” Bachmann told the Associated Press. The former presidential candidate’s future plans had been in some doubt. Redistricting could make her 6th district seat more competitive, and she spent much of the year in Iowa proclaiming herself “an Iowa girl” — not so helpful for winning an election in Minnesota.

Leaving behind a year of bruising legislative battles, President Barack Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers accomplish little in 2012....

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts does not intend to seek re-election in 2012, his office said Monday, closing out a career of more than three decades in Congress capped by last year's passage of legislation imposing new regulations on Wall Street.

The odds of getting re-elected have gotten better for Rep. Renee Ellmers and other Republican freshmen in the House — thanks to GOP calculations in redrawing congressional maps.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords hasn't yet decided to run for reelection, but if she does, her supporters want to make sure she's primed and ready for the campaign.

Democrats' chances of maintaining a majority in the Senate in 2012 take another hit as Virginia Sen. Jim Webb says won't seek reelection. He will return to working in the private sector.

As Senator Lisa Murkowski flew home to Alaska on Wednesday, The Associated Press declared her the winner of her long-shot write-in bid for re-election. Neither the Murkowski campaign nor the campaign of her competitor, Joe Miller, a Tea Party favorite who was backed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, made an immediate comment.

The government's giant bank bailout may well have averted a second Great Depression, economists say, but a lot of voters aren't buying it. Support for the program is turning into a kiss of death for many in Congress.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska faces high hurdles as a write-in Senate candidate -- her own campaign demonstrated as much on Monday with a rather striking mistake in the first online ad of her renewed re-election bid.