Democrats are using Rush Limbaugh to raise money. AP Photo by Ron Edmonds

A number of Democratic candidates and committees are using the controversial remarks made by conservative-talk radio host Rush Limbaugh about President Obama to raise money and recruit volunteers to their causes.

In an email sent to supporters late Thursday and entitled "Kowtow," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee executive director J.B Poersch writes, "when Rush says jump, congressional Republicans say how high?" and urges recipients to sign a petition condemning Limbaugh's behavior and calling on Senate GOPers to "declare their independence" from him.

A similar missive came out of the Democratic Governors Association as well. "Did you hear what Rush said?" writes DGA executive director Nathan Daschle, adding that Limbaugh and his acolytes will do everything they can to block the implementation of Obama's economic stimulus plan. The best way to stop Rush? Why, send money to the DGA of course.

And, the Democratic National Committee is raising money to sponsor a billboard in Limbaugh's hometown to "send him a message", according to an email sent by DNC executive director Jen O'Malley Dillon.

The appeals by the DNC, DSCC and DGA are the latest but far from the only evidence of how Democrats are seeking to use Limbaugh's comments as a cudgel against Republicans. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who is running for governor in Virginia, sent a letter to state Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the GOP nominee, calling on him to renounce Rush, and followed that up with an email petition drive aimed at pressuring McDonnell to "prove" his bipartisan credential by casting Limbaugh off the Republican island.

"Bob McDonnell says he knows how to work across party lines," said Mo Elleithee, a consultant to McAuliffe's campaign. "He can prove it by showing that he is willing to stand up to the de facto head of his party and repudiate his divisive rhetoric."

The appeal of these appeals is obvious for Democrats. As popular as Limbaugh is among the conservative base, he is equally reviled among liberal Democrats -- the very same group that is most likely to give money or donate their time to a candidate or committee.

While neither the DGA nor the DSCC would discuss what sort of response -- financial or otherwise -- their email petitions have received, one source familiar with the DSCC effort said it was on pace to rival a similar email sent out after then President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of former Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of obstruction in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

In the end, this may be the lasting impact of Limbaugh's raised profile in the national political debate. It's highly unlikely that any candidate will win or lose in 2010 as a direct result of Limbaugh but the indirect effect on Democratic fundraising, organizing and base-rallying could be sustained and significant.

Obama in Ohio: President Obama jets to Columbus, Ohio today to speak at a police officer graduation. The idea is to tout the economic stimulus plan as some of the money sent to the Buckeye State was used to retain these new graduates rather than let them go.

Friday Must-Reads: Scanning the world of news for the best and brightest.

1. After a one day respite on Wednesday, the Dow continues its plummet.
2. The White House launches a new website (www.healthreform.gov) and announces a series of town halls to sell the public on the need for healthcare reform.
3. The man who beat, and subsequently lost to, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) is mulling a run for governor in 2010.
4. Politico.com commander in chief John Harris steps down from on high to pen an interesting piece on the uncertain future of the Democratic Leadership Council.
5. The Obama Administration is no longer "Paging Dr. Gupta."

DCCC Weighs in on NY-20: Keep an eye on the Albany media market today and you just might catch the first ad paid for the by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's independent expenditure arm. With a little over three weeks remaining in the special election race between state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R) and businessman Scott Murphy (D), the DCCC will weigh in -- seeking to use their financial might to overcome the efforts of the National Republican Congressional Committee for Tedisco. GOP strategists have privately fretted about the DCCC's continuing financial edge and how they might bring it to bear in this race. No details on the extent of the ad buy yet but Democrats want to keep this Upstate seat in their column to keep up the momentum built last fall.

Twitter Drive: As of yesterday, we are nearing 7,750 followers. The goal is 10,000. Perhaps a giveaway of a few Fix T-shirts would do the trick? Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Sign up to follow "TheFix" and "TheHyperFix."

McCain Mafia Reunites: John McCain's presidential campaign is over but four men who were intimately involved in that effort have banded together to form The Trailblazer Group, a GOP consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va. The four founding partners are: Craig "Goldy" Goldman, who ran McCain's Straight Talk PAC and served as a regional campaign manager during a portion of the general election; Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager for McCain; Doug Davenport, a regional campaign manager who stepped aside last May due to his lobbying ties; and Ryan Price, the deputy national political director of McCain's presidential bid. "We are pleased to be able to offer our clients a public affairs business model that allows us to work both inside the beltway and in all the 50 states to best represent their needs," said Goldman.

The Clown is Back: For all of those (like the Fix) who mourned the departure of Krusty Conservative from the Iowa blogosphere, the time to rejoice is now. Krusty along with a passel of other GOP bloggers has re-formed under the umbrella of The Iowa Republican. Bookmark it. You'll thank us when presidential caucus season rolls around.

More Charlie Pics!: For those of you who have wanted to see a few more shots of the latest addition to the Fix family (and who wouldn't?), check out this and this.

Say What?: "It really is an honor to have him here and I know for some of my staff, and for bragging rights to my children and my grandchildren, a real treat for me as well." -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) gushes, er, introduces actor Brad Pitt on Capitol Hill Thursday.

An estimated 49.5 million people watched Barack Obama's first prime-time news conference as president.

Nielsen Media Research says Monday night's session was televised live on eight different networks - ABC, CBS (nyse: CBS - news - people ), NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and Univision.

It wasn't the most-watched presidential news conference. A month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush held a news conference watched by 64.8 million people. And a news conference about the economy held less than a month after President Clinton took office in 1993 drew 64.3 million viewers.

In 1993, the average U.S. home had 40 channels. Now, it's 118 channels, according to Nielsen.

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When President Obama takes to the airwaves Monday evening to rally support for his $800 billion-plus stimulus plan, he'll find himself in the tricky position of simultaneously needing to inspire confidence in the long-term strength of the economy while also dramatizing the current crisis as so dire that immediate action by Congress is necessary.

It's part of a White House publicity blitz to sell his strategy to the public, and it'll be in press conference format so the president can defend criticism of his plan rather than just laying out the details.

Earlier Monday, the president made a targeted pitch at a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where unemployment reached 15.3% in December. Tuesday, Obama takes the same message on the road to Florida. Meanwhile, Congress is struggling to come up with a bill to send to the president's desk.

Lately, he's done little to balance these competing positions. In Indiana Monday, Obama warned that delay would mean that "millions of jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits," also adding that no matter what is done "recovery will likely be measured in years, not weeks or months."

It wasn't exactly a fireside chat. Don't expect one tonight, either. Here's what you're likely to see in Monday's press conference:

The selling points

Expect Obama's remarks Monday to be directed at individuals, just as they were during his Indiana speech. He'll point out that the plan will provide extended unemployment benefits, tax credits of up to $1,000 for families, partially refundable student tax credits and that more than 90% of the jobs created will be in the private sector.

 

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 20 -- In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration.

The instruction came in a motion filed with a military court in the case of five defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The motion called for "a continuance of the proceedings" until May 20 so that "the newly inaugurated president and his administration [can] review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically."

The same motion was filed in another case scheduled to resume Wednesday, involving a Canadian detainee, and will be filed in all other pending matters.

Such a request may not be automatically granted by military judges, and not all defense attorneys may agree to such a suspension. But the move is a first step toward closing a detention facility and system of military trials that became a worldwide symbol of the Bush administration's war on terrorism and its unyielding attitude toward foreign and domestic critics.

The legal maneuver appears designed to provide the Obama administration time to refashion the prosecution system and potentially treat detainees as criminal defendants in federal court or have them face war-crimes charges in military courts-martial. It is also possible that the administration could re-form and relocate the military commissions before resuming trials.

The motion prompted a clear sense of disappointment among some of the military officials here who had tried to make a success of the system, despite charges that the military tribunals were a legal netherworld. Military prosecutors and other commission officials here were told not to speak to the news media, according to a Pentagon official.

"It's over; I don't want to say any more," said one official involved in the process.

But the action was cheered by military and civilian defense attorneys.

"We welcome our new commander-in-chief and this first step towards restoring the rule of law," said Army Maj. Jon Jackson, a military defense attorney for Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, one of the Sept. 11 defendants.

"This is a good step in the right direction, although we still think that the unconditional withdrawal of all charges and shutting down this tainted system is warranted," said Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union. "The president's order leaves open the option of this discredited system remaining in existence."

Pretrial hearings for the 9/11 defendants were scheduled to resume Wednesday. Another case, involving Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15, was also about to begin.

The Bush administration opened a cluster of chain-link cages called Camp X-Ray on this naval base seven years ago, and on Jan. 11, 2002, a military flight delivered the first 20 suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters. In the ensuing years, nearly 800 prisoners would arrive.

But the military commissions system devised by the administration to try the detainees ran into numerous setbacks. The Supreme Court ruled that, contrary to administration claims, detainees at Guantanamo were entitled to challenge their detentions and that the naval base was not beyond the reach of federal law.

Eventually more than 550 detainees were released; only three were ever put on trial and convicted.

Global opinion turned dramatically against U.S. use of the facility. Organizations such as Amnesty International called it a "gulag." And both Obama and his opponent for the presidency,  Sen. John McCain, said they wanted it closed -- as, finally, did former president George W. Bush.

But former vice president Richard B. Cheney said late last year that Guantanamo should be kept open until "the end of the war on terror" -- a time, he noted, that "nobody can specify."

President Obama has acknowledged in recent interviews that shutting the facility is likely to be prolonged and complex. And the administration now faces a number of potentially daunting challenges to following through on the president's campaign promise. Obama is expected to sign an executive order soon that will lay out in detail his plan to empty the facility.

Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office as the nation's first African American president yesterday, summoning a vast crowd and a watching nation to the task of reviving a country in crisis.

The inauguration of the 44th president, who made "hope" and "change" the bywords of his improbable campaign, took place amid a building air of anticipation in Washington. A city that had braced for record-breaking attendance swelled with visitors who would, at least briefly, nearly double its population. Before dawn yesterday, more than 1 million people began streaming into the city to bear witness to the event, brushing aside the frigid temperatures and travel problems.

As he spoke, Obama looked out at a sea of admirers, some of whom had camped out overnight in tents or made long treks by bus and Metro. By the end of the day, those spectators lined the route of Obama's procession to the White House, chanting his name and straining for a glimpse of the new president.

Obama made only glancing references to the racial barrier that had fallen with his historic ascent. Instead, in an 18 1/2 -minute speech notable for its somber tone as much as its soaring rhetoric, he outlined the challenges of what he called "this winter of our hardship": a collapsing economy, wars on two fronts, a lack of confidence in government and enemies eager to destroy the American way of life.

"We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America," Obama told the throng, which stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

Obama was accompanied to the West Front of the Capitol by President Bush. At the stroke of noon, the man who had served not even a full term in the U.S. Senate became the nation's commander in chief, and at 12:04 p.m., he was sworn in by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Obama took the oath by stating his full given name, which he had once said opponents had used to try to set him apart from mainstream America.

It was the first time Roberts had administered the oath -- and the first time any chief justice had sworn in a president who voted against his confirmation -- and both men stumbled over the words. But the sight of the two youthful leaders -- Roberts, 53, the second-youngest chief justice, and Obama, 47, the fourth-youngest man elected president -- underscored the theme of generational change.

So did the presence of Michelle Obama, 45, and the couple's two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, dressed in candy-colored tones of blue and pink.

Continuity was marked by the swearing-in of former senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), 66, as vice president, the oath administered by 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.

Obama laid his hand on the burgundy-velvet-covered Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for his inauguration in 1861, and history again trembled. The chief justice that day was Marylander Roger B. Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision that said blacks could never be citizens. The Constitution, he said, recognized blacks as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations."

In his address, Obama struck an especially stern note on the country's economic distress, saying there had been a "collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age," leading to dire declines in the housing and job markets, the education system, and health care. He called for "a new era of responsibility" but devoted even more attention to a nation that has seen its collective morale shaken by wars abroad and an economic downturn at home.

Roland Burris, the man picked by embattled Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich to take President-elect Barack Obama's seat, appears today to be moving closer to winning an unusual showdown with Senate Democratic leaders.

A day after Burris's attempt to join the Senate was rejected by the chamber, Sen.  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). said Senate leaders are waiting for a ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court on whether the Illinois secretary of state must certify Burris's appointment by signing a document that is transmitted to the Senate. He suggested that decision could come as early as today or tomorrow and that the Senate would move quickly on a decision after that.

Reid, softening his tough rhetoric about not seating Burris and offering very warm praise for him after meeting the former Illinois attorney general for the first time this morning, said he hoped a decision could "come sooner rather than later."

Earlier this morning, House Majority Whip  Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of the most influential black members of Congress, said "I think he will be seated" on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Senate Democrats, once sharply opposed to allowing Burris to be seated because he was appointed by Blagojevich (D), are considering allowing him to serve as a way to end a confrontation that could drag on for weeks and distract from what they hope will be an end to a decade of gridlock on Capitol Hill. One idea being considered, Democratic officials said yesterday, is allowing Burris to be seated if he agrees not to run for election in 2010, allowing the party to recruit another candidate to defend the seat (Burris has lost multiple statewide races in Illinois).

Two of the most prominent African Americans in the House -- Clyburn and  Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), who had aspired to the Senate seat -- both said yesterday that they think the law stands behind Burris, who would replace Obama as the only African American member of the Senate.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) broke ranks to back Burris yesterday afternoon.

In a news conference this morning, Obama said he would accept Burris as his replacement in the Senate.

"This is a Senate matter. But I know Roland Burris, obviously; he's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant. If he gets seated then I'm going to work with Roland Burris, just like I work with all the other senators," Obama said at a press conference at his transition headquarters.

Burris, 71 and a former state attorney general, had pressed his case yesterday at the Senate over the objections of Democrats there and Obama. Once formally rejected, he found himself holding a news conference on the lawn outside the Capitol just minutes before new senators were sworn in. The man who has already had his own mausoleum constructed in Illinois showed no signs of backing down.

"He thinks he's got a shot, and he's an ambitious guy with a large ego," Don Rose, a political consultant in Chicago who has known Burris since the 1960s, said yesterday. "I'm not sure that separates him from anybody in the Senate. . . . He's paid a lot of dues, and he may feel he's paid his dues."

Despite being selected by Blagojevich, who is under investigation on corruption charges that include allegations that he sought to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Burris has said in recent days that he will accept no compromise that would limit his rights as a senator. He called his appointment "what the Lord has ordained," and his visit to the Capitol suggested Burris would let nothing stop him from adding "U.S. senator" to the list of accomplishments on his mausoleum in Chicago.

But Burris shunned confrontation, despite the impasse over the seat. He left after his meeting with Reid and Durbin quietly, without talking to reporters. Yesterday, with several advisers in tow, including former Baltimore mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, Burris was denied the privileges given to senators and was required to go through a metal detector at the visitors' entrance to the Capitol. The senator-designate hugged the man in charge of making sure he would not enter the Senate chamber, Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance W. Gainer, whom he has known for years from their mutual time in Illinois politics.

Before he accepted Barack Obama's offer to join his presidential ticket, Joe Biden got a promise from Obama: that he would be there for "every critical decision," Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Speaking to ABC's "This Week," Biden said he believes the vice president's role is to provide "the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice and recommendations he or she can make to a president to help them make some of the very, very important decisions that have to be made."

When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, "I said, 'I don't want to be picked unless you're picking me for my judgment. I don't want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. ... I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you'll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I'll get to be in the room.'"

Biden said President-elect Obama has kept the promise, having Biden in the room for all of his decisions about who will fill key posts in the administration.

Biden will have a specific assignment as the new administration gets under way, however. Come Inauguration Day, he will be the working families czar, so to speak.

On Sunday, Obama's transition team announced the new "White House Task Force on Working Families" -- a major initiative targeted at "raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America."

The initiative will be chaired by Biden.

Other members of the task force will include the secretaries of labor, health and human services, and commerce, as well as the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Domestic Policy Counsel, and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Biden said it's a "discrete job that's going to last only for a certain period of time."

"The one thing that we use as a yardstick of economic success of our administration: Is the middle class growing? Is the middle class getting better? Is the middle class no longer being left behind? And we'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives. I will be the guy honchoing that policy," he said.

Biden said he will have the authority to get a consensus among the task force -- but will use his relationship with the president if a consensus isn't reached.

"If in fact there is no consensus, [I'd] go to the president of the United States and say, 'Mr. President, I think we should be doing this, cabinet member so-and-so thinks that. You're going to have to resolve what it is we think we should do.' "

Obama has set up several key goals for the task force, including expanding education and training; improving work and family balance; a focus on labor standards, including workplace safety; and protecting working-family incomes and retirement security.

So what power will the new task force have in shaping policy?

According to the transition team, Biden and other members "will expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and public policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families."

"My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House," said Obama in a statement. "And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment."

And in line with the Obama team's pledge of full transparency, the task force will issue annual reports, available online to the public.

Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change To Win -- a group made up of seven unions -- hailed the announcement.

"[It] shows that President-elect Obama is committed to middle class families and change truly is coming to Washington. Working people finally have an administration that is willing and eager to take action to address their needs," she said in a statement. "The White House Task Force on Working Families is a vital first step toward restoring our economy and making government work for working people again."

In what ABC billed as Biden's first interview as vice president-elect, Biden also discussed the role he played in helping Sen. Hillary Clinton decide to accept Obama's offer to serve as his secretary of state.

"She's one of my close friends. And when this came forward, I did talk to her. She sought me out. I sought her out as well, to assure her that this was real," he said, adding that "there was a lot swirling around" at the time.

Biden said he does not know whether he played a "key" role in helping Clinton make her decision. "It wasn't so much convincing, but I -- they wanted to know my perspective, and I gave my perspective."

Biden also said that the nation's economy "is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," and the immediate goal is to pass another stimulus package to prevent it from "absolutely tanking."

"There is going to be real significant investment," Biden said. "Whether it's $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it's a number no one thought about a year ago.

"... The single most important thing we have to do as a new administration -- to be able to have impact on all of the other things we want to do, from foreign policy to domestic policy -- is we've got to begin to stem this bleeding here and begin to stop the loss of jobs in the creation of jobs," said Biden, who also said he had spoken with members of Congress from both parties about a new stimulus.

Obama, meanwhile, has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN Saturday. Watch what Obama has to say about the economy »

The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.