Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy clearly would be happy if Paul G. Kirk -- a longtime Democratic Party insider and Kennedy family associate -- were named to succeed his father, the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

But Kennedy, who represents a Rhode Island district in Congress, declined to comment on reports that he and his brother, investment banker Ted Kennedy Jr., had recommended that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick appoint Kirk to the seat on an interim basis until a special election is held Jan. 19.

"Paul was my dad's most loyal guy," Kennedy said in a brief interview outside the House chamber on Wednesday afternoon. "My dad thought the world of Paul. I think the world of Paul."

Kirk is a former aide to Sen. Kennedy and a former Democratic National Committee chairman. He acted as the senator's attorney and is chairman of the board of directors of the John F. Kennedy Library.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's political action committee reported giving $5,000 to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., the same week it accepted an identical amount from former Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi.

Pickering, like Vitter, is a conservative Christian Republican accused of having an extramarital affair linked to the "C Street" townhouse in Southeast Washington that is at the center of a spate of GOP sex scandals.

Pickering's otherwise dormant CHIP PAC made its first donation of the year to Haley's PAC on Aug. 15 -- four days after the governor gave to Vitter's 2010 re-election campaign -- according to a Sept. 20 filing with the Federal Election Commission. The two checks comprise all of the month's activities for Haley's PAC, which has just $13,281.37 in the bank and has made only one other contribution this year.

Is it just a coincidence?

Democrats on the receiving end of a presidential push to postpone political plans are understandably unhappy that the most powerful man on the planet is picking sides.

But, as White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday morning, it's nothing new.

Long before President Obama sent word to New York Gov. David A. Paterson that he shouldn't run for re-election in 2010, President George W. Bush and his advisers threw elbows in every corner of the political ring.

For every Paterson whose work is no longer deemed helpful by Obama, there's an ex-Sen. Robert C. Smith who believes Bush broke a promise to back him over primary challenger John E. Sununu in 2002.

Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time former Defense secretary, has a well-chronicled penchant for posing his own questions and then answering them.

So does someone working in the Obama administration.

The New York Times reported this weekend that President Obama had send an emissary to New York Gov. David A. Paterson to ask him not to run in the 2010 election. Paterson, the former lieutenant governor who took over from resigned Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March 2008, has approval ratings that are near rock bottom.

And the story included this trip-down-memory-lane nugget:

"Is there concern about the situation in New York? Absolutely," the second administration official said Saturday evening. "Has that concern been conveyed to the governor? Yes.

The faces and issues change, but media strategies are timeless.

Just in time for the Jewish New Year this weekend, the Republican National Committee is dabbling in a little chutzpah.

The RNC sent out a link Tuesday to a video clip of then-President George W. Bush endorsing then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004.

Not so long ago -- say, nine months give or take -- the RNC was Bush's political operation and Republicans would have been ecstatic to see Specter, a notorious party-bucker, stand with the GOP president on anything.

But today, Specter, who has since switched to the Democratic Party, is getting campaign help from President Obama in Philadelphia. So now, his onetime ties to Bush are an issue for the RNC.

Remember the allegation leveled against the congressional "Blue Dogs" that was a meme in July? The one that said the members of that coalition of center-right Democrats are in the pockets of insurers, because the health care industry is filling their campaign treasuries with cash?

While some members of the Blue Dogs and their political action committee have been heavily funded by stakeholders in the health care debate -- including to a notable degree insurers -- donations to the PAC actually dried up a bit over the summer.

It's not that doctors, drug companies, insurers and lobbyists have stopped giving to the Blue Dogs. It's just that the fundraising haul for the centrist coalition's PAC for July and August was way down from its pace in May and June.

That's just one small measure -- the quarterly October filings for each member will tell the full story of who's getting what from stakeholders -- but it's worth taking a look at.

Democrat Rob Miller's campaign war chest just got a whole lot heavier.

Miller is the Marine Corps veteran challenging Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who took the opportunity afforded by a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to yell "Lie. You lie," at President Obama.

Progressive Democrats took that as a cue to donate to his opponent, and accounts earmarked for Miller on the progressive Website Actblue jumped from a few thousand dollars to $105,943 between the speech and 9:15 a.m. on Thursday.

Democrat Blanche L. Lincoln's elevation to chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee makes her the first woman -- and the first Arkansan -- to head the committee with jurisdiction over farm policy.

Tiny but very rural Vermont has been home to five Agriculture Committee chairmen, the largest number for any state since the panel's inception in 1825. The last Vermonter to hold the position, from 1987 to 1995, was Patrick J. Leahy, the Democrat who currently heads the Judiciary Committee.

Lincoln is taking the Ag Committee gavel from Democrat Tom Harkin, who was only the second senator from the farm state of Iowa to ever head the panel. Harkin shifted over to take the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee vacated by the Aug. 25 death of Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

If former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling runs as a Republican for the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward M. Kennedy, he'll have a lot of persuading to do to raise money from his former employers.

A review of campaign finance records dating back to the 1979-1980 election cycle shows that donors who listed the Boston Red Sox as their employer gave $46,600 to Democratic candidates, political action committees and party organizations, while just $9,550 to Republicans and their PACs and organizations. The latter included a $2,300 donation Schilling, who is registered at an independent but long associated with Republicans, made to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

In Arizona, where Schilling pitched the Diamondbacks to a World Series title in 2001, Diamondbacks employees have been far more generous to the GOP. They gave $151,550 to Republicans, much of it to McCain, and $13,950 to Democrats.

House Republicans are asking their supporters for ideas on health care through an online survey -- after months of producing nothing in the way of a comprehensive plan for overhauling the health care system.

Are they that hard up for ideas? Aren't they sent here to study the issues and help make policy based on their expertise?

Instead of the Party of No, they appear to be aiming for the Party of Yes/No/Undecided.

I can't make this stuff up. So here's the questionnaire in its entirety (most of it is after the jump). Oh, and by the way, the folks at the National Republican Congressional Committee want you to contribute your money after you give them your thoughts.

Access Issues

Would you favor a plan for the government to provide a tax credit to individuals who do not get health insurance through their employer to enable them to buy insurance directly from insurers?

• Yes
• No
• Undecided

Do you favor requiring insurers to offer coverage to ALL applicants regardless of their general health or any pre-existing medical condition?

• Yes
• No
• Undecided

Do you favor expanding Medicaid, the government program that pays medical bills of poor Americans, to cover virtually all adults with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level at a cost of $440 billion over the next decade?

• Yes
• No
• Undecided