Some Quick National GOP Items

--Is Jodi Rell going to retire rather than seek another term as governor of Connecticut? Nearly non-existent fundraising is re-fueling the longstanding rumors. If so, that would mean all three New England Republican governors are on their way out next year: Jim Douglas is not seeking re-election in Vermont, and Don Carcieri is term-limited in Rhode Island. Maine's Democratic guv, John Baldacci, is also term-limited.

--Hotline catches, but misses the irony in, Mitt Romney criticizing New Jersey's Jon Corzine for -- in Romney's words -- "spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money, money made on Wall Street" on his re-election campaign. Romney, of course, spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money, money made largely on Wall Street (he took Wall Street investors' private money to buy companies, which he stripped and polished and then sold to other Wall Street investors through IPOs), on his Presidential campaign.

--Catching up on Sarah Palin's strategy for tapping into the lucrative conservative marketplace, we now learn that she will soon announce the formation of something called "Stand Up For Our Nation." Not a great ring to the name, if you ask me -- and isn't even an acronym for anything. But I'll bet it will have a serious direct-mail budget once it gets going.

--If you missed the great fun of mocking Michael Steele's re-launch of the RNC's web site, you should catch up at TPM or other sites; but the fixed-up GOP.com (gone is the magnificent "What Up" column heading) is still pretty damn amusing. Also, Steele -- the comic relief of national politics -- was quoted yesterday saying "I'm the cow on the tracks," which I think stands beautifully without context.

--Funny, I've read a pretty fair amount of Solzhenitsyn, and I have no recollection of his depiction of the elaborate health-care insurance system.