John Harris

"We have no doubt that traffic will dip—how much, we don't know—following the election," wrote Politico editors Jim VandeHei and John Harris in a memo to staff today.

In part, the memo is an explanation of how Politico will try to make the transition from 2008 to 2009, a year when news Web sites are expecting a large drop in traffic. But the memo also functions as a self-congratulatory backslap for the Web site's big year.

"This election has also been, in more modest but important ways, defined by Politico," they write. But how does Politico retain its readership when there's less outside-the-beltway enthusiasm?

They write:

For all our optimism and bullishness, we want to make clear that we understand—and everyone at Politico should understand—the sobering nature of these times.

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Politico editor-in-chief John Harris was on CNN's Reliable Sources over the weekend and discussed the press' love affair with Barack Obama:

Almost a couple years ago, you would send a reporter out with Obama, and it was like they needed to go through detox when they came back-- 'Oh, he's so impressive, he's so charismatic,' and we're kind of like, 'Down boy.'  read more »

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Bill biographer John Harris, in the Washington Post, writes that "the recent record makes it clear that Hillary Clinton has staked her future on precisely the same brand of centrist political strategy that her husband fashioned a decade ago -- using many of the same advisers and relying on familiar tactics.

"The strategy, confidants say, has three elements.

"On social issues, it is to reassure moderate and conservative voters with such positions as her support of the death penalty, and to find rhetorical formulations on abortion and other issues -- on which her position is more liberal -- that she is nonetheless in sympathy with traditional values. On national security, it is to ensure that she has no votes or wavering statements that would give the GOP an opening to argue that she is not in favor of a full victory in Iraq. In her political positioning generally, it is to find occasions to prominently work across party lines -- to argue that she stands for pragmatism over the partisanship that many centrist voters especially dislike about Washington."  read more »

Also in the piece, nice anecdotal stuff, a good point about the personal loyalty she's inspired, and details on her role in the early debacles of the Clinton White House.