Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says Republicans must lead the American Revolution.

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) –  Three prominent GOP leaders kicked off a campaign Saturday to reshape their party's image, gathering at a restaurant in Northern Virginia for the first of a series of town hall meetings.

The goal of the initiative, called the National Council for a New America, is to connect Republican leaders with voters across the country to help get the party's electoral fortunes back on track.

"Certainly our party has taken its licks the last few cycles, but that's why we're here," said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. "The reality is the prescriptions coming out of Washington right now are not reflective of the mainstream of this country."

"It's time for us to listen a little bit, learn a little bit," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who advised Republicans to work on the party's message and "not be so nostalgic."

"I would say you can't beat something with nothing. The other side has something. I don't like it, but they have it," said Bush, who repeatedly praised President Obama's tactical approach to politics, and commended his 2008 campaign as "forward-looking."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney compared the GOP to Americans fighting the British during the Revolutionary War. "We are the party of the revolutionaries, they [Democrats] are the party of the monarchists," he told the overwhelmingly Republican crowd, saying the Republicans needed to "once again lead the American Revolution."

He blamed Washington for setting in motion policies that led to the collapse of the housing market, and painted his party's current minority status as a boon.

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Limbaugh did concede the downside of Specter's defection.

(CNN) — Conservative host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday he isn't sorry to see Arlen Specter leave the GOP — and that many Republicans wish the Pennsylvania senator would take a few others with him when he goes.

"A lot of people say, 'Well, Specter, take [Sen. John] McCain with you. And his daughter [Meghan]. Take McCain and his daughter with you if you're gonna…" he told listeners, dissolving in laughter.

"…..It's ultimately good. You're weeding out people who aren't really Republicans," he said.

Limbaugh did concede the downside of Specter's defection. "It makes the Senate essentially as big a slam dunk for Obama and the Democrats as the House of Representatives already is," he said.

Earlier this month, Specter said Limbaugh did have a tendency to make "provocative" statements, but told radio host Howard Stern he didn't have a problem with the conservative talker. "Do I like Limbaugh?… yeah, I like him," he said then.

UPDATE: Late Tuesday afternoon, Meghan McCain fired back on Twitter. "RED TIL I'M DEAD BABY!!! I love the republican party enough to give it constructive criticism, I love my party and sure as hell not leavin!"

President Obama is asking supporters to canvass for the budget in an online video.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As Congress considers his budget proposal, President Obama is back in campaign mode Wednesday, heading West to plug the plan on the road, and online with a video pitch to supporters.

"I'm asking you to head outside this Saturday to knock on some doors, talk to some neighbors, and let them know how important this budget is to our future," he says in a four-minute video appeal included in a message sent from former campaign manager David Plouffe, who now heads the Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America effort, to the group's massive e-mail list.

OFA is directing supporters to canvass this weekend — in their neighborhoods, by e-mail and on Facebook — in support of the president's budget plan. And they've been asked to lobby lawmakers, using an online tool that will help them contact members of Congress.

The group boasts an e-mail list of millions, though turnout for its first post-election organizing event — a weekend of house parties to help volunteers push for the president's stimulus plan — drew far fewer than any pre-Election Day effort.

Steele plans an agressive PR push for his party.

(CNN) — Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says his party is going to launch an "off the hook" public relations campaign that will update the GOP’s image by translating it to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings."

The new GOP leader told the Washington Times that the party’s defeat in states like North Carolina and Virginia made it clear they needed a new approach.

“We need messengers to really capture that region — young, Hispanic, black, a cross section…” he said in an interview published Thursday. “We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

He added, jokingly, that “we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”

Steele described the new multi-platform PR offensive as “avant-garde, technically. It will come to [the] table with things that will surprise everyone — off the hook.” Asked whether that meant cutting-edge tactics, Steele demurred. “I don't do 'cutting-edge,’” he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

Steele, who began a massive personnel overhaul at the RNC shortly after his election, said he has started meeting weekly with congressional Republicans. He said he’ll be gathering input from House and Senate leaders, not giving instructions — but criticized national Republican leadership’s focus on party unity as a top priority, saying the failure to devote itself instead to developing fresh faces had cost the GOP.

“We missed the mark in the past, which is why we are in the crapper now,” he said. “We had the White House, the Senate and the House and were not building a farm team over the last years. We could have been ahead of Democrats and their 50-state strategy.”

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Palin will not be attending this year’s CPAC, confirm organizers.

(CNN) — Sarah Palin will not be attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington later this month, her office confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

The Alaska governor had been expected to serve as the headline attraction at the three day event, which is also scheduled to include conservative icons like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter. The presidential straw poll conducted at the annual Washington gathering is widely viewed as a reliable bellwether of conservative support. Several of the GOP’s past — and potentially future — presidential hopefuls are also slated to address the gathering, including Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

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Gov. Charlie Crist was one of 19 governors, including four Republicans, to release a joint letter publicly urging Congress to to pass the president’s stimulus package.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will introduce President Obama tomorrow at a Florida town hall meeting plugging the stimulus plan.

Crist was one of 19 governors, including four Republicans, to release a joint letter publicly urging Congress to to pass the president’s stimulus package — a move that earned him an appreciative phone call from Obama.

The Florida governor has said he wants to help Obama push for the measure. The bill is currently being considered by the Senate after failing to draw GOP support in the House.

“Florida has taken prudent steps to cut taxes for our people and balance our budget in these increasingly difficult times,” Crist said in a statement released by the White House Monday. “Any attempts at federal stimulus must prioritize job creation and targeted tax relief for small business owners. I am eager to welcome President Obama to the Sunshine State as he continues to work hard to reignite the US economy.”

Tuesday’s event in Fort Myers — the second of Obama’s stimulus town halls — will be held the same day the administration is slated to announce its economic recovery plan.

The president is asking supporters to host gatherings next weekend to push for his economic stimulus plan.

(CNN) — President Obama sent a message to supporters Monday personally calling them action behind his agenda for the first time since his inauguration.

The president’s message was sent by Organizing for America — the former campaign apparatus that is now a two-week-old arm of the Democratic National Committee — to anyone who was involved with an Obama house party during the campaign season.

The president is asking them to host similar gatherings next weekend to push for his economic stimulus plan. That package, which passed the House last week without Republican support, is currently being considered by the Senate.

“I hope to sign the recovery plan into law in the next few weeks,” said Obama in the e-mail. “But I need your help to spread the word and build support. … You can help restore confidence in our economy by making sure your friends, family, and neighbors understand how the recovery plan will impact your community.”

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OFA is urging supporters to host stimulus-related house parties next weekend.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Obama camp is calling the president’s supporters into action behind his agenda for the first time since his inauguration.

Organizing for America — the former campaign apparatus that is now a two-week-old arm of the Democratic National Committee — is sending an e-mail to anyone who was involved with an Obama house party during the campaign season, asking them to host similar gatherings next weekend to push for the president’s economic stimulus plan. That package, which passed the House this week without Republican support, is currently being considered by the Senate.

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A new analysis shows few 'Red States' remain.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The nation was evenly divided during the bitterly fought 2000 campaign, but the election night map was not: Viewers saw a sea of red flooding most of the country, with blue states ringing the coasts.

Two cycles later, an analysis of a year’s worth of polling data released Wednesday suggests a far different electoral landscape, and a shift more dramatic than even the Democrats’ solid 2008 showing might suggest: an ocean of blue surrounding a shrinking red island in the center of the nation.

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Congress is surrounded.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Despite ambitious post-9/11 security measures, Washington does remain alarmingly vulnerable to one recurring airborne threat: the humble snowflake.

DC residents are used to derision from chillier quarters of the country over their city’s occasional paralysis in the face of winter weather. After a few inches of snow and some early morning sleet in the first half of the week resulted in a wave of Washington-area shutdowns, the city’s most famous Midwestern transplant couldn’t resist a dig or two at his new hometown’s expense.

"My children's school was canceled today, because of what? Some ice," President Obama told a group of business leaders visiting the White House Wednesday.

"As my children pointed out, in Chicago school is never canceled," he said, adding that his daughter Sasha observed that schoolchildren there would even have recess outdoors.

The president joked that he would have to instill some “flinty Chicago toughness” into his neighbors. "When it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don't seem to be able to handle things.”

That lesson may have to wait for the next winter storm: after a late-day wave of precipitation, DC's forecast for tomorrow is sunny, with highs in the upper 30s.

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh responded Monday to recent reported comments by President Obama.

(CNN) – Radio host Rush Limbaugh said Monday that President Obama is “frightened of me.”

“He’s obviously more frightened of me than he is [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell,” Limbaugh told listeners. “He’s more frightened of me, then he is of say, [House Minority Leader] John Boehner, which doesn’t say much about our party.”

Limbaugh’s comments followed reports Obama warned GOP congressional leaders last week that they should stop listening to the conservative talker, who had said on air he wanted the new president to fail.

"Now this is the great unifier," he told listeners Monday. "This is the man who's going to unify everybody and usher in a new era of bipartisanship and love."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave reporters the administration's latest message to Limbaugh at Monday's press briefing: "Tell him I said, 'Hi,'" he joked.

Staff for the new, wired president found themselves without e-mail Monday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Obama has his blackberry — but his tech-savvy press operation has been without e-mail for most of the day, and it’s not yet clear when they’ll get it back.

Obama press staffers had just made the leap to their official White House e-mail addresses Monday morning when the Outlook server went down. They weren’t the only ones affected by the crash, which also hit the first lady’s office and other White House offices.

An apologetic Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters at 1:30 pm press briefing that the server meltdown was responsible for the delay in responding to their e-mailed questions. But late Monday, nearly six hours since the server first went haywire, staffers still can’t use their official e-mail addresses — and a press aide could not tell CNN when the press office might be able to start sending and receiving messages again.

Related: Access to 'BarackBerry' limited to small, select group

New York Gov. David Paterson announced his pick of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.

(CNN) — More than three times as many New Yorkers in a new poll blame Caroline Kennedy and her team for the messy process surrounding the search for Hillary Clinton’s Senate replacement than fault the state’s governor, David Paterson — although, on balance, his final selection meets with their approval.

Forty-nine percent of voters surveyed in a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday said Kennedy and her advisers were to blame, to 15 percent who pointed to Paterson. Twelve percent blame both, and 24 percent are undecided.

Overall, the state’s voters approve of Paterson’s selection of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, backing the pick 46 to 30 percent, with 24 percent undecided. That margin is higher upstate, where the choice of the Albany-born Gillibrand draws the approval of 55 percent of the region’s voters to 25 percent who disapprove. In New York City, that margin is far smaller: there, the conservative Democrat draws the approval of 41 percent to 34 percent who disapprove. But in the state’s suburbs, her edge falls within the survey’s 3 point margin of error: 35 percent approve, 32 percent do not.

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Watch McCain discuss his relationship with Palin.

(CNN) – Despite the post-election battle between Sarah Palin and John McCain's campaign advisors, the former Republican presidential candidate told CNN’s Larry King both members of the GOP ticket remain “very close.”

McCain — who has been edging his way back into the spotlight Palin never quite left — dismissed questions over his running mate’s criticism of his campaign team. “Listen, I think the world of Governor Palin, her husband Todd, her family, I'm honored that she would run with me,” he said in an interview Thursday.

“And look, whenever there is a losing campaign there is always a little bit of back and forth, and it happens post-mortem. I am so grateful to have her as a friend, and I believe that she represents a lot to the Republican Party in the future. I think she has a big role to play.”

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Jennifer Lopez and performed with her husband Marc Anthony Tuesday night at the Western Ball.

(CNN) — Attendees at tonight’s presidential inaugural balls, like the 11,500 at the official Western ball, were lucky to spend maybe 20 minutes of their night with the president. The rest of the time, they were waiting — and not just for the first family to make an appearance.

They waited to get through security. To check their coats. To buy drink tickets, then to exchange those tickets for plastic glasses of chardonnay and mid-priced champagne. To cycle through buffet lines for plates of pasta and dinner rolls, which they’ll eat standing up.

With a few exceptions – like the events dedicated to military personnel, young people and residents of Washington, DC – most balls featured states grouped together by region. The Western ball drew 11,500 guests, from places like Oregon and Idaho to Montana and Guam. Californians like Director Ron Howard and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines mixed with residents of Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska. Both were serenaded by soft rock standards and BeeGees classics. Later in the evening, singer Marc Anthony was set to take the stage.

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Watch Obama advisor David Axelrod on John King's new show, State of the Union.

(CNN) — Hours after Israel and Hamas both said they would abide by a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, top Obama advisor David Axelrod told CNN’s John King Sunday to expect the president-elect to take diplomatic action worldwide “early and aggressively” after he’s sworn in, using career diplomats and special envoys.

“I think that the events around the world demand that he act quickly, and I think you'll see him act quickly,” he said in an appearance on State of the Union.

Watch John King's interview with David Axelrod

He also said again that Obama will be meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “begin an orderly and responsible withdrawal from Iraq. He will be doing many of the other things that you heard him commit to during the campaign.”

Axelrod and other senior Obama advisors have spent the past few weeks in discussions with congressional leadership on the shape of a stimulus package that currently stands at roughly $850 million.

“Well, first of all, let me say I think it's telling that [Obama’s] first acts happened before he was president,” the senior aide told King Sunday. “He came to town two weeks early to begin working on an economic recovery package, because getting this economy moving again is absolutely paramount. And so he is going to continue to work on that.

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Sink is not running for Senate.

(CNN) – Democrat Alex Sink said Friday that she would skip the state’s 2010 Senate contest.

“Over the past several weeks, I have given serious and careful thought to my own future and, more importantly, to the future of our state,” Sink, Florida’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “And I am extremely grateful for the support and advice so many friends and fellow Floridians have shared. I believe my skills and abilities are of greatest use here in Florida, where I am honored to serve as Chief Financial Officer. And I will run for re-election as Chief Financial Officer to continue being a fiscal watchdog on behalf of the people of Florida.”

Likely frontrunners in both parties have now taken themselves out of the race to succeed retiring Florida Sen. Mel Martinez: Last week, Republicans looking to keep the seat in GOP hands were disappointed when Jeb Bush, the state’s popular former governor, said he would not be a candidate in 2010.

If Sink had entered the race, she would have been a heavy primary favorite and a formidable fall candidate.

Democratic State Sen. Dan Gelber said Friday that with Sink out of the running, “I expect to officially enter the race in the coming weeks.” Rep. Kendrick Meek, a fellow Democrat, is the only candidate in any party to have officially announced his candidacy.

Pastor Rick Warren praised President-elect Obama's decision to invite an openly gay bishop to participate in inauguration festivities.

(CNN) – Rick Warren offered an olive branch to another minister delivering an inaugural invocation — an openly gay Episcopal bishop who had been critical of the evangelical pastor over his support for California’s Proposition 8.

The California minister praised President-elect Obama’s selection of Eugene V. Robinson to deliver the invocation at the kickoff inaugural event.

Obama “has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground," Warren said in a statement released Wednesday. "I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen.”

Warren, who is delivering the invocation at the Tuesday swearing-in ceremony, drew fire from some Obama supporters over his opposition to same sex marriage and abortion rights.

Robinson had called Warren’s inclusion “really, really unfortunate” because of his support for Proposition 8, which barred same-sex marriage.

“It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would,” Robinson told Beliefnet last month.

“…This particular choice [of Warren] is not about having everyone at the table for a discussion or some sort of general forum. Every choice related to who does what at the inauguration is highly symbolic, and I think the transition team failed to ask the question of what, symbolically, this might say to some of our citizens.”

Robinson said at the time his disappointment would not affect his plans to attend President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Robinson became the U.S. Episcopal church’s first openly gay bishop in 2003.

(CNN) — The first openly gay priest ordained by a major Christian denomination will deliver the invocation at the kickoff inauguration event Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial.

The Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, has accepted an invitation issued by the Obama team prior to the announcement of the Rev. Rick Warren’s selection to deliver the invocation at the president-elect’s swearing-in, Politico reported Monday.

Robinson had been a critic of Warren’s role, calling his inclusion in the event “really, really unfortunate” because of the California minister's support for California's Prop. 8, which barred same-sex marriage.

“It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would,” Robinson told Beliefnet last month.

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