DC Guy's Daily Political Reading The DC Guy October 29, 2006

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The following is a list of the stuff that I typically read every morning in order to stay on top of the news. It's a pretty substantial amount of reading, and generally takes me from 8 or so until 11 to get through all of it when Congress is in session. It's a bit easier when they're not, because less is being published.

Some of this stuff is subscription only and the price tags are pretty steep for someone who isn't using this for work - I'll note that in the description of the site. Generally, if you bookmark all of the free sites, you'll be pretty well informed, especially of the political comings and goings.

Anything marked with a requires a subscription.

This is the order that I usually peruse the news in the morning:

1.) CNN - Still the best news website out there. This will give you a general overview of what's going on in the world.

2.) Drudge Report - While this news is generally right-leaning, if there's political gossip or scandal going on, you'll hear it on Drudge first. It's also good for seeing what's going on internally in the media. Drudge often reports on the rankings of the cable and network news shows, book circulations, etc.

3.) FARK - This is the best place to get the most random stuff going on, and sometimes they'll catch something that you might not find later. Nearly every one of the "weird news" stories you hear on talk radio ends up coming off of FARK. Plus, its funny. This one you can skip if you're short on time.

4.) The Hotline's Wakeup Call - This is a great way to get up every morning. The Wakeup Call has a run down of all of the morning major headlines and quotables from folks, and also has a video recap of all of the relevant political comedy sketches from Letterman, Leno, Conan, Adam Corolla, Colbert, John Stewart and SNL. This is a must read each morning.

5.) National Journal's Earlybird - This comes as part of your overall Hotline subscription, and its emailed. Mainly headlines and major stories.

6.) CongressDailyAM - This is another paid subscription site that only publishes when Congress is in session. It provides excellent information on what's going on in Congress and the issues surrounding different legislation. Its a must read when Congress is in session.

7.) CQ Today - Congressional Quarterly is the grandaddy of them all when it comes to inside politics. While it often overlaps with CongressDaily, most folks in my capacity read both.

8.) RealClearPolitics - This is the #1 best free resource on the web. Up-to-date poll numbers, all of the major political stories from every major American and UK paper, and its updated around 4 PM each day. Throw in their blogwatch and you could get almost everything you need to know off this site. Its one of my favorites, and I usually leave it up all day long on my browser.

9.) Politics1.com - During election season, Politics1 is an excellent resource, as it provides local info on each of the different races across the country. It has a rundown of all the elected federal offices of each state, including primary dates and contenders, plus links to their websites. This is one of the better free sites out there.

10.) The Hotline - There's a reason why this thing costs $7000 a year: its the best. In depth, major reviews of every single story written in any paper worthwhile as well as all of the TV shows on all of the networks on every major issue. Published daily around 11 AM, this thing is the bible for lobbyists and politicians. Its funny (the headlines are hilarious) and you could only read this thing and have a good feel for everything that's going on. I would be lost without access to this. It may be 80 pages or so, but its worth reading cover to cover.

11.) House Race Hotline - The House race only version of the Hotline, which generally only comes out biweekly until the last eight months of a campaign and then its out daily. Great for learning the lay of the land across all the competitive districts.

12.) Roll Call and The Hill - Roll Call and The Hill are the two competing daily newspapers of Capitol Hill. You can go to their sites and get extracts of their articles, but you have to pay for subscriptions. Of all the subscriptions, these are the most affordable, generally running about $250 a year. Roll Call is the older, more staid of the two, but both are very good for seeing staff changes and for gossip. Think of them as the National Enquirer, but without making things up.

I also read a bunch of industry specific sites that I won't go into here because they don't really deal with politics, but these are the 12 sites I make an effort to read or skim every day. I would also suggest for the Republicans out there reading John Fund in the Wall Street Journal - their editorial page is good for conservative argument.

So there you have it. If you've got about $20k laying around, you can get access to all of this stuff and be as well read as I am. If you don't, you can hit all the free sites and be generally as well informed about the things you care about - which probably doesn't require as much detail as I need. Frankly, most of the value of the expensive sites is just that they collect all the stories so you save time having to read through everything. If I could only hit one site on that list, I would have to recommend Realclearpolitics as the top one.

Happy reading!