Patience. That was the magic word invoked by the five conservatives participating in the 2009 Bradley Symposium, hosted yesterday by the Hudson Institute at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown Washington.

This edition of the annual panel discussion was entitled "Making Conservatism Credible Again," and brought together pundits and elected officials to discuss why conservatism is on the outs and what conservatives can do about it. The conclusion was that the movement is just lost at the moment and Americans will come around again, eventually.

"We'll have to practice another virtue, which is patience," said Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R). "We're going to have to spend some time in the penalty box. And our fellow citizens are going to eventually say, 'Alright, we'll listen. Did you learn anything? Did you hear us? Do you have any new, good ideas for us?'"

Later, Daniels said, "The system seems to find an equilibrium, and it will again." (more...)

While still extemely early in the Senate confirmation process, 55% of American voters approve of President Obama's choice to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a new Quinnipiac poll (May 26-June 1, 3097 RV, +/- 1.8%). Just 25% disapprove of his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

"So far the Republicans have barely laid a glove on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "There may be disputes within the Beltway about her nomination, but she is still playing well in Peoria."

The poll also found Obama with a 59% job approval rating, about where it's been over the last three months. In the generic congressional vote, 42% said they would vote for a Democrat in their district and 32% would vote for a Republican. Democrats in Congress get a 43%/45% approval/disapproval rating (about where it was three months ago), while Republicans' rating (30%/56%)has remained constant as well.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading a couple of pieces from dramatically different viewpoints on George Tiller that appeared on the RCP front page today:  Melissa Harris-Lacewell and George Jonas. Once you've read those, then read this and tell me who has the better argument.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Virginia, released less than a week before the June 9 Democratic primary for governor, finds Terry McAuliffe leading Creigh Deeds by 6 points, with Brian Moran finishing 9 points back.

McAuliffe 35 - Deeds 29 -Moran 26

In potential general election matchups with Republican nominee Bob McDonnell, Deeds performed best -- though all three Dems trail the former attorney general.

McDonnell 44 - Deeds 43
McDonnell 47 - McAuliffe 40
McDonnell 48 - Moran 37

PPP released a poll yesterday showing Deeds with a small lead in the Democratic primary. With turnout expected to be low, as is usual in Virginia gubernatorial primaries, no one is quite sure what will happen Tuesday.

"Accordingly, I have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate immediately what led to the disclosure of this information and to make recommendations to prevent a similar disclosure."

That was Nancy Pelosi today, calling for an investigation of the accidental posting to the web yesterday of hundreds of pages of details of nuclear facilities around the country.

The Obama administration insists that US national security was not harmed by this embarrassing mistake, but apparently the Speaker disagrees and feels this is a burning issue that we absolutely must get to the bottom of to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi remains uninterested in establishing a bipartisan investigation to verify her shocking claim last month that the CIA in 2002 willfully and repeatedly lied to her about the enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that the Agency was employing against high value terrorist detainees.

Apparently, the notion that the CIA is lying to members of Congress or, conversely, that the person two heart beats away from the Presidency is smearing the US intelligence community in order to cover her own political ass, does not deserve further investigation and should remain a game of he-said, she-said. In other words, Pelosi is saying the American people do not deserve to know the truth.

But at least we'll spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours making sure some low level staffer doesn't accidentally post some semi-innocuous government info to the World Wide Web in the future. So thanks very much for that, Nancy.

10:22:  With 3/4 of the vote in, it looks as though Christie will hold onto a solid lead to carry into the general election.  Between this and the Virginia gubernatorial race, we should have two absolute barnburning elections for 2009.  Can the New Jersey GOP break the curse of underperforming early polling?  Is Virginia really a blue state?  We'll find out in November!

10:04: 56% in, and the Newark Times-Ledger calls it for Christie.  That's a relief for New Jersey Republicans, since Christie was largely considered the strongest candidate Republicans could field.  That said, there's still the question of the margin.  If this ends up under 10%, the argument is that Christie has work to do to solidify his Republican base, and Lonegan may cause some problems by withholding an endorsement or negotiating for a larger role in the general election campaign.  We'll keep following this until we get a better sense of what the final spread will be.

9:54:  With 50% in, Christie's lead is down to 13 points -- 55% to 42%.  I think Christie will more likely than not pull this off, but I think it will be closer than he would have liked.

9:40:  Once again, Christie's lead seems to have stabilized.  40% in at still a 15-point lead.  We'll let you know what is up when 50% are in.

9:25:  1/3 of the precincts are in now.  Lonegan continues to chip away at Christie's lead.  56%-42%.

9:13: 24% of the precincts in, and Lonegan is only 15% behind Christie.  With 30% in Cumberland county, Lonegan is only 8% behind.  This is not good news for Christie.

9:08: With 20% of the precincts in, Christie seems to have stabilized at 58%.

9:03:  With 19/92 precincts in Cumberland County counted, this could be getting really interesting.  Christie is leading, but only by 11 points.  Franks won 53%-46% over Schundler in 2001 while losing by 15 statewide.

8:59: This could be getting interesting.  15% of the votes are in, and Christie is down to a 57%-40% lead.  If this is within 10%, it will be portrayed as a blow to Christie.

8:44: With 6% in, Christie is down to 59%-39%.

8:35: With 2% reporting, Christie's lead has shrunk to 60-37%.

8:34:  We have some early results from Cumberland County in the southeast.  Christie is leading 72% to 26%.  That is substantially better than the moderate candidate did in 2001 or 2005 (around 50% both times).  Probably a good sign for Christie.

8:31:  Jon Corzine is declared the winner with 34 precincts in.  Chris Christie is ahead 2,209 votes to 1,147 votes (to 112 for Rick Merkt) with .5% of the precincts in.  Obviously still early.

8:22: Three precincts are in (out of 6000+), and Christie's lead is holding.  Of course, these precincts could all be in Christie's home town, so difficult to read too much into this

8:13PM: Preliminary results trickling in:  Christie up 234 to 130.  Corzine up 38 to 8.

8:00PM: Aaaaaand the polls are closed.

7:52PM:  We're about 8 minutes from poll closing time.  If anyone knows of a site where I can get county-by-county returns, please e-mail me at strende@realclearpolitics.com.  I've found statewide results, but those aren't nearly as interesting!

New Jersey Republicans go to the polls today to elect a gubernatorial candidate (incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine faces token opposition).  Polls close at 8pm.

You can read my in-depth preview here, but the bottom line is that public polling in the race has shown Attorney General Chris Christie leading former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan by double digits.  But turnout is apparently extremely light, which at least in theory could help Lonegan pull off the upset.

If I can find a decent link, I plan to liveblog the results, starting at 8.

A new poll of the potential 2012 GOP primary field from CNN/Opinion Research Corp. shows a log jam of three candidates at the top. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and current Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are in a statistical dead heat according to the survey conducted May 14-17 with a 4.5% margin of error:

Huckabee 22
Palin 21
Romney 21
Gingrich 13
Jeb Bush 6
Someone Else 10

In related news, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who announced today he would not be seeking a third term, dodged questions today about running in 2012 while adding that he believes the GOP needs "new ideas and new faces."

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds Americans' initial support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "similar to what Gallup initially found for past nominees who were confirmed by the Senate, including Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Samuel Alito. Americans were slightly more positive toward John Roberts' nomination."

For Sotomayor, 54% approve of her nomination, while 24% are not in favor of it and 19% have no opinion.

"If we lose our sense of discipline now, in no time we'll look just like Michigan or Illinois, or, Heaven forbid, California."- Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

“We had to figure out how to deal with a former president who was just lying, engaging in bald-faced lies." - Barack Obama, quoted in Richard Wolffe's new book,  discussing Bill Clinton's presence in the Democratic primary fight.