Patch on Politics

Look for a 1980-Style Romney Win, says Mary Matalin

The veteran GOP strategist visits Chicago and touts Romney • Will Illinois Democrats make income tax hike permanent in lame-duck session? • Teachers Retirement System may "bleed out".

Republican political strategist Mary Matalin predicts a 1980 redux on Election Day, with Mitt Romney emerging victorious by 7 percentage points in the popular vote. Matalin, 59, spoke Thursday evening at St. Xavier University in the Mount Greenwood community of Chicago alongside Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who believes the race will be much, much closer. "Just 2 to 3 points, favoring the president," Brazile said. Matalin and Brazile — who are close friends — went back and forth in a discussion of presidential politics and campaign war stories in SXU's Shannon Center before a crowd of 1,000 people.  Matalin, a Calumet City native who says she may never have left Chicago had the steel mills survived, allowed that she might be …

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Letters From The Editor

Patch Makes Key Editorial Announcements

Sites to launch in key primary states, first "Patch Military" going live.

The following is a press release from Patch headquarters.  --- NEW YORK, NY – Patch, the hyperlocal news, information, and community arm of AOL Huffington Post Media Group, today announced that it will launch 33 new sites in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina – the first three states to hold primaries in 2012. In addition, Patch has announced the launch of the first Patch Military site: Camp Pendleton Patch. “With its hyperlocal focus, Patch has the ability to be the eyes and ears for what is happening at the grassroots level all across the country,” said Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of AOL Huffington Post Media Group. “By expanding to key primary states, Patch positions itself squarely on the front lines of the …

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Local Voices: A Note From Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group

Today we launch a great new chapter for Patch.com, the national network of hyperlocal sites currently covering community life in 800 towns across America.

When Kenny Lerer and I started The Huffington Post on May 9, 2005, we would have been hard-pressed to imagine this moment. With The Huffington Post, the idea was to take the sort of conversations found around dinner tables and at book parties–about politics and books and art and music and food and sex–and put them online, open them up, and invite interesting people to participate, creating a one-stop site for news and opinion with an attitude, in real-time. Our merger with AOL, Patch's parent company, in February, allowed us to broadcast those conversations to a much wider audience. By combining The Huffington Post's attitude, journalistic acumen, and sheer energy with AOL's resources and technical expertise, we were able, as we say, to …

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Patch Parent AOL Announces Plans to Acquire Huffington Post

The transaction is expected to close late this quarter or early in the second quarter.

AOL, the parent company of Patch, today announced an agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the news, commentary and lifestyle website founded in 2005, and one of the fastest-growing web properties on the Internet. AOL is acquiring The Huffington Post for $315 million, with approximately $300 million coming from cash on hand. The combined companies will have 117 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. and 270 million worldwide, based on numbers from comScore, December 2010. AOL said the transaction will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way. As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post's co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and …

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