MORNING READ

This year’s voter turnout, which wasn’t much of an improvement over the turnout four years ago, leads bloggers to offer different approaches to Republicans looking to improve on John McCain’s showing. Barack Obama’s inner circle during the campaign will become his brain trust in the White House, bloggers note. And Obama’s new presidential transition website looks just like his campaign site, according to conservative bloggers.

Between 126.5 million and 128.5 million Americans voted this year, which isn’t much more than the 124 million who voted in 2004, reports CNN’s Martina Stewart. McCain got about the same number of votes from Republicans as President Bush did four years ago, which means that he could have done better by winning more independent voters, writes Townhall’s Michael Medved. But Slate’s Mickey Kaus sees evidence that culturally conservative Republicans stayed home. Republicans could improve by calling for a tougher stance against illegal immigration, Kaus writes.

Obama’s campaign strategist David Axelrod and campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs will join Obama’s White House staff. MyDD’s Jonathan Singer hopes that they’re as good at governing as they were at campaigning. But Axelrod, a political operative like Karl Rove, could politicize the White House, writes PoliGazette’s Michael van der Galien, who notes that Obama has yet to include a moderate Republican in his team.

Obama’s new transition website may be hosted on a government web domain, but it looks just like his campaign site and even takes visitors’ e-mails for possible use in mailing lists, writes Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey. TalkingPointsMemo’s Josh Marshall notes that Obama, through his website, has already accomplished one radical change: he has put the vice president’s office back in the executive branch, not in the legislative branch, which is where Vice President Dick Cheney had it.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Turnout Same or Only Slightly Higher – M. Stewart, Political Ticker
Where’s That Turnout Boom? – Jim Geraghty, The Campaign Spot
CNN Finds 26 Million Voters – Michael Medved, Townhall.com
Sound of One Hand Sat On – Mickey Kaus, Kausfiles
Axelrod, Gibbs to Join White House – Jonathan Singer, MyDD
Axelrod to Go to White House – M. van der Galien, PoliGazette
Change You Can Give Your Personal Info For – Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
Obama Campaign Site Gets a ‘.Gov’ – Amanda Carpenter, Townhall
Truly Radical – Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo

OTHER NEWS SOURCES:
Democrats Craft Economic Plan – Washington Post
Obama Prepares for Presidency As Margins Widen – LA Times
Lieberman, After Backing McCain, Meets With Reid on Future – WSJ
Feingold Could Lead Foreign Relations – The Hill