As expected, the moderate Islamist party Ennahda is headed to victory in Tunisia's first post-dictatorship elections. Party leaders—who are likely to form a coalition with liberals—say the government's first priorities will be "economic development and internal security."

CNN's Western Republican presidential debate, held earlier tonight in Las Vegas, was quite a doozy. Of course, the highlight was Mitt Romney and Rick Perry's knock-down, drag-out fight over illegal immigration.

What's going on with Rick Perry and Mitt Romney? Perry—who more or less slept through his first GOP debates—aggressively jumped on frontrunner Romney in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, earning an enthusiastic response from Romney, who gently touched Perry and attempted to teach the Texas governor the rules. Of the debate. You can smell the testiness! All the drama, and tension, of two coked-up frat brothers arguing about politics at 6 a.m.! And poor Anderson Cooper, the supposed moderator, just sitting there there on the sidelines.

Iowa Republicans have tentatively agreed to host their first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses on January 3, 2012, to fend off the other annoying states who have been moving up their elections. Meanwhile, no one has heard of any of the candidates.

To apply for a photo ID—now required of voters under a new Tennessee law—96-year-old Dorothy Cooper gathered up a bunch of documents and took them all to her local photo ID office in Chattanooga. But a clerk said her docs didn't prove that her last name was really Cooper, and denied her application. Score one for the purity of the ballot box!

West Virginia's acting governor, Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin won tonight's special gubernatorial election despite the fact that, according to his opponent, he loves Obamacare, loves it so much he wants to gay-marry it. There'll be another election in 2012. [AP]

A lot is changing on the gay rights landscape. The military - once a home for staunch homophobia - is now one of the more welcoming employers for openly gay people. Where the last Democratic president sat down and signed the Defense Of Marriage Act into law, the current Democratic president is on a mission to tear it down.

So! A Texas constable says his 2012 election opponent, who just so happens to be a police chief, sent porn pictures to his government-issued cellular ConstablePhone—not to brighten his workday, but to sully his reputation. But maybe it's all just a misunderstanding?

In what some called a sort of a Jew d'Etat, Republican Bob Turner defeated Democrat David Weprin yesterday in a special election to fill the empty congressional seat in New York's Anthony Weiner-stained 9th district. Turner's win represented the end of an 88-year hold on the seat by Democrats in a district where they outnumber Republicans three-to-one. And while there are a few theories floating around as to what caused the tidal shift, Jon Stewart had a firm grip on one in particular on tonight's Daily Show.

Things are, by every measure, looking terrible for Democrats in New York's 9th district, where voters will decide on Anthony Weiner's replacement this Tuesday. Despite the seat's 3:1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans, David Weprin trails GOP nominee Bob Turner 50-44 in the latest poll from Siena University. But the reasons why may not be what you think.

Now that the American journalism establishment has been almost completely replaced by the Twitter account @depressionbook, how will the twenty or so Americans who care about politics receive their news about the presidential campaign? The answer: Babies.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the presidential candidate whom every single political junkie in America is rapidly learning about, has won ten straight elections in Texas since 1984. And do his vanquished foes ever have some stories! Oh, the stories that they have.

Joining the Tour de Grift Express, the Buss de Bachmann, and all the other Republican buses burning up fuel on America's highways this summer (don't worry, it's probably all biodiesel) is this sleek new model just unveiled by the Rick Perry campaign in Iowa. Grand!

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has abandoned his sad quest for the presidency after a disappointing third-place finish in yesterday's Iowa straw poll. He told staff Sunday morning.

Looking for a candidate who comes across like a thinly-veiled George W. Bush caricature from some forgotten mid-2000s political satire? Good news! Rick Perry just announced his candidacy for president. (Of all of the United States.) And he made it through his announcement speech without executing a single innocent person!

The polls are now open in Wisconsin for the big event: Six recall elections targeting incumbent Republican state senators, in a backlash against Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee union law and other budget decisions, with the potential for control of the state Senate to be flipped to the Democrats after just seven months of one-party GOP government.

Remember when a Mitt Romney political action committee received a $1 million donation from "W Spann LLC," a mysterious company that was created in March and dissolved in July? And we all thought it was al Qaeda or Dr. Claw or someone? Turns out it was just a regular old rich guy!

Wisconsin Democrats have easily fended off a Republican ploy in the state Senate recalls, with the official Dem candidates in each of six races easily defeating Republican activists who also filed in the Democratic primaries. But Republicans have not failed to reap some advantages from the situation.

Jon Huntsman has his name back, bringing to an end one of the more amusing chapters of the early presidential campaign.

Thai opposition party Pheu Thai has won a majority in Thailand's parliamentary elections, likely making Yingluck Shinawatra the country's first female prime minister. Shinawatra's older brother is former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a 2006 coup. [BBC]