When you’re living online, politics apparently gets in the way of friendship, just like when you’re hosting a dinner party.

According to a fascinating survey by the Pew Internet Project, 9 percent of those who frequent social networking sites have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because they posed something about politics or issues that the user disagreed with or found offensive.

Eight percent have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because they argued about politics with someone the user knows.

Another 10 percent of those on such sites as Twitter and Facebook have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because they post too frequently on politics.

And 5 percent took such action because they were afraid their friends would be offended by something the other person posted.

Fascinating—the same instinct that might cause someone to gravitate away from others with opposite views also applied to web friends and followers. And being too argumentative can cost you part of your social circle.

At the same time, 16 percent have followed or friended someone because that person shared the user’s political views, Pew says.

While distant acquaintances are often involved, a third of those surveyed say they have cut off online contact with a close friend or family member. (“Was it something I said?” “No, it was something you tweeted!”)

Overall, most people take a live-and-let-live attitude. Two-thirds say they simply ignore posts with which they don’t agree.

But here’s the kicker: some 38 percent say they were surprised to learn that the political leanings of others were different than they imagined.

The good news for The New Republic is that its new owner is a Web wizard.

Chris Hughes, who became publisher and editor-in-chief with an announcement on Friday, is a co-founder of Facebook.

The not-so-good news is that Hughes worked for the Obama campaign. Does that mean the venerated liberal magazine will turn into a pro-Obama vehicle?

Game Change is many things: a powerful recreation of the craziest vice-presidential campaign in history, a close-up look at nasty political infighting, a portrait of a woman on the verge of a breakdown.

But does it capture what actually happened with Sarah Palin in 2008?

To be sure, the movie is based on the book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, and includes a number of well-documented scenes of Palin being uninformed, difficult and petulant. The HBO filmmakers also say they interviewed numerous McCain staffers, notably Steve Schmidt (played by Woody Harrelson) and Nicolle Wallace (Sarah Paulson).

But that is part of the problem.

If there was any doubt that the Obama campaign is going to seize the moment and run against Rush Limbaugh, it ended on Tuesday.

In a one-two punch that made clear their determination to keep Slutgate alive, David Axelrod and the president went after the radio talk-show host in ways designed to make news.

At a news conference designed to steal some of the GOP’s thunder on Super Tuesday, Obama sidestepped a question about a growing number of advertisers bailing on Limbaugh’s radio show, preferring to keep the focus on Rush assailing Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and “prostitute.”

“All decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse. The reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about … and I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.” He said such engagement should not “involve your being demeaned and insulted, particularly when you’re a private citizen.”

For all the talk about contraception, JFK, snobs, empty stadiums, and the number of Cadillacs per family, we seem to be missing one very important facet of the presidential campaign.

Would any of the Republican candidates really bring down the budget deficits that they keep decrying?

The answer appears to be no, but most of the media are not exactly focused on the subject. The deficit is too abstract, too dull, to compete with the culture war (Rush called a law student a “slut” for advocating contraception?) that now seems to dominate the 2012 race.

Floyd Norris, the veteran economics columnist for The New York Times, cites a study on Friday on the wide range of taxes that Rick Santorum is promising to slash, including  the marriage penalty:

One by one they are leaving the public stage, complaining about a dysfunctional system. The moderates are having a meltdown.

Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who announced her retirement from the Senate this week, is only the latest to throw in the towel. There were also Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, Virginia’s Jim Webb, North Dakota’s Kent Conrad and Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman—people who don’t believe that making deals with the other party is an indictable offense.

Snowe, one of a vanishing breed of New England moderates, said she is bailing because she does “not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term.” And who could argue with that?

The twin trends of polarization and redistricting have combined to produce a Congress largely populated by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Both parties engage in fierce partisanship, using the filibuster weapon, for instance, against the White House of the other party. Though it must be said that the Tea Party lawmakers have set new records for intransigence, pushing the country to the brink of default in the budget showdown last summer, even against the urging of their own GOP leaders. That’s why President Obama has largely abandoned the consensus-building approach of his first three years.

The New York Times columnist has always been a moderate conservative and not a GOP loyalist, so this is hardly a spit-out-the-coffee moment. But in Tuesday’s column he calls out the party’s grownups for rolling over for extremist elements that Brooks believes could hand the election to Barack Obama.

Most journalists accept the basic assumption that it's OK—admirable, even—for a politician to bob and weave to accommodate an ideological movement for purposes of getting safely reelected. But why should we buy into such shape-shifting? Brooks points to Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar as two perfectly conservative party war horses who have lurched further right to save their seats.

Viewed from a 2012 perspective, some in the GOP—Joe Scarborough has been particularly vocal in recent days—have been lamenting how their party came to be debating birth control, the usefulness of college, and JFK's 1960 religion speech. The overriding issue that should make this a banner Republican year, the economy, has been all but eclipsed.

In arguing that "the wingers have all but trashed the party's reputation,”  Brooks says: “But where have these party leaders been over the last five years, when all the forces that distort the GOP were metastasizing? Where were they during the rise of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? Where were they when Arizona passed its beyond-the-fringe immigration law? Where were they in the summer of 2011 when House Republicans rejected even the possibility of budget compromise? They were lying low, hoping the unpleasantness would pass.”

Sarah Palin has exploded into the news again, thanks to Julianne Moore.

The debate about Game Change, with the ex-governor portrayed by the redheaded actress, is heating up even though the HBO film doesn’t air until early next month.

Palin’s posse is upset about what looks to be a harsh portrayal of the Fox News commentator, and the role of Steve Schmidt, the former McCain campaign strategist who clashed early and often with Palin and is portrayed by Woody Harrelson.

To hear Pat Buchanan tell it, he was booted off MSNBC because of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

The reality is a bit more mundane: The network moved sharply left, Buchanan’s boss felt uncomfortable with him, and he was road kill.

In announcing his departure Thursday after being off the air for months, the former GOP presidential candidate said he is leaving “after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.”

He adds: “I know these blacklisters. They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats, and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.”

Mitt Romney, son of Michigan, is trying to speed away from a car wreck of an issue.

So far, it’s not working.

With the Michigan primary coming up on Feb. 28, Romney was thought to be the favorite in a state where his father was not just governor but a top auto executive. But there’s this teensy problem of a New York Times op-ed piece that Mitt wrote in 2008 after Barack Obama was elected, headlined: “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Not the most popular stance to have to defend these days, especially since the Obama administration revived the American car industry with a bailout package that was, like all federal rescues, controversial at the time.

In case you haven’t noticed, Twitter can be dangerous to your professional health.

As someone who spends a lot of time trying to inform and entertain my followers, I’m well aware that there’s a line that professional journalists shouldn’t cross. The problem is it often seems invisible.

Roland Martin, as you probably know, got zapped for a couple of errant tweets during the Super Bowl. CNN suspended the liberal radio talker as a contributor for “regrettable and offensive” remarks after gay groups complained that his jokes were homophobic. (He declared, for instance, that any man pumped up about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad should be smacked.) Martin has apologized, saying he meant no offense, and met with the GLAAD organization on Tuesday.

But what should the standard be? Another CNN contributor, Dana Loesch, recently said that she too would have urinated on those dead Taliban soldiers. There was a bit of an outcry, but nothing happened to her.

What explains Rick Santorum’s sudden surge in the polls?

Yes, I know he won Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last week, stunning the pundits (who had all but written him off) and revitalizing his candidacy. But still, the numbers are amazing.

Here’s a Pew Research poll that has Santorum edging Mitt Romney, 30 to 28 percent, with Newt at 17.

A Public Policy Polling survey has Santorum rocketing to a 38-23 drubbing of Romney—and a 39-24 lead in Mitt’s kinda-sorta home state of Michigan, where his father was governor.

As Rick Santorum’s chief strategist, you might think John Brabender would be feeling pretty smart for reviving his man’s candidacy.

But, he said in an interview here at the CPAC conference, “we’re not that brilliant.” Working for a candidate who recently was way back in the pack, “We’re not giddy by any means.”He knows full well that a hot GOP candidate can quickly turn icy in 2012.

Brabender allowed that “there’s an excitement we didn’t anticipate” after the former senator swept Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado on Tuesday, while admitting he had no idea they would win the caucuses in Colorado. “There is obviously a Romney excitement gap,” Brabender said. And he noted that a new poll has Santorum up by 7 points in Tennessee, seemingly out of nowhere.

But Santorum’s consultant refused to pick a fight with Gingrich, even though Newt and Rick are splitting the anti-Romney vote. “I do think Newt is extremely committed to the conservative cause and will do what he thinks is helpful to the conservative cause. He and Rick are very good friends.” The former senator, he told me, thinks “you do not ask someone to get out of the race” because that decision is so “personal.”

Foster Friess, the man helping bankroll Rick Santorum’s Super PAC, was right behind him on the stage Tuesday night as the former senator basked in the glow of having won Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

Friess also has another sideline: funding the Daily Caller.

The Wyoming mutual-fund executive helped conservative commentator Tucker Carlson launch the political website in 2010 with a $3-million investment, and has since funneled more cash to the Caller in a second round of financing.

Does that create a problem for the Caller, whose lead story on Wednesday featured a picture of a beaming Santorum under the headline “Tuesday Treble”?