Rand Paul has embarrassed Sec’y of State Trey Grayson, winning the Kentucky Senate Republican Primary. This is quite a slap to the face of the Republican establishment in Kentucky and perhaps beyond.

I think this is huge because Paul is an excellent face for tea party sentiments. His approach is principled, reasonable, and non-reactionary — in short, much different than the MSM paints the Tea Partiers (contra Sarah Palin).

Here’s hoping for many more election results like this.

Chris Christie, New Jersey’s Republican governor, is a delight to hear.  Standing up to teachers unions and profligate state legislators when you’re in Missouri or Alabama is one thing, doing it in New Jersey is quite another.

Christie seems like a regular guy.  Overweight, blunt, funny, and serious about getting some things done.  Compared to metrosexual politicians like John “Breck Girl” Edwards,  Mitt Romney, or Obama, Christie is a lovable slob.  He knows who he is and the press can just deal with it.  Much as I like more polished conservative politicians like Paul Ryan, there’s something refreshingly human about Christie.

Watching Christie deal with the press is like watching an old-school shift manager at a plant endure a diversity session.

Here he is unloading on a reporter who questions his ‘tone’ in a video Drudge linked today.  My favorite bit:  “You should really see me when I’m pissed.”

Would it be too cynical to call it State of the (dis)Union?  I’ll be taking notes.  I’m looking forward to Governor McDonnell’s response and the post-game analysis by my fellow esteemed SA bloggers who are all a lot smarter than me.  Live blog here if you wish. I’ll bring the popcorn.

You know, this is an amazing week. Massachusetts goes Republican, health care dies and the Supreme Court unshackles the First Amendment. It’s the best week I’ve had since spring break in medical school — and I don’t even remember it. And there was another item . . .  Air America, the liberal talk show network went out of business — which is a redundancy because nobody was listening anyway. ~ Charles Krauthammer on Fox

Yesterday I had the good fortune to attend the inauguration of Virginia’s 71st governor, Bob McDonnell.  All the guests were full of energy and enthusiasm as we watched him take the oath of office, along with his Lieutenant-Governor Bob Bolling and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  It really felt like being at a concert of my favorite rockstar – the excitement goes beyond description. I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. There was a little something for everyone, from the flyover after the oath to the Redskins cheerleaders to the history in which Richmond is steeped.  The next four years should be good for Virginia and I pray for the Governor and his family.

Below is the full text of his Inaugural Address, courtesy of #bobmcdonnell: (more…)

I don’t go in for all the Glenn Beck bashing that is prevalent in certain quarters of the right, but there is one aspect to his schtick that is bothersome, and that is his quixotic push for a third party.  The desire for the establishment of a meaningful third party is probably as old as the republic.  And while there are theoretical problems with trying to attempt to build a three-party system in the United States under the current Constitution, I think that the would-be reformers are missing the practical problems with what they are doing.

The most obvious problem is that a third-party, presumably made up of conservatives, would siphon off votes from the Republican party and merely throw more elections to the Democrats.  Offer up all the rationale you want for wanting to wreck the GOP, but you can’t escape the plain fact that this will be the inevitable outcome.  As bad as the party has been recently, conservatives need to wake up.  A “conservative” party will not be a viable alternative to the Democratic party unless it also splinters.  Therefore a vigorous push to advance conservative third-party candidates in all Congressional districts will do little except push the country to the left.  Some may wish to argue that the Doug Hoffman model provides a roadmap, except that Hoffman really wasn’t a third-party candidate, and the events surrounding NY-23 were unique to that district.

And if this third-party movement is urging a complete split from the GOP, does that mean that principled conservative Republicans like Tom Coburn and Michele Bachmann will face challenges from candidates from this conservative party?  If so, why would you destroy the political careers of those conservatives who are fighting the hardest for your interests?  If not, then are you really a third-party movement, or just an energized drive to move the GOP to the right?  If that’s the case, then I can support what you’re doing, but then stop pretending to be something you’re not.  You can’t have it both ways.

Now, let’s for the sake of argument imagine that this third-party gains steam and actually manages to attain 10-15% of Congressional seats in the coming election, and you now you hold the balance of power in the House of Representatives.  That’s great as it gives you some bargaining power.  Kind of.  Do you think you’re going to get your guy elected Speaker of the House?  Probably not.  You are going to have to cast your lot with either Nancy Pelosi or whoever emerges as the Republican candidate for Speaker – a candidate from what is now a more moderate and less conservative caucus.  If you vote for Nancy Pelosi you’ve basically betrayed everything you’re supposedly fighting for, so you’re going to have to vote for the Republican.  Alas he can be even less conservative than the current batch of Republican leadership.  You can gain concessions about committee posts and whatnot, but the fact is the GOP is going to be running the House – again, a GOP now less conservative than before.  So what exactly have you accomplished?

Finally, what if the third-party movement that you’re trying to create isn’t a conservative party at all?  What if it just becomes something like the Liberal Party in the UK?  So now you’re going to align yourself with individuals that might even be further left than the Democratic party – it’s possible.  Again, what does that accomplish?

It’s agonizing to have to defend the current two-party system, but it’s even more agonizing to ponder the alternatives.  To paraphrase, it’s the worst system except for all the others.

Huckabee’s bad judgement has come full circle. Apparently, his judgement on clemency while governor was soooo bad that the people of Arkansas actually considered amending the state constitution in order to curtail his ill-informed promiscuous grants of clemency to violent criminals.

Huckabee must never be allowed anywhere near a Republican presidential primary, much less the presidency!

Hat tip to Ace of Spades for the heads up.

Arkansas 2 is part of what I call the Jacksonian belt, the swath of counties from southwestern Pennsylvania along the Appalachian chain and extending to Oklahoma and Texas which were largely settled by the Scots-Irish immigrants that streamed into America in the dozen years before the Revolution and their descendants. Their great hero, and the son of Scots-Irish immigrants himself, was Andrew Jackson, the victor of Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans, who set about removing Indians from much of this territory and was the founder of the Democratic party. In 2008 voters in the Jacksonian belt voted heavily against Barack Obama in both the Democratic primaries and the general election, as you can see on these national maps and by clicking on individual states to see the county-by-county returns. This map showing the counties which cast a higher percentage of votes for John McCain in 2008 than for George W. Bush in 2004 is essentially a map of the Jacksonian belt.

If Vic Snyder is in trouble, it’s a good bet that many other Democrats from the Jacksonian belt are too.

Very interesting. My Scots-Irish ancestors are smiling from heaven. More here.

When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.

Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize a simple point.

The reality of your enemy must become your own.

More here. A must read.

So, anything happen this weekend?  I guess not – it’s not like the US Congress ever conducts business on the weekends.

Oh, I guess there was that vote (or pair of votes).  I’m sure Harry Reid is just thrilled.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s time to get too worked up.  There’s no way this version of the bill passes the Senate, so we have a long way to go yet.  But there is one aspect of this worth commenting on.

The lone Republican to vote with Nancy Pelosi was Joseph Cao, who represents the Louisiana district formerly represented by William Jefferson, who is now facing jail time.  The district is majority black, so Cao is facing a difficult re-election.  Quin Hilyer comes to Cao’s defense here.  He notes that Cao said he’d vote for the health care reform bill if a pro-life amendment passed, and that he’s otherwise been a strong voice against Communism and for the right to life.  Then Quin adds:

He also represents a district that is fundamentally liberal. Congressmen have two roles: they are delegates, meaning their voters delegate to them the ability to use their judgment on complicated policy matters; and they are representatives, meaning they are there, specifically, to represent the will of their constituents. Serving in Congress is often a balancing act: When your district slightly favors one course of action but you strongly favor the opposite, you do what you believe and try to explain to your constituents why you bucked their wishes. That is being a delegate. But when you are ambivalent about an issue, even slightly against a course of action but only slightly, and your constituents STRONGLY favor the course of action, then your responsibility is to accurately reflect — to REPRESENT — the will of your constituents and vote in favor.

Sorry, no.  First of all, if you are ambivalent about a major piece of legislation, then you need to find another line of work.  After months of debate, the Hamlet act doesn’t fly.

More importantly, a representative’s primary job is to represent the best interests of his or her constituents, not simply vote the way 50% + one of them would have you vote if you’re “undecided.”    This gets to the heart of the debate about the definition of representation, and while I concede that an elected representative  ought to listen to his constituent’s concerns, he is supposed to be better informed about the issues than those who sent him there.  That’s certainly the theory held by those who framed the Constitution and who wrote all those essays I have been commenting on.  If a certain bill would  have disastrous consequences for the people you represent, then you have an absolute obligation to vote down the legislation even if 90 percent of them disagree with you.  They will have the opportunity to vent their frustration with your choice at a later date.

Which brings me to another point.  We’ve heard about all those Blue Dog Democrats and how concerned they are about voting for something which will lead to their defeat next November.  Well, if you  happen to think that health care reform is vital for the  future of the Nation, and this is potentially a magical cure-all that will transform the country for the better, then aren’t you obligated to vote for this piece of legislation?  If you go down to defeat at the next election, so what?  Is being an elected member of Congress so important to you that you will defy your better judgment all for the purposes of perpetually being re-elected?  Are you so hard up for cash that you treat your position not as a public service, but as a paid permanent mode of employment?

That leads to something that I’ve always lamented, and that’s the modern notion that representation is a semi-permanent thing.  A true representative would think not of his re-election but of serving the best the interests of his constituents.  But with the modern class of politicians obsessed with returning to DC every two years, doing the right thing becomes a secondary (at best) consideration.    So if you’re a Democrat who thinks this reform package is the bees knees, then vote for the darned thing,  whatever the consequences.  And if you’re a Republican who knows that this will bankrupt the country, then you must vote against, even if it means – HORRORS! – losing the next election.

Perhaps Cao did what he thought was best for his constituents.  Based on his record, I think he might actually have been motivated by doing what he thought right and not by a desire to be re-elected.  My issues here are with some of  Quin Hilyer’s ideas on representation.  And again, if Joseph Cao is as much of a neophyte as Quin describes him as being, then he should just remove himself from all future votes of this magnitude.

Addendum: I realized after I hit publish that I was a bit unfair to Quin.  In his post he clearly acknowledges the “delegation” aspect of representation, but the wording of my comments made it appear that he did not.  I still disagree with him on his assessment of Cao, but I wanted to make clear that he’s not fully advocating the “mirror” theory of representation.

The McDonnell blowout is no surprise, but Christie’s relatively comfortable win is.  Of course you never know how many dead will rise in New Jersey to vote for Corzine, but it looks like the GOP just picked up two gubernatorial seats.

The Republicans could be on the verge of a big day today.  They are poised to sweep all the major races in Virginia and pick up double-digit seats in the state legislature.  Doug Hoffman is looking strong in NY-23, and the New Jersey’s governor race is still up in the air.  Yet in a sense the party doesn’t deserve such a successful outcome.  As Jay Anderson details, the national GOP continues to back so-called moderates that wind up betraying the party in the end, and he wonders if they will ever learn their lesson.

Jeffords, Chafee, Specter, Scozzafava

See a pattern here? Yeah, me, too.

Each of these people received significant amounts of campaign dollars and on-the-ground assistance from the national Republican party during their last election campaigns – sometimes even in Republican primary fights against more conservative GOP challengers – only to gladly take the money and then run away from the party and collude with the Democrats when things didn’t go their way.

I don’t really blame them. Like the proverbial scorpion who stung the frog, it’s just in their nature. Liberals acting like liberals. No, I blame the frogs in the Republican Party establishment who continue to make the same miscalculation over and over and over again and never learn from their mistakes when it comes to commiting significant party resources (not to mention party credibility) on behalf of allegedly more “electable” liberals against more solidly conservative opposition.

Meanwhile, at Hot Air the always insightful Doctor Zero also has a great post on the matter.

Too much of the Republicans’ “Stupid Party” strategy is based on the mechanics of getting people with little elephants on their campaign signs elected. They view the election as the conclusion of a contest, when in fact it’s only the beginning. A successful Republican Party doesn’t have to be ideologically rigid, but it should insist on candidates who possess an intellectual foundation of conservative theory, and the ability to explain it at least as well as the thousands of people posting comments on conservative blogs.

Republican voters would be well-advised to ignore the people who engineered the Scozzafava debacle, and listen for the sound of Sarah Palin’s monster truck instead. America needs conservatives more than it needs Republicans.  Both the party, and the country, benefit when they are one and the same.  Next Halloween, just to be on the safe side, we should test the blood of every “moderate” Republican with a hot wire and a petri dish, just to make sure we don’t have another DIABLO on our hands.

Straw men arguments about ideological purity will continue to be advanced by those with an interest in continuing to derail the conservative movement coughDavidFrumcough.  But again, this isn’t about ideological purity, it’s about advancing strong candidates that bear at least some semblance to being actual Republicans.  It’s about not needlessly tacking to the center in states where good conservative candidates are available – like in Florida with Marco Rubio.

Will the national party establishment pull their heads from their rear ends after tonight?  Hey, if the director of a Planned Parenthood facility can have a change of heart, anything is possible.

The NY-23 race continues to heat up, and some polls suggest that Doug Hoffman is in the lead (though this particular poll might be taken with a grain of salt).  Nevertheless, Newt Gingrich is sticking to his guns, blasting what he calls the “purge” mentality and also criticizing outsiders for sticking their nose in a local New York election.  Yes, Newt Gingrich, born and raised in Pennsylvania, who later became a Congressman from Georgia, is deriding outsiders for getting involved in an upstate New York election.  Wrap your head around that one.

As for the purge remarks, Phil Klein is right on the money.

The problem is that Gingrich is making a valid point in general, but one that doesn’t apply in this specific instance. There’s no doubt that if you want to build a majority, you have to be willing to accept less conservative candidates in certain regions where a conservative has no chance of winning. As many problems as I have with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, I concede that it’s unrealistic to believe that we could get a genuine conservative Senator elected in Maine, which Obama won by 17 points. In the case of Giuliani, you were dealing with a city that hadn’t elected a Republican who remained a Republican in over 50 years. He was conservative on economic issues, and uniquely suited to deal with the most pressing problem facing the city — rampant crime. The only option was to support him, or allow David Dinkins to have another disastrous term as mayor.

But the New York Congressional race is entirely different. Scozzafava isn’t just a social liberal — she’s an economic liberal, too. She supports card check legislation that would allow labor unions to expand their ranks through intimidation. She called the cops on a conservative journalist who was asking her questions about her position on taxes. And there’s actually a conservative in the race who has a realistic chance of winning.

This particular district is a fairly solid Republican one, despite Obama’s getting 52% of the vote in 2008.  Had Doug Hoffman been the GOP nominee, the race wouldn’t even be a contest as he’d probably outpoll Owens by a decent margin.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there was no primary.  Local Republican voters did not get the opportunity to select their candidate, so it’s time for people like Newt to get off their soapboxes about non locals interfering in the matter.

But getting back to the RINO issue, this was touched on in the comments to this American Catholic post by Donald McClarey.  Eric Brown – a self-described DINO – asks about the -INO labels:

But why should we have such rigid political orthodoxy?

I’m not saying that a party should not have agreement on a fundamental vision and philosophy, or principles, which is necessary for unity. But if there is not room for disagreement on means to the same end, there is very little room for intellectual freedom and creativity that actually allows for constructive criticism from within the party and viable and practical solutions to problems we face as a society.

If anything, we benefit from Democratic Senators like Ben Nelson who is opposed to the public option, who is opposed to the “opt out” compromise, and who most certainly will not vote for a health care reform bill with abortion in it. He is being attacked as a “fake” Democrat. I can’t see how such dissent is a bad thing — maybe because I’m pro-life?

Perhaps, I am misunderstanding one’s definition of a “RINO” or “DINO.” Is it someone who is so antithetical to the whole platform that they belong in the other party? Can someone be pro-choice and completely conservative on everything else and not be a “RINO”?

I’ll expand a bit on what I said to Eric in the comments section.  I actually don’t particularly care for the RINO label, though I have used it from time to time.  Political parties are distinct from ideological movements, so as such there is no “Republican” approach to issues in the same way that there is a conservative or liberal approach.  It is true that the Republican Party tends to be conservative in orientation, but it isn’t necessarily a conservative party.  Sure parties, as Donald writes in his post, should stand for something.  But there is room – as Klein writes – for slight variations in opinion.  Political parties are not religions, and there is no need to enforce some rigid orthodoxy.  I may not particularly care for  moderates like Collins and Snowe, but I can appreciate that they might be the best opportunity for Republican victory in states like Maine.  And while they’re both fairly left-of-center, they do ally themselves with the rest of the party on enough issues that they are not completely useless.

In the case of Scozzafava, however, she is in no meaningful sense of the term a Republican.  She is opposed to the party’s platform on BOTH economic and social issues, and has garnered the support of groups like ACORN and Planned Parenthood.  She is, it seems, to the left of the Democratic Party’s nominee.  Forget the NRA endorsement – opposition to gun rights is a complete non starter in this district.  She is one of the few people for whom the term RINO is a completely apt description.  That, plus what was mentioned above about the makeup of this district, and it’s clear that conservatives and Republicans really only have one option in this race.  Sorry Newt.  You might right in the abstract, but you’re wrong on this particular matter.

I’m normally a little suspicious when “insider” accounts of the White House are published, so take the following with a grain of salt.  But according to a soon-to-be released book by Bush staffer Matt Latimer titled: Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, Bush had some, err, interesting things to say about conservatism.  Captain Ed, via Byron York, relays some of the more telling quotes. (more…)

In some respects, the election of Obama to the Presidency showed the culture wars are over. Craig Deeds who is running for Governor in Virginia would like you to think he is just like Obama. So, should it come as any surprise that down fifteen points and two days prior to the critical end of the second quarter/beginning of the third quarter fundraising cycle, the Democrats in Virginia and the Washington Post tag-team to resurrect the culture wars to fire up their base? The controversy is a decades old thesis written by the Republican candidate for governor. From today’s op-ed on Bob McDonnell: (more…)

In the wake of the electoral nightmare that took place last November, Republicans attempted to comfort themselves with the idea that the party would bounce back in the midterm elections.  Visions of a repeat of 1994 danced in their heads.  Barack Obama and his Congressional minions would overreach, and the American public would soundly reject the onslaught of socialism.  Personally I did not have such an optimistic outlook and thought it just as likely that the Democrats would further entrench their power in the coming years.

As things stand now, the optimists look like they may have been right.  President Obama’s approval numbers are sinking to where is favorability index is now at -14, and the outlook is grim for Democrats in many House and gubernatorial races.  And here’s Dick Morris suggesting that the Dems could lose a hundred seats next year:

Unfortunately the clip cuts off just as he makes the comment about the hundred seats, so I have no idea if he qualified that, and I’m sure he did.  But I can’t locate a full transcript right now.

Undoubtedly things look bad for the Democrats, but let’s keep the champagne on ice.  We are fourteen months away from the mid-term elections.  That is several lifetimes worth of time in an election cycle.  At this time last year only 2 months out from the election it seemed possible if not likely that John McCain would prevail over Barack Obama, and then the bottom fell out of the economy.  Anything can and probably will happen, and it is the height of folly to try and predict what will happen at such a distance out.

That being said, I do think that the Democrats will probably lose a significant number of seats.  Even if the economy improves dramatically, a lot of moderate Democrats will be in electoral trouble.  Republicans, unlike the past two election cycles, have recruited well, and I think that they can sway enough right-leaning voters to oust some of the Blue Dog Democrats.

But that leads me to the main cause for concern: we’re talking about the Republican Party here.  If there is any political entity in the world capable of shooting itself in the foot, arm and face, it’s the GOP.  Somebody will do or say something incredibly stupid and erase all of the potential gains.  Luckily, we seem to have an even bigger idiot in charge on the other side for once.

(Cross-posted at Crankycon)

This is video of a brief talk I gave yesterday at a gathering of conservative Republicans.

My talk to the RALC

Whenever freedom is lost, wherever tyranny is found, there are three accompanying factors: religious oppression, economic depression, and a culture of death.

Orwell’s 1984 provides a vivid example of this principle. Religion in Oceania has been wholly abolished, the people live in government-induced squalor, and the state routinely comes between children and their parents, and is working on preventing marriage altogether.

But there are ample historical examples as well. (more…)

It’s about Trig. Always has been.

You hate how the vacancy came about… but Haley will certainly be an able chairman.

On this feast day of St. Thomas More, patron saint of politicians, it seems appropriate to mention my latest enterprise.

Southern Appeal has always been a law blog, among other things. When I came on board as a contributor, it was in spite of my lack of experience with the law. I am now endeavoring to gain a greater involvement with the law — as a legislator.

I am a candidate for the Illinois legislature. I am seeking to unseat a Republican incumbent who has voted to repeal parental notifications for minors seeking abortions, voted to increase state funding of abortion, voted to abolish conscience protections for pro-life healthcare providers, voted for state funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research, who voted to remove the requirement that abortion providers be physicians, and who voted to protect abortion providers from malpractice suits. Her largest contributor is a pro-abortion PAC, and she has repeatedly been endorsed by Planned Parenthood.

And in 2008, she ran unopposed in both the primary and the general election.

I am running against her as a regular guy with no money, no organization, and virtually no relevant experience. But at least I know what a person is.

For me to beat her may require a miracle. But as a Christian, I believe in miracles. I’m asking for your prayers, for the intercession of St. Thomas More. And if you want to help spread the word, I’d be grateful for that as well.

St. Thomas More, Patron of politicians, ora pro nobis.

There is a fascinating and sweeping essay by William Voegeli on the future of conservatism.  It touches upon the reformers vs. traditionalist debate, but it also goes beyond that.  It also explores some of the (my term) hypocritical left-wing analyses of conservatism and its supposed extremism.

Voegeli presents a fairly even-handed commentary, and seems sympathetic in principle to right-wing reformers who believe that the party must adapt to political realities in order to survive. As one who would almost certainly be counted as a traditionalist, I do agree that we can’t shut our eyes totally to basic political reality, nor can we pretend that all of our recent woes stem totally from an abandonment of true conservative ideals (as many conservatives are wont to say).

That said, he doesn’t fully subscribe to the idea that conservatives ought to completely abandon core principles.  As he writes: (more…)

For all those who think “talk-radio conservatism” best represents authentic conservatism and should wield greater influence within the Republican Party, I present to you the gentleman, scholar Mark Levin.

I’m not asking here about objectively evaluating the merits of a Romney candidacy in 2008 or 2012, but was Steele wrong necessarily when he pointed out that a good number of the base rejected Mitt Romney in 2008 because of a) his flip from pro-choice to pro-life and the distrust that created b) his Mormonism and c) some of his economic positions? (more…)

I don’t get it.  I simply do not understand the major malfunction of the National Republican Party.  For every step forward, it decides that it must instantly shoot itself in the foot and take a staggering couple of steps ass-backwards.

Kathryn Lopez reports:

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), issued the following statement today regarding Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s announcement that he will run for the United States Senate in 2010: (more…)

Moderate or centrist Republicans are constantly praised by the chattering classes; their diminishing numbers or influence constantly lamented.  Ross Douthat, now at the Grey Lady, argues why the Specter/Snowe brand of Republicanism is not the GOP’s way out of the political wilderness:

But the idea that peeling a $100 billion dollars off whatever the Democrats ask for and declaring victory represents some kind of path forward for a reeling Republican Party is risible.

Moreover, the Rockefeller Republican strategy–which generally promotes a fiscally conservative, socially liberal platform–just doesn’t square with reality.  Most Americans don’t appear too pre-occupied with government spending or taxes: they support major health care reform–including government-guaranteed insurance; they support Obama’s cavalier handling of the economic crisis; and currently, 48% of Americans–a plurality & the largest number since 1956–say that taxes are “about right.”  On the other hand, support for limiting abortion and protecting gun rights has been increasing in recent years.

It is hard to say what lessons the GOP should be extracting from this data.  I certainly don’t think that the Republican Party should drop its commitment to fiscal restraint and limited government.  However, it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to argue as some have, that it’s the GOP’s emphasis on social issues to the detriment of pro-growth policies that caused electoral backlash.

The numbers of Republicanus Rockefellus are decreasing.  If and when they are eventually declared extinct, the Party will survive.

What do Republicans do after losing Specter to defection? They name Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I heartily approve.

Update: But, “[u]nder an arrangement worked out to prevent a turf battle, Sessions is expected to keep the Judiciary post only through the end of next year.” Then, it will go to Senator Chuck Grassley. Yes, that Chuck Grassley.

Once upon a time, in 2004, the Great State of Pennsylvania was represented in the United States Senate by two Republican: Pro-choice liberal Arlen Specter, who had led the fight for the confirmation of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court but had also voted to acquit Bill Clinton at his impeachment trial, and pro-life lion Rick Santorum, who had gained recognition as the Senate’s foremost defender of unborn human life. (more…)