Did Roberts’ ruling on ObamaCare actually HELP conservatism and help Romney?

Interesting analyses, from many different sources.  Excerpts here, and you really should check them out.

Essentially, conservative pundits are wondering that while the ObamaCare ruling was a short-term win for Chairman Zero, maybe Roberts’ rejection of the Commerce Clause being used to regulate economic inactivity (which lower courts ruled was valid) will prevent future Congresses from trying to use that clause to expand the power of the federal government and thus advance the cause of limited government.  Perhaps that cause, plus the outrage from the ruling which will galvanize the conservative base to rally around Romney (which they may not have otherwise done), will put Romney and Republicans in charge…or so the thinking goes.  And if Romney and Republicans take control, they will definitely repeal ObamaCare…which means that ObamaCare got repealed PLUS the Court will have prevented similar abuse of the Commerce Clause in future sessions.

Anywho, that’s the school of thought…or spin, depending on how you look at it.  What do YOU think?

Obama: “Government investments” are what “made this country great”

This will undoubtedly come as a shock to the Founding Fathers, who happened to believe that limited government and individual liberty made this country great.  Details:

Obama said that Republicans have “one message and that is, we’re going to make sure that we cut people’s taxes even more — so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse and we will slash government investments that have made this country great,” he argued, “not because it’s going to balance the budget, but because it’s driven by our ideological vision about how government should be. That’s their agenda, pure and simple.”

Agreed, sir.  There are two distinctly competing visions here: the American vision…and your vision.  And judging by the direction of the country on the road to insolvency, I’d say that a bunch of politician that “invested” (code for “plundered the fruits of labor of the producers to give to the non-producers”) our money have made this once-great country far less great than it’s ever been.

Please, America…get rid of this economic illiterate and unaccomplished leftist hack before he mucks up the country any more than he already has.

RIP Andrew Breitbart

Dude…I’m friggin’ stunned.  Not often I can be rendered speechless.

Gone at age 43.

Lefties, please contain your sick selves.  If you look back when Ted Kennedy died, I didn’t exactly urinate on his grave.  Please behave like grown-ups, if you’re capable of it.

Florida primary tomorrow. The highly coveted Crush Liberalism endorsement goes to…

…(drum roll)…Mitt Romney.

Admittedly, this is a lukewarm endorsement.  I wish there was a candidate that had the “Wow!” factor that W gave me in 2000 and that ObaMao gave the left four years ago.  But there isn’t.  There are candidates I would have liked to have seen jump in or, in the case of Tim Pawlenty, stick around.

But here’s the thing: This country may not survive another Barack The Terrible reign of economic and freedom terror.  And I’m afraid that Romney is the only guy in the race capable of ending it.  I do believe he has enough appeal to the independents, and that the conservatives won’t sit at home like they did when Juan McAmnesty ran in 2008 on account of recognition of how high the stakes are, that Romney can pull it off.

Do I have concerns about Romney?  Sure.  The same flip-flopping we skewered Kerry over in 2004 is, I think, fair game this time around.  The ignorant masses probably won’t recognize that Bain Capital has a good, not bad, role.  That said, though, I think that people who may not have strong leanings one way or the other will be less put off by Romney than by Newt, Santorum, or Paul.

I recognize the need for a solid conservative.  But I think that Romney is more conservative than he’s given credit for.  However, it’s beyond dispute that he’d govern far more conservatively than Chairman Zero.  You factor in a Republican House and a soon-to-be-Republican Senate, and I think he’ll probably rubber stamp any conservative legislation that lands on his desk.

Newt’s a brilliant speaker and a phenomenal debater.  But people just don’t like him.  And as sad as it is to say, our elections are largely a popularity contest, whether we like it or not.  It is for these reasons that I’m voting for Romney tomorrow in the Florida primary.  Your mileage may vary.

Hoyer vulnerable?

Hmmmm.  How delicious would that be?  Story here, but lemme drop an appetizer on you:

Here’s the thing: Democrats think Hoyer is bulletproof, but there are good reasons to believe that the incumbent is far more vulnerable this year than anyone suspects. As I explained before the primary, GOP candidate Collins Bailey got 80,000 votes in 2008 — a high-tide year for Democrats when Obama carried the 5th District by a 2-to-1 margin. 

Democrat enthusiasm is way down this year, so their turnout is likely to be far lower. In 2006, a midterm election that was also a big year for Democrats, there were barely 200,000 votes cast in the 5th District race. So if there is a similar turnout Nov. 2, and Lollar merely matches the GOP’s 80,000 total from 2008, that puts him at 40%. Add another 15,000 votes, and he’s in shocker-upset range.

Black.  Marine.  Conservative.  Energetic.  And most importantly, not Pelosi’s Pet.  Vote for Charles Lollar.

Cornyn wants another term as National Republican Senate Committee chairman

Details here.  Why is this newsworthy/blogworthy?

Because everything Cornyn touches turns to crap, that’s why.  A “reverse Midas touch”, if you will.

Last year, Cornyn endorsed Gov. Charlie Crist in the FL Senate GOP primary, over Marco Rubio.  Since then, Crist has been a dead man tanning walking, seeing his 30% lead turn go 60% the other direction.

Cornyn also endorsed Arlen Specter in the PA Senate GOP primary, over Pat Toomey.  How did Specter repay him?  By voting for Porkulus, then switching parties.  He since proved to be one of the crucial votes in getting ObamaCare enacted.  As it turns out, Toomey may very well beat Specter in November anyway, if current polls’ trends hold firm.

Cornyn also pulled out an IN retread, Dan Coats, to run for Evan Bayh’s seat.  Coats was such a lousy proponent of the Second Amendment that the NRA has promised to endorse Democrat Brad Ellsworth should Coats win the GOP primary.  This should be a guaranteed GOP pickup, but Cornyn and his boy could screw that up.

In other words, Cornyn is an establishment Republican.  It is because of establishment Republicans that we find ourselves with a socialist Congress and president.  The Tea Party movement and its accompanying popularity are a repudiation of establishment Republicans, not a return to them!  Conservatives will do quite well this November, so long as establishment Republicans stay the Hades out of the way!

NJ Governor Christie lays down the law on state liberals

When deep blue NJ elected Republican Chris Christie over incumbent Democrat (and BFF of B.O.) Jon Corzine, many wondered if he would stick to his conservative principles in cleaning up NJ’s bloated and overtaxing government.

Wonder no more.

…Budgets are serious business, but it’s been a long time since anyone in New Jersey has been serious about the budget. This year, gross mismanagement and accumulated fictions have left state taxpayers a $10.7 billion gap on a total state budget of $29.3 billion. Mr. Christie’s answer is simple: “a smaller government that lives within its means.”

However quaint that may sound, when you have to cut nearly $11 billion in state spending to get there, you are going to get a lot of yelling and screaming. Most comes from the New Jersey Education Association, hollering that “the children” will be hurt by Mr. Christie’s proposals for teachers to accept a one-year wage freeze and begin contributing something toward their health plans. What makes the battle interesting is the way Mr. Christie is throwing the old chestnuts back at his critics.

Here are a few examples, culled from his budget address, public meetings and radio appearances:

The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. “The real question is, who’s for the kids, and who’s for their raises? This isn’t about the kids. Let’s dispense with that portion of the argument. Don’t let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets.”

Your policies favor the rich. “We have the worst unemployment in the region and the highest taxes in America, and that’s no coincidence.”

Why not renew the ‘millionaire’s tax’? “The top 1% of taxpayers in New Jersey pay 40% of the income tax. In addition, we’ve got a situation where that tax applies to small businesses. I’m simply not going to put my foot on the back of the neck of small business while I want them to try to grow jobs by giving more revenue to New Jersey.”

Budget cuts are unfair. “The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son’s favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—’unfair.’ . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”

State budget cuts only shift the pain to our towns. “[L]et’s remember this, in 2009 the private sector in New Jersey lost 121,000 jobs. In 2009, municipalities and school boards added 11,300 jobs. Now that’s just outrageous. And they’re going to have to start to lay some people off, not continue to hire at the pace they hired in 2009 in the middle of a recession.”

Isn’t your talk of ‘stopping the tax madness’ just another ‘Read My Lips’ promise? “[Mine is] much better than ‘Read my lips.’ I’m sorry, it’s just much better. Much stronger. . . . It’s gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I’m not signing a tax increase.”

In some ways, Mr. Christie can speak bluntly precisely because the state is such a mess. Indeed, that’s one reason he won election in a blue state. The challenge remains daunting: No governor has yet succeeded in turning around a state as overtaxed and overspent as New Jersey. Indiana under Gov. Mitch Daniels probably comes closest, but Indiana was not nearly as bad as New Jersey.

If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state’s citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He’s doing just that. One reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger summed up Mr. Christie’s rhetoric this way: “[F]inally we have a governor who is as teed off as the rest of us at how government spending and taxes have skyrocketed over the past decade.”

It’s far too early to declare Mr. Christie’s Jersey-style Reaganism a success. But it’s the one reality show truly worth watching.

I abso-freakin’-lutely love it!  He takes leftist talking points, and blasts each one individually.  Even throws in a little snark with analogies to a petulant 9-yr-old.  I luvs me some snark!  😆

More from the governor:

When I went into the treasurer’s off in the first two weeks of my term, there was no happy meetings. They presented me with 378 possible freezes and lapses to be able to balance the budget. I accepted 375 of them.

There is a great deal of discussion about me doing that by executive action. Every day that went by was a day where money was going out the door such that the $6 billion pool was getting less and less. So something needed to be done.

People did not send me here to talk, the people sent me here to do. So we took the executive action we did to stop the bleeding.

…

You know, at some point there has to be parity. There has to be parity between what is happening in the real world, and what is happening in the public sector world. The money does not grow on trees outside this building or outside your municipal building. It comes from the hard working people of our communities who are suffering and are hurting right now.

Oblamer could take notes here.  While OblameOthers and his ilk bellyache about how they inherited a messed-up economy, Christie did inherit a Dem-caused economic disaster in Joisy…yet he’s decided that taking action is better than blameshifting.  What a novel concept, huh?

He’s fighting with the state teachers union, which makes me like him even more.  He’s being honest with the citizens of NJ.  In short: Gov. Christie is da man!

Chris Matthews just called to ask how my leg is doing.

Dem Congressman from Alabama switches to GOP

Details here.  I like Ace’s headline that sums up the switch: “Rep. Griffith: Hey, I Just Noticed the Party I’ve Belonged To My Whole Life Is Sort of Liberal ‘n Stuff!”  Heh.

Exit question, albeit rhetorical: How long until the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) trumpet Griffith’s switch as one borne of “principles and integrity” and not of political opportunism?  You know, like they did when Jeffords and Specter switched to the Dems?

2009 election results

I was 2-of-3 in my predictions yesterday.  I got VA and NY-23 correct, but I got NJ wrong.  I’m thrilled that the people of NJ decided to stop their insanity (continuously electing Democrats while their economy tanked and taxes skyrocketed) and try something different.

The left and right will spin these results to their liking, but here’s my takeaway for the evening:

VA:  This is still a center-right state.  Dems win in VA by pretending not to be liberal.  All Creigh Deeds had to run with last night was “Don’t vote for McDonnell, because he wrote something I find objectionable when he was in college!”  Oddly enough, no one in the MSM seemed that concerned about what Barry or Shelly O wrote in college, but I digress.  The fact is that B.O. just isn’t that popular in VA these days.  That may explain why he stayed away from the campaign trail there.

NJ:  This is still a deep blue state.  Granted, the governor-elect Chris Christie didn’t have to pretend to be a moderate or a RINO to win, as he ran on conservative principles.  But with taxes so ludicrously high and the economy there in dire straits, the people of NJ didn’t trust or like Jon Corzine.  Corzine even called in B.O. to run his campaign, and it didn’t work.  (Sidebar: Some on the left say that Deeds lost VA because, in part, he didn’t embrace Uhhhhh-bama.  That dog won’t hunt, because Corzine did embrace B.O., and he still lost by about 4%…in a dark blue state.)  Christie will have to contend with a predominantly Democrat legislature, but let them go on record opposing tax cuts and tax reform.

NY-23:  Michelle Malkin has a great summary at her blog that best reflects my view.  Sure, it would have been awesome for Hoffman to win.  And it looks like Scuzzieblahblah’s defection tilted the election to the Democrat Bill Owens.  However, hopefully the GOP learned a valuable lesson here: instead of allowing a bunch of senile old dudes to pick the party’s nominee in a pizzeria and then pumping a cool mill into the leftist’s campaign, how’s about allowing a primary and then stay the heck out while the people of that district pick their winner (see FL in Senate 2010 race)!  It is highly unlikely that Scuzzie would have gotten a second look in the district were she on a primary ballot, and her endorsement would have instead had two effects: jack and squat.  We accept RINOs where we know that we absolutely MUST (see the Maine sisters in the Senate), but we won’t accept pro-abortion, pro-ACORN, pro-gay marriage, pro-union “Republicans” in cherry red districts.

Anywho, does this 2-of-3 Republican evening spell doom for the Dems next year?  Hard to say, since 12 months is a political eternity.  However, it certainly means that taking a snapshot of today, things are not looking good for them at all.

Awesome! Scozaafava quits NY-23 House race

Details here.  It seems that the national GOP, in a rare display of common sense, backed away from Scozzablahblah as the deluge of angry calls, e-mails, and returned empty donation envelopes poured in.  Recent polls continued to show her losing badly to both the Democrat and the Conservative, and I’m sure that had as much to do with the GOP jumping ship as anything, considering the national GOP doesn’t exactly have a track record of responsiveness to the base.

Hey, Newt: How does RINO hiney taste, champ?

Conservatives fighting national Republican Party

I am a conservative, NOT a Republican.  Olympia Snowe is a Republican, NOT a conservative.  One is not necessarily the other.

One of the many reasons that the GOP lost control of Congress and the White House was that the GOP alienated its conservative base.  Years of expanding the size of the federal government, Hispandering by way of catering to criminal immigrants, backing an old RINO for president, piling on pork, etc., have kept conservatives at home during the last two election cycles.

Has the national GOP learned a lesson?  Hardly.

One needs look no further than the special House election next Tuesday in NY-23.  The race is to fill a seat vacated by Republican John McHugh, tapped to be the Secretary of the Army.  The Dems picked a guy named Bill Owens.  The local GOP, in a closed-door behind-the-scenes decision, picked Dede Scozzafava over Doug Hoffman.  Hoffman decided to run as a member of the Conservative Party, since he never got a chance to fight in a Republican primary.

There’s a lot to the race, but here’s all you need to know about Scozzafava:

She’s no conservative.  She’s a RINO.  A pro-abortion, pro-ACORN, pro-union, pro-card check, pro-tax (before she was shamed into claiming to be anti-tax), pro-stimulus, pro-“cap-and-trade”, pro-gay marriage “Republican”.

Here’s what is sad, though: Scozzafava has the support (including heavy financial support) of Newt Gingrich and the national Republican Party.

It’s not like the district is a liberal district and you need a RINO to compete in it, a la Maine with Snowe and Collins.  No, the district was represented by a conservative Republican who won in a brutal year for Republicans by a comfortable margin!  It’s a red district that has been so since 1871, so there is NO need to nominate a RINO!

Newt and the national GOP fear that with Hoffman on the ticket, votes will be split and the Democrat Owens will win.  A recent poll (read into it what you will) suggests the race is actually down to two people: Owens and Hoffman, with Scozzafava fading badly.  The votes may indeed be split to where Owens will win.  If that happens, the GOP will have no one to blame but themselves for handing over a district they’ve held for 138 years, and they would be well suited to dump Scozzafava and tap Hoffman to run against Owens next year in the regular election.

However, if Hoffman wins, despite the powerful backing of Newt and the national GOP, the message will be loud and clear to the ol’ boys of the Republican Party: “Know your role, and shut your hole!”

By the way, Hoffman has earned a ton of endorsements from national Republicans who are bucking the party: Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, Jim DeMint, and former NRCC chair Tom Cole.  Rush has endorsed Hoffman, too, and has his own unflattering assessment for the national GOP.  More national endorsements come in for Hoffman every day.  Romney and Huck, two names mentioned for 2012, are silent.

Exit money quote #1 from Newt:

Gingrich called Scozzafava a “liberal Republican” for her support of gay marriage and abortion rights. But he defended those positions as in-step with her district and her predecessor, former Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), who was tapped to be President Barack Obama’s Army Secretary.

Is it too much to ask that before you make such ridiculous comments such as “It takes a liberal to win this district” and “Her views are just like her predecessor’s”, maybe you should know a little something of the electoral history of the district and of McHugh?

I mean, if I said “I endorse Cindy Sheehan for governor of MS, because anti-troop barking moonbats are the only ones who can get elected to statewide office in this cherry red state”, you’d think I fell on my head or something.

Also, McHugh earned a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee (a list that Scozzafava won’t be appearing on anytime soon), and a 0% rating from the pro-infanticide group NARAL.  You’d think Newt might have looked into that before saying that McHugh and Scozzafava were carbon copies of each other.

Exit money quote #2 from Newt:

Gingrich also attacked Hoffman for not having proper knowledge of local issues and living outside the 23rd district.

“So I say to my many conservative friends who suddenly decided whether they’re from Minnesota, or Alaska, or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans? I don’t think so,” he added.

Good point.  After all, outsiders from AK, TN, SC, TX, MO, MN, etc., certainly don’t know as much about NY-23 as…um…an outsider from GA.

Besides, I don’t think Newt needs to point out anyone’s carpetbagger credentials.  His own are pretty impressive.

In an election cycle where people are absolutely fed up with the Communist in Chief and his Marxist enablers in Congress, leave it to the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Lieberman on McCain’s short list of VP candidates?

Good grief, I hope not.  From Financial Times:

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee who has endorsed John McCain, is being vetted as a potential running mate for the Republican presidential hopeful, according to an adviser to Mr McCain’s ­campaign.

Mr Lieberman, who has campaigned for the Arizona senator, has long been ­considered an unconventional but plausible choice for Mr McCain.

Democrats have rejected Mr McCain’s image as a maverick politician, Mr Lieberman’s support for the presumptive Republican nominee has, much to the chagrin of his former ­colleagues, helped to boost Mr McCain’s reputation as a bi-partisan legislator with friends on both sides of the aisle. Mr Lieberman, a staunch supporter of Israel, could also help Mr McCain win over Jewish voters.

“[McCain] loves Lieberman. And he is on the [short-]list because Lieberman has never embarrassed anyone, never misspoken. The first rule is, don’t take someone who costs you votes,” said one McCain adviser.

Not a bad idea. Ergo,…

But not everyone would be enthusiastic about Mr Lieberman being added to the ticket. While Mr Lieberman has staunchly defended Mr McCain’s support of the surge, the escalation of US troops in Iraq, and the lawmakers have teamed up on legislative proposals to ­combat global warming, the registered independent is aligned with Democrats on most other issues.

“Conservatives would be pissed as hell – I think you would have a revolt, but sometimes John does what John wants to do,” the McCain adviser said. …

Look, I respect Liebs for his not caving to the moonbat wing of the Democrap Party, and for not adopting the hostile anti-military sentiment shared by the overwhelming majority of his former party.  He’s been a steadfast supporter of the war on terror, and his ability to see the big picture (beyond political gain) is commendable.  Plus, watching him deflate the moonats’ ballons in 2006 by smiting their tinfoil candidate Ned Lamont in the CT general election was pure enjoyment!

Having said all that, the guy is not a Republican, and he most certainly is not a conservative.  The common wisdom (take it or leave it) is that McLame could use some conservative credentials on his ticket, especially if he wants to shore up the conservative base of the GOP.  Picking Liebs is not the way to go about doing that.

But, as we all know, Juanny Mac marches to the beat of his own drum.

RIP William F. Buckley

Dead at age 82.  Countdown to “Moonbat Grave Dance” at 3…2…1…

Chelsea: Mom’s a “fiscal conservative”

Hilldawg pimped out Chelsea to deliver this most snortworthy of one-liners.  BEVERAGE WARNING!  Here goes:

It was a surprising choice of topic given the mostly student crowd stuffed into a lounge at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Union. But the first question posed to Chelsea Clinton, who was stumping in Madison this afternoon for her mother, concerned Social Security.

“It is important to me because the Baby Boomers are aging,” the young woman told Clinton.

Clinton, the daughter of presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, said that a return to “fiscal responsibility,” as promoted by her mother, would be one of the ways to secure Social Security. She also noted that her mom, as she referred to Hillary Clinton throughout the question and answer session, was the “most fiscally conservative candidate running” and “the only candidate who tells you how she’ll pay for everything.” 

Yeah, I can see how that whole multi-trillion dollar socialized medicine thingy could easily be confused with tax cuts and limiting the size and scope of the federal government.

Fake conservative hails another fake conservative as a “true conservative”

That’s how the headline should ideally read.  Anywho, from MSNBC:

John McCain is a “true conservative,” President Bush says, although the presumptive Republican presidential nominee may have to work harder to convince other conservatives that he is one of their own.

McCain “is very strong on national defense,” Bush said in an interview taped for airing on “Fox News Sunday.” “He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I’m concerned.”

But when asked about criticism of McCain by conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, the president said, “I think that if John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative and I’ll be glad to help him if he is the nominee.”

Juanny Mac, I’d suggest you decline the president’s offer to help bolster your “conservative” image.  He’s not exactly strong in the right department himself these days.

Noonan: Bush destroyed GOP

I’ve been saying this for a while, although Noonan seems to imply that the damage is virtually permanent.  I don’t think it is, but it is certainly near-term, if not long-term.  From Peggy Noonan:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, “I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party. It’s going to change it forever, be the end of it!”

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don’t know what broke the elephant you can’t put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can’t trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

She’s right.  The problem, though, is credibility.  When I see the main Republicans in the presidential race talk, I hear some of Dubya’s faux conservatism (in Huckabee) and McCain’s RINO-itis (global “warming” is real, we need open borders, etc.), and I cringe.  When I hear Romney and Rudy and talk about a return to fiscal conservatism, I think “You’re right, but good luck convincing people that twelve years of legislative rule, six of which with a Republican president, that yielded the doubling of the size of the federal government is just going to magically go away overnight.”  The GOP just isn’t as convincing with that message as it used to be.

Unlike Noonan, though, I wouldn’t say that the damage is irreversible…but it’s not over yet, either.

Schmuckabee craps on conservative ideals…again

From Hot Air:

This is why people like Rush Limbaugh say that Mike Huckabee is no conservative, and they’re right to say it.

His aides are wary of New Hampshire. “It’s all no tax, no government there,” said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. “It’s not ideal.” But they believe that the message of economic anxiety that he preaches will help in Michigan’s primary on Jan. 15 and in states in the South, which have high poverty rates in addition to strong groups of social conservatives.

“It’s all no tax, no government there”…said as if it’s a bad thing (”not ideal”), by an adviser to the current Republican front-runner. “No tax, no government” is the Republican ideal, or at least it used to be. 

Yes, it did used to be, and in my humble opinion, it is the wild deviation from that ideal that contributed greatly to the defeat of the GOP in the 2006 midterms.  So Huckabilly’s solution?  More of the “borrow and spend” initiatives we’ve been treated to over the last eight years.  Friggin’ wonderful.

GOP trying to tilt back to the right?

Welcome home, guys!  From Politico:

Republicans may trail in the polls on virtually every issue, but conservative influence is surging in both chambers of Congress as the GOP tries to find its soul again.

It’s a risky strategy to tack to the right while Democrats have momentum in most polls, but Republicans clearly believe that they need to recapture their base before they recapture the majority. 

A “risky strategy”?  What are they supposed to do, tilt to the left and be “Democrat lite”?  Or maybe it’s “risky” to try and be different from that Congress that’s…um…currently polling around an 11% approval rating?

Personally, I think it’s too little too late.  But I suppose it’s also “better late than never”, right?  At any rate, had they stuck to their fiscal conservative guns when they ran the show, perhaps things would be different.  But they didn’t, and I for one have a hard time taking them seriously these days on matters of fiscal responsibility.  Not that their ideological counterparts will be any better, of course.