Recent Commentary

One of the most important elements in any type of conflict is to control the ground you fight on.  In politics, that usually means controlling the issues that will be discussed.  And for Republicans in the pending fight over the debt limit, that means taking the issue of defaulting on our debt payments off of the table and focusing on spending.

In our country’s fiscal wars there have been three major moving parts: 1) taxes, 2) spending and 3) borrowing.  Republicans don’t want tax increases and Democrats don’t want spending cuts, which left borrowing to finance the spending.  But now increasing payments on borrowing threaten to gobble future revenue for spending and mandate future taxes; which brings us the recurring battles over the debt ceiling.

Despite the tax hikes in the recent “fiscal cliff” deal, neither Obama nor any Democrats will publicly state that the rich are now “paying their fair share”.  They know that with the great unwashed, the politics of envy (AKA, jealousy) is always gold.

With all of the talk about the impending “fiscal cliff”, it’s a good time to step back from the trees and take a good look at the forest and how we got here to begin with.

For the last sixty years or so, Congress has been on an ever growing spending binge, guided by a political philosophy that government should play an ever growing role in our everyday lives – a role which requires more of our substance.  In fact, it increasingly requires more than we can spare in any given year and maintain a healthy economy.  So we borrow the rest, year after year.

This year’s federal deficit is 1.2 trillion, last year’s was 1.2 trillion and next year’s is projected to be over one trillion as well.  Our national debt, the sum total of our annual deficits, is well over 16 trillion.  And all of that is on top of the tens of trillions of dollars in “off-the-books” future obligations to entitlement programs.

When you are in a hole, stop digging, or so the advice goes.  But what do you do when voters keep electing politicians who won’t put down the shovel, but hold to the insane notion that we can somehow dig our way out?

With Election Day now less than a week away, just where do things stand on the most important election in our lifetimes?

In short, I think “good” is the right answer.  Of course anytime you make that sort of statement, you’re almost always looking around for some wood to knock on, but given that, let’s take a look at where things stand and then make some predictions for posterity.

Obama’s strategy has been neutralized:

Like any other type of campaign, political campaigns begin with a strategy which answers the question “how are you going to win”.  In Obama’s case, given that he couldn’t campaign on a record of success, the answer was to convince the country that Romney was the boogeyman.  Obama’s campaign spent over a quarter of a billion dollars this summer throwing everything but the kitchen-sink at Romney in an attempt to convince voters of what a bad guy he was. 

The potential problem with any strategy is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  There are opponents, and if they do their job they will try to undermine your strategy.  It only took Romney ninety minutes in front of seventy million people to render Obama’s strategy worthless, (meaning the biggest beneficiaries of Obama’s strategy were TV station owners).

You probably haven’t heard much about this, but the same Obama Justice Department that is pushing to deny states the right to define marriage (by opposing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act) is now pushing to diminish the ability of states to regulate gambling.

In years past, Congress took action to stop the spread of gambling across state lines with legislation such as the Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.  All along, Congress’ position has been clear and consistent that it opposes allowing technology to be used to circumvent individual state gambling laws.

Enter the Obama Justice Department, which this past December quietly issued a decision interpreting these acts of Congress “not” to apply to anything other than sports betting.

Aside from undermining the long established will of Congress, the practical problem is that this decision would allow any form of gambling that is legal in any state to be made available on the Internet and circumvent the gambling laws of others states.  The net effect is that any state could effectively legalize virtually any form of gambling for the entire country, whether we like it or not.

Ready or not, nationalized gambling here we come.

Now that we are in the middle of another presidential election season, the issues that the campaign will eventually be fought over are beginning to take shape.  We are sure to hear a lot about health care, mandates, entitlements, debt, deficits and stimulus(s).  There are even some made up issues, like contraception, created out of thin air by Democrats in order to replace issues that they are losing the American public on (like abortion and religious liberty), in an attempt to scare women into thinking that Republicans want to ban the pill.

But think for a moment about what we are not hearing much about anymore.  It’s an issue that, for a few decades, liberals seemed physically unable to shut up about.  The issue is gun control, and for this (and recent election seasons) it has been the dog that hasn’t barked.

Modern day Democrats have had an ongoing infatuation with gun control.  It seemed that, whatever the problem, guns were the cause; and more gun control was the solution.  But a funny thing happened on the way to liberal Nirvana, the American public didn’t go along.

Consider some findings from a recent Gallup poll:

As many of us spend time each day becoming more frustrated with the political news and our country’s direction, it is worth noting that our country is (for now) a self-governing democratic-republic, which means that the people who are ultimately responsible for our situation are those who participate in our wonderful little experiment.

Let's face it, self-government, whether in the personal or political sense of the term, requires some common sense.  And our country suffers from an overabundance of stupid people – and too many of them have voter registration cards.  There, I said it.

Just how stupid are we?  Several years ago a Gallup survey found that: 43% don't know that the "judicial" is one of the three branches of government; 41% don't know that their state (and every other state) is represented by two US Senators; 53% don't know what the "Bill of Rights" is; and 66% can't identify the document containing the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal".

King Solomon put it best when he said “there is nothing new under the sun”.  And so it is with politics.

Even now, political history is repeating itself.  We have a Democrat in the White House giving speeches about how America is losing its spirit in the midst of a recession and high unemployment – just like Jimmy Carter in his “Malaise speech” in 1979.  And we have polls indicating that what Americans are really getting tired of is the President.  Again, just like with Carter.

According to the latest Gallup poll, only 42% of the public approve of Obama’s job performance – fewer than any other president at this point in office since the dawn of polling.   And the opinions are pretty strong.

According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, only 23% “strongly approve”, while 38% “strongly disapprove”, leaving Obama fifteen points in the hole when it comes to those who have any passion to their opinions.  Further, 3/4ths of voters think that the nation is on the “wrong track”, and over half of the country still opposes his biggest legislative success, ObamaCare, and want to see it repealed.

Of course none of this bodes well for re-election, which explains Obama’s reach for another historical retread – class warfare.

To all of the current (and potential) Republican Presidential candidates, here’s a tip: focus on Obama.  When we do, we win.

Remember, we are living in a country that is rejecting Obama and everything he stands for.  Poll after poll show him at the lowest ratings of his career, and election results from Scott Brown’s upset Senate win in Massachusetts, to November 2010, to the recent special elections in New York and Nevada prove that over and over.

Just as they say that the number one rule in real estate is “location, location, location”, the number one focus of this election should be “Obama, Obama, Obama”.  Period.  End of strategy.  As we evaluate the candidates, conservatives should choose the one who does the best job of doing just that.

Recently however, our candidates have been too focused on each other, instead of staying focused on Obama and how they would draw a distinction between his failures and conservative principles.

As every element of modern life moves towards more customization and individual empowerment, government stands alone as the only major entity moving in the opposite direction.  And liberals, (i.e., Democrats and some Republicans), are its only salesmen.

Innovation and new technologies have led to increasingly rapid advances in products and services that are centered around consumers and their personal preferences.  These changes in turn have upended existing industries and business models and created new ones, the result being that many of today’s biggest and most innovative companies or services, (such as Facebook, Google, i-Tunes, YouTube, etc.), didn’t even exist (or just barely) when the War on Terror began in 2001.

Computers continue to get better, smaller, faster and cheaper, with multitudes of customizable options.  Phones have evolved into a combination of phone, stereo, camera, camcorder, TV and hand-held computer – all at a fraction of what only one of those individual devices used to cost, much less all of them.

The winner in this sea change is of course the consumer, who gains access to more choice and better quality at a lower cost.

But then there’s government, which continues to become more expensive, bloated and uniform, rather than innovative, primarily because it has what it doesn’t allow businesses to have: a monopoly.

Despite the current spotlight on fiscal issues in Washington (and virtually every state capital), the battle over cultural issues has by no means gone away.  In fact, even while our government continues to spend itself into bankruptcy, the culture war is still very much with us.

(Actually, it is never really considered a “war” in the media unless conservatives are fighting back, never just when liberals are tearing down traditional cultural norms).

The latest battle in the ongoing war just concluded in New York, where liberals continued their assault on traditional marriage by redefining it to include homosexuality.  Thanks to Republican turncoats, the marriage revisionists won by just four votes.

It is important to note that this war is being waged by a distinct minority against several thousand years of human history, and that their agenda has never carried the day when put before the public for a vote.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Voters in over thirty states have passed marriage amendments to their state constitutions defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.  Any victories for gay marriage have always been by imposition of a legislature or, more often, via subversion of the political process by the judiciary.

Military strategy dictates that if you decide “where” a fight will take place, then you will be able to choose the ground that is most favorable to you.  The same holds true in politics.

As debate in Washington rages over the deficit, the debt and the debt limit, Republicans in Congress need to keep in mind that the table for the 2012 election is being set – and a fight over big, expensive government offers the GOP the perfect opportunity to choose their own ground.

The 2010 midterm elections offer some instruction on this point.  According to a Gallup poll, that election set a modern day record for the highest percentage of people who claimed that they were “more enthusiastic” about voting just prior to election day, (53%).  Further, it represented the largest “enthusiasm” gap between self-identified Republicans vs. Democrats – with 63% of Republicans saying they were more enthusiastic, vs. 44% of Democrats.

This begs the question, what were they excited about (or not)?  Of course the answer is government – the new Obama brand of bigger, more intrusive and expensive government, to be specific.  Republicans couldn’t wait to kick it in the teeth, and far fewer Democrats were interested in defending the policies of the man they so enthusiastically put in office just two years earlier.

In 1997, a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would require Congress to balance the budget received sixty-six votes – falling just one vote short of the required two-thirds majority it needed to pass and be sent on to the states for ratification.

That was the last time Congress considered a balanced budget amendment.  The national debt at that time was over five and a half trillion dollars.  Today it is over fourteen trillion.  Coincidence?

Year after year Congress borrows more money and spends all that it borrows; and year after year they vote to increase our national debt limit.  It’s like being able to increase your credit limit after you’ve maxed out your credit cards.

2010 was a banner year for conservatives.  Beginning with the election of Scott Brown in January, we then saw major Republican primary victories in the summer, dozens more conservatives elected to the US House and several more to the Senate.  Add to that a record number of victories in state houses all across the country. 

It’s a hard record to top.  The danger of moments like these is that it is easy to rest and lose sight of what to do next.  In short, conservatives need to stay focused.

With that in mind, here are three resolutions for conservatives in 2011.

First, conservatives must work to hold elected officials accountable.

It’s that time of year again when we as a nation take some time to stop and consider all of the things that we have to be thankful for.  And in light of the recent elections, one item that is often overlooked is this: our government is slow.

For all of our justifiable complaints about our elected officials, and even our system of government, the fact that it is slow is a gift from our country’s founding fathers for which we can all be truly thankful.

The 2010 election is (finally) upon us, which means it’s time to engage in that favorite of political pastimes – prognostication.  After all, what good is an election without predictions?

For pretty much every election for the past twenty years I’ve kept my own predictions and have done fairly well, (but I did miss that Al Gore and the popular vote thing in 2000…and thought Hillary would be the nominee in 2008).  But it seems like it would be more interesting to put it in a column for everyone to see and comment on.  Plus, given the multitude of pollsters (and even online markets such as Intrade), there is so much information out there that everyone can now get in on the act.

Some general thoughts and observations on the 2010 Republican primaries:

Conservative Republican primary voters are angry.  OK, that’s obvious, but it’s who and what they’re angry at that is important.  For now, they are angry at anyone who even looks like they’re part of the "establishment", the result being a long overdue house cleaning.  For their part, most in the Republican establishment don’t seem to really have a gut level grasp of why.  Conservatives are not just angry and looking to take it out on someone, they are upset with having the GOP run by people who patronize them and then set about undermining their goals, or at least fail to effectively advocate them.

If eighteen months ago someone asked you to write a political plan more likely to rile up the American people and throw them into the arms of the Republican Party, it’s hard to imagine anything that would be more successful than what the Democrats have done over the past year and a half.  Not to mention what they plan to do.

Between ObamaCare, the stimulus, civil rights for terrorists and suing Arizona for trying to control its illegal immigration problem, they have been pushing voters to the GOP with both hands.  But in just a few months comes the coup de grace: a massive tax increase – right in the middle of a recession.

As the current election season begins to take shape, Obama and his political team are laying the groundwork for the next campaign.  Not the midterms, but his 2012 re-election.

Given that increasing numbers of Americans don’t seem as fond of “hope and change” as they did two years ago, they’re crafting a new strategy.  Change is out.  Reform is in.

When Obama was running for President he was a blank slate.  Potential supporters were able to see in him what they wished.  But over the past year and half the public has received a pretty stark education in what “hope and change” really meant; hence Obama’s need for a new strategy.

Margaret Thatcher once said that, “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”.  One could easily add that another problem is that the other people eventually want to get paid back.

It’s a problem that is becoming more real with each passing day.  As the interest on that borrowed money consumes more of our nation’s economy, our options and our future will be increasingly limited.  The result is a threat to our individual freedoms and economic liberty, and eventually even our national security.

Now that Justice Stevens has made it official that he will be resigning at the end of the current term, Barack Obama gets his second opportunity to make a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court.  As usual, the speculation is as rampant as the implications are huge.

The bulk of the speculation centers on what direction Obama will take.  Does he try to capture some of the political middle ground he’s lost in the eyes of the public over the past year, or does he go with his heart and pick someone as liberal as he is?

Of course the timing couldn't be worse for Senate Democrats.  They are already weary of political combat due to the battle over ObamaCare, which came in the aftermath of the fight over the stimulus, etc.  As a result, the Democrats in red/purple states that are up for re-election this year aren't too keen on having Obama pick anyone who might be deemed too radical.  They’ve seen the polls and would rather not add one more log to the growing fire of conservative activism in an election year.

The current debate over health care reminds me of that scene in the movie Outlaw Josey Wales where the snake oil peddling carpetbagger tries to sell a bottle of his tonic to an Indian, only to be asked about what was in it.  After saying he didn’t know, the Indian said, “You drink it”.

Obama and the Democrats are selling snake oil.  And the American people aren’t buying.

But after a full year of debate, speeches, emails and town halls promoting his health care agenda it has come down to this: an all out, last ditch effort to ram a bill through Congress that a majority of Americans don’t want.  Public opinion be damned.  “Change” is coming.

Just how serious is our new President about dealing with terrorism?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks to Barack Obama, we now live in a country where you can do almost as much time in prison for brandishing a knife in a failed robbery as for attempting to murder three-hundred innocent men, women and children.

Don’t believe me?  This past Christmas, a man in Sandy Creek, NY used a knife in an attempted robbery of a Chinese restaurant and, if convicted, he could face up to twenty-five years in the grey bar motel.  On that same day, the now infamous underwear bomber, after failing to go boom, was mirandized and will likely face anywhere from twenty years to life in prison, (if convicted on all counts as opposed to getting off on an insane fashion defense).

Election Day finally arrived in Massachusetts and the results are nothing short of a miracle.

In one of the bluest of the blue states, (where Obama won by 61%), an unknown Republican managed to win "Ted Kennedy's seat" in the United States Senate.

Thank you, Barack Obama.

Even before the campaign was over, the blame game began and Democrats pronounced it all Martha Coakley's fault.  The long knives came out.

It’s been said that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.  So it is with politics.

The GOP’s 2008 election defeat planted and watered the seeds of what the party has been in need of for a long time – a real conservative revolution.

The good news is that Barack Obama is making it all possible.  He and the Democrat leadership are providing Americans with a vivid reminder of everything they don’t like about liberalism.

As White House Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel was credited with saying after Obama took office, ”a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.  Well, just ten months in to his term, Americans are sensing a crisis.  Specifically, the crisis represented by Obama’s brand of liberalism, and they’re in the mood for a revolt.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

When political times get tough for liberal Democrats in Washington, conservative conspiracies are the bogeymen of choice.

Back in 1998 when things got tough for Bill Clinton, Hillary declared that there was a “vast right-wing conspiracy” looking to bring her husband down.  Other Democrats where quick to pick up the mantra and do anything they could to discredit those who criticized Clinton.

Now here we are eleven years later and, (although there are no chubby interns involved), we have another liberal President facing hard times.  So out pop the conspiracy theories like some worn out jack-in-the-box.  The only difference is that now we have two former Democrat Presidents cranking the handle.

While Americans have been busy focusing on one Obama overreach after another, with health care currently occupying the front burner, the issue of gay marriage has escaped scrutiny.

When he was out campaigning for President, Obama understood the politically explosive nature of gay marriage and decided that getting elected was more important than being honest.  He contorted himself to say the he supported the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, while at the same time letting homosexual activists groups know that he opposed the federal law which defines marriage as just that.

Among normal people this would be understood as being duplicitous at best.

Despite all the ruckus concerning town-halls lately, most of which is the ruckus made by liberals upset that conservatives are attending and expressing their opposition to Obamacare, we have been treated to some important, if accidental, moments of honesty and clarity.

For example, while conducting a recent town-hall meeting, Missouri Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill attempted to calm constituents upset over the proposed “reform” by asking “Don’t you trust me?”  The resounding “no’s” reverberated throughout the room, along with many boos, which provides us with our moment of honesty.

When it comes to legislation, there’s a general rule of thumb that the number of details someone doesn’t want you to see is directly related to how quickly they try to pass it.  The so-called health care “reform” bill is a text-book example.

The reason Obama and liberal Democrats are pushing so fast and furious is because the details, (where the Devil usually hides), are beginning to get out.  And as the details start to sink in, they’re cutting through all of the “yes we can” rhetoric and leading more Americans to say “no you don’t”.

So what’s getting them worked up?  Let’s take a look at some of the details of this “reform”.

It seems that every time we have a contentious judicial nomination process, especially for the Supreme Court, a great fuss is made over not asking certain questions.  More to the point, we're told that nominees should not answer questions that could disclose how they may rule on certain issues in the future.

Hogwash.

The problem with this notion is that the federal judiciary has grown ever more powerful over the years versus our other branches of government.  Further, the Supreme Court is held to be the final arbiter of what the Constitution actually "means" at any given point in time - information that's surely useful to the people that document is meant to govern.

It's been more than a little amusing lately to watch politicians, interest groups and media types criticize Gov. Mark Sanford for saying “no” to spending an additional $700 million in federal “stimulus” money on anything other than state debt reduction.

This money represents less than 10 percent of the entire tab (including tax cuts) of federal dollars headed to South Carolina, yet you would think it was our entire budget, from critics’ reaction.

And keep in mind that many who are now criticizing the governor opposed the federal stimulus bill to begin with — the same bill that these funds will come from. (I’ll not name names to protect the guilty.)

The controversy is also amusing because our country’s fiscal policies are so insane that about all you can do anymore is laugh.

Dear Michael,

Keep quiet.  That's the best advice anyone could give you right now.

For someone who was presented to his party as a "great" communicator, you have developed one serious case of foot-in-mouth.  To make it even worse, your offending remarks have been aimed at the core of our party, in terms of both people and principles.

First, there was all this silly "hip hop" this and "baby" that.  OK, we get it.  You're trying to present a more "with it" image in your first few weeks.  That would have been fine for a while, but now it's getting old.

Julius Caesar once said that the only thing necessary to conquer the world was men and money. Add message to that list and you've got the fundamentals of politics - as in organization, fundraising and communications.

And our party has problems in at least two of those areas.

The first problem is principles, which goes to our message and not adequately communicating our conservative philosophy - or living up to it.

In spite of what some others may insist, our conservative philosophy is not the problem. In fact, if anything, a failure to abide by that philosophy while in power has helped lead to our current situation. The need is for a better application of our philosophy to the issues of the day and translating that into a political message that's relevant to the average American.

As the old saying goes, "when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade".

Herewith, a list of some of the lemons from the recent election and the lemonade they could offer.

Election return lemons: the race is over. Obama won. The liberals have two out of three branches of government...with the third (the judiciary) hanging in the balance. Those are pretty big lemons.

Lemonade: conservatives have an opportunity to re-focus our message on our principles and define ourselves in stark relief to the inevitable liberal overreach...and then be positioned to catch those folks in the middle who will soon come down with a case of buyer's remorse.

Strategy lemons: McCain's strategy of "reaching out" failed, (reliable red states turning blue?). Lemonade: "reach-across-the-aisleism" as a strategy is now thoroughly discredited. Good riddance.

So what's all the fuss about ACORN, and why should it matter to anyone? Well, if you're an American citizen, and you take citizenship seriously, it matters because our electoral process is being compromised.

As recent press reports have shown, ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been hard at work registering voters in all of the key battleground states for the upcoming election. And, as many of these same reports attest, they're busy being investigated for possible voter fraud.

The game has changed. In an election of McCain vs. Obama, the race was all about Obama. Not anymore.

Win or lose, picking Sarah Palin will go down as the greatest single thing McCain has done for his own campaign, as well as for the conservative movement. Conservatives are rallying like never before to her presence on the ticket.

She's a fiscal conservative who favors tax cuts and has actually used a veto pen. She's a born-again Christian, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun... she hunts, she fishes, baits her own hook, has five kids and doesn't look like a member of the NOW gang. What's not to like? Indeed, that, plus a record of conservative reform and demonstrated political skills on the stump and I'd say we've got ourselves a star. And at age 44, one with a potentially long future at that.

So what do liberals talk about when they get together and think no one else is listening? They talk about the rest of us, of course. Specifically, trying to explain why most people aren't receptive to their ideas.

The latest example comes from Democrat front-runner Barack Obama at a recent San Francisco fundraiser, where he was caught on tape remarking (or psycho-analyzing) that manyvoters in the middle class tend to "cling" to God and guns whenever they're bitter about their life.

Obama stated, "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations".

It ain't easy being Hillary. As far as the general public is concerned, she's the single most divisive major political figure in the Democrat party; while the various liberal constituencies that constitute the Democrat's party base worry that she's not liberal enough. Some who consider her too far to the right on the war issue even took to heckling her at a recent speech to the Democrat National Committee.

Poor Hillary. It's not as though she's brought any of these problems on herself. First, there was her clumsy entrance onto the national political stage in 1992 with that famous reference to "not staying home and baking cookies" or "standing by her man like Tammy Wynette" in vague reference to Bubba's past indiscretions.

"A marriage between one man and one woman is the only lawful domestic union that shall be valid or recognized in this state."

That is the opening text of a proposed amendment to our state's constitution. It is an amendment designed to protect traditional marriage from being redefined by radical state and federal judges, and to make sure that voters have a chance to be heard on this fundamental issue.

The state of Arizona is making a play for the distinction of implementing one of the absolute worst ideas ever to promote good citizenship.

With the ostensible goal of increasing interest in voting and thereby voter turnout, Arizonans will be faced this November with what is known as the Voter Reward Act. It is a referendum that would create a million dollar lottery awarded to a randomly chosen voter who cast a ballot in any given election. In other words, bribery.

The only real wonder is that it has taken so long to come to this.

This just in. It has recently been discovered that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have access to a technologically sophisticated, multi-million dollar intelligence gathering operation. It has agents on all continents, and sources within every agency of the US government. Even worse, this organization is actively being shielded from disruption by the American court system. It goes by the nickname "The Gray Lady", but is officially known as The New York Times.

No information is too secret, no secret too important to national security not to be revealed in its pages, all in the name of the "public interest".

Can the House Republicans hold out against calls to pass the Senate's version of immigration reform? Will Speaker Dennis Hastert keep his pledge never to bring legislation to the floor that doesn't have support of a majority of the House Republican caucus? Will the White House pull out all the stops in pressuring House members to support the Senate version? Will real conservatives draw a line in the sand and say "stop"?

These are all questions whose answers will determine whether the Republicans maintain control of one or both houses of Congress this fall. Whether or not Nancy Pelosi becomes the next Speaker of the House. Whether or not Charlie Rangel and Jack Murtha get to initiate impeachment hearings against George Bush. Whether or not we have a Senate majority that will continue to make some progress on judicial appointments or perhaps confirm another conservative Justice to the Supreme Court.

The national Republican Party needs a revival. It needs a renewed focus on its animating objectives. Specifically, the Congressional Republicans have lost much of the revolutionary zeal that brought the party to majority status in Congress and have become too satisfied with simply being a majority. As a result, they have grown afraid to take strong stands for fear of losing power.

They have grown accustomed to bloated budgets and pork-barrel spending. Those within the party that do call for tighter controls are rarely paid any heed. The smaller, leaner government the Congressional GOP campaigned for in 1994 has yet to materialize, and lately is less often fought for. It seems that Bill Clinton's pronouncement during his 1995 State of the Union that the "era of big government is over" was premature.

With apologies to Ken Mehlman, Howard Dean is quickly becoming the GOP's favorite party chairman. Like something out of a science fiction movie, Dean seems to represent some sort of nexus in the universe for overwrought emotion, stupidity and arrogance. Like a magical Christmas present, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

Let's look at the highlights for the past few months. He said that he "hates Republicans", that conservatives are "evil", that Republicans "never made an honest living in their lives", and that the GOP is "pretty much a white, Christian party". A few months back at a gathering of black Democrats Dean commented that the Republicans couldn't "get this many people of color in a single room" unless they included "the hotel staff".

When it comes to reaping the "spoils of war" many conservative Republicans are beginning to feel like Charlie Brown does when Lucy moves the football just as he tries to kick it. They get all psyched up and excited and ready to accomplish a task, only to have the opportunity yanked away from them at the last second.

The recent compromise regarding judicial filibusters agreed to by seven Republicans did just that. It incensed conservatives as yet another example of not being allowed the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And, as the GOP's single largest constituency and the backbone of its grassroots operation, they have every right to be angry.

Essentially, what the GOP compromisers have done is legitimize an ideological litmus test for judicial nominees as opposed to enforcing the Senate's historical practice, much less its constitutional duty, to offer "advice and consent" on such nominations.

by Drew McKissick May 18th, 2005 Now that the first election conducted under the new campaign finance laws has come and gone, a little post-mortem is in order. By any objective standard, it has been an abject failure. Ostensibly, campaign finance reform (CFR) was supposed to deliver us from the evil of the "special interests" and their "soft money", (contributions that can't be given or spent directly on behalf of a candidate, like "hard" dollars can). We were told that they had hijacked our political system. We were told that CFR (as they envisioned it) was a necessary trade-off - tighter restrictions on free speech in exchange for a reduction of the influence of money in the political process. So, how did it turn out?