httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrjOLKRi7wg

Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney: Will the Republican Please Stand Up?
By Larry Elder

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney make me think of Dorothy Jones.

“Aunt” Dorothy, my mom’s closest friend, was a warm, smart, comedienne-quick funny woman from a large family. Unlike my mom’s other friends, Dorothy was single and remained so until she died. I once asked her, in the rude way only children can, why she never married.

“You know,” she said while pointing, one by one, at four imaginary men lined up in front her, “if you took the best qualities from all my sisters’ husbands and rolled them up into one man — you’d still come up short.”

This describes how it feels when trying to find a GOP presidential candidate. What are we small “L” libertarian, tea-party-type, low-tax, low-regulation, serious-about-entitlement-reform, non-”climate-change”-hysterical voters looking for?

For starters, how about someone who believes that the Constitution means what it says and says what it means, and won’t abide the “principled” Republican politician who wanders off the page in search of “compromise” to “get things done” to “do the people’s business”? Not too much to ask.

This brings us to the declared and confused GOP presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the soon-to-be declared, and confused, GOP candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gingrich masterfully engineered the 1994 GOP takeover of the House. He came up with the Contract With America, and once called Sen. Bob Dole, the party’s 1996 presidential candidate, “the tax collector for the welfare state.” He is bright and knowledgeable, which makes some of his positions all the more indefensible.

Did Gingrich really write off Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s gutsy Medicare reform idea as “right-wing social engineering,” after having praised Ryan’s debt and deficit reduction ideas just two months earlier? Yes, he did.

Did Gingrich really cut a video with global-warming fanatic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in which they pledged to work together to fight “climate change”? Yes, he did.

Did Gingrich come out in favor of ethanol and the federal boondoggle that pays farmers to convert farmland producing edible corn into land devoted to corn for ethanol — a product that, but for mandates and subsidies, would have no market? Did Gingrich support ethanol even after Al “Mr. Environment” Gore renounced his previous support and admitted that he only supported ethanol to secure the 2000 farm vote? Yes and yes.

Did Gingrich team up with race hustler extraordinaire, the Rev. Al Sharpton, to tour the country to raise awareness of the education “race gap”? Did Gingrich team with the man who not only opposes vouchers — a serious attempt to provide alternatives to and competition against government schools — but who calls vouchers “racist”? Yes, he did.

Romney, for his part, ran in 2008 as a fiscal conservative elected in a liberal state and who, therefore, represents someone who “can reach across the aisle” and appeal to independents and “conservative Democrats” — whatever that means. Unfortunately, his signature achievement is the statist RomneyCare, a Bay State “universal health care program” that includes a mandate. It served as a model for ObamaCare.

Believers in limited government, to put it mildly, intensely dislike ObamaCare and reserve a special place in hell for the mandate that forces every man, woman and child to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily point out that RomneyCare fails to control premium costs, exceeded budget projections and “works” only because of money from the federal government.

Many Republicans encouraged Romney to call RomneyCare a blunder, and use it as an object lesson of yet another well-intended but wrongheaded government intrusion that produced unintended and hurtful consequences.

Did Romney not only refuse to apologize for RomneyCare, but praise it as a “state solution”? Did Romney defend the Massachusetts mandate while criticizing Obama’s federal one? Did Romney thus support the concept of allowing government to force people to purchase health insurance or face a fine, so long as it does so at the state level? Does Romney therefore disagree with conservatives who call RomneyCare a disaster that other states emulate at their own peril? Yes, yes, yes and yes, he does.

So much for Gingrich and Romney. Now what?

What about Thomas Sowell? The economist/writer/philosopher/limited government/free-market advocate, the most clear-headed opinionator in America, is 80. The 80 is not the problem. It is the clear-headed part that made Sowell double over in laughter when he was asked about running for office. Former left-wing David Mamet partially credits Sowell with turning him from being “a brain-dead liberal.” Yes, Sowell is that good.

Who else?

What about Margaret Thatcher, the 85-year-old fiscal conservative British ex-prime minister? Could we persuade her into renouncing her citizenship and running for president here in the States? Alas, that requires an amendment to the Constitution, which currently allows only a “natural born citizen” to become president.

What would Aunt Dorothy do?

A Sharper GOP Field
By Jonah Goldberg

The Republican presidential logjam has finally broken.

Donald Trump, who believes not only that he would make the best president but that he could win, declined to run because making money is his true “passion.” It’s as if Cincinnatus loved his plow too much.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also bowed out, with class and dignity even his friend Trump could not buy.

Ron Paul, the libertarian Harold Stassen, is in for another go, presumably on the mistaken assumption that America has turned into Tea Party Nation. (If only!)

And then there’s Newt Gingrich.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the former House speaker — a man who has spent much of the last decade declaring the need for radical transformation of this, that and the other thing — denounced Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposals as too “radical” and nothing less than “right-wing social engineering.” He also came out in favor of an individual mandate for health insurance.

This last bit of news was no doubt greeted with jubilation in the Mitt Romney camp, given that Romney had only days earlier given a speech defending his own landmark achievement — a state-based individual mandate that helped inspire “Obamacare.” By my count, Romney’s speech bombed with 9 out of 10 conservatives (the 10th being influential conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt).

To have Gingrich out there defending the mandate — and by extension Romney — had to have the former Massachusetts governor jumping for joy so high his hair might actually have moved.

By midday Monday, however, Gingrich was reversing himself in response to a deluge of criticism. But the damage was done. The simple fact is that despite Gingrich’s immense talents and achievements, Ryan — who’s not even in the race — is more popular than Gingrich among conservatives. It’s hard to throw someone under the bus when it’s not your bus. More to the point, Gingrich reinforced the impression that his mouth deserves a patent as a perpetual motion machine.

Still, the real significance of the last week or so is not the breaking up of the political logjam of candidates but of the policy logjam.

Not only did Romney and Gingrich blur the lines between the GOP and Barack Obama, they also sharpened the distinctions between themselves and the rest of the GOP field.

In this, they were playing catch-up with Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s extremely effective governor and putative front-runner among conservative policy wonks, the Bush family and insomniacs. Daniels yanked away collective-bargaining rights for public workers years ago, without the Sturm und Drang that accompanied Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s more tepid reforms. Just this month, Daniels successfully withdrew all state funding of Planned Parenthood, a holy grail for social conservatives.

Daniels, however, also steadfastly refuses to sign anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes. He famously called for a “truce” on social issues, which social conservatives translate as “surrender” to the left since they rightly believe that the left is the aggressor in the culture war. And last week he playfully suggested he might tap former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate. Floating a pro-choice veep is not the way to reassure social conservatives.

For those paying attention, these should be fascinating developments given the perennial claims that the GOP base is too right wing, extremist and closed-minded to tolerate such philosophical diversity. (And with the exception of Gingrich and Paul, there are no Southerner candidates in a party allegedly captured by the South.)

Does all this mean that the GOP has re-embraced its Nelson Rockefeller roots? Of course not.

But it does hint that this year’s primary season won’t involve a replay of the dreadful 2008 debates in which the candidates auditioned to play the part of Ronald Reagan in the school play.

It also suggests that the front-runners — a group that includes former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty — might be ahead of the rank and file of the GOP.

Come November, it is very unlikely that conservative voters will stay home. So, barring a truly fringe GOP nominee, they will vote against Obama no matter what. Already, the conversation on the right is moving toward the all-important question of “electability” — i.e., which candidate can peel off the handful of moderates and independents needed to win in an election that will be a referendum on Obama and his record.

Rocky and Republicans
by Thomas Sowell

Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion who never lost a single fight in his whole career– and, at the time, he seemed the least likely fighter to do that. In many a boxing match, he was battered, bruised and bleeding.

One of the reasons Marciano took so much punishment in the ring was that he had shorter arms than most other heavyweights. It was easier for others to hit him than for him to hit them.

In a sense, Republicans today are in a similar position in the political arena. With most of the media heavily tilted toward the Democrats, Republicans are going to get hit far more often than they are going to get in their own punches.

The difference is that Rocky Marciano understood from the beginning that he was going to get hit more often, and prepared himself for that kind of fight. His strategy was to concentrate on developing punches powerful enough to nullify his opponents’ greater number of punches.

Republicans take the opposite approach from that of Rocky Marciano– and often with opposite results. That may be why they managed to lose both houses of Congress and the White House in recent years, in a country where there are millions more people who call themselves conservatives than there are who call themselves liberals.

Knowing that they are going to get hit more often in the media, you might think that Republicans would put extra time and effort into developing a knockout message. In reality, however, Republicans seem to invest much less time and thought into getting their political message across than is done by the Democrats.

First of all, Democrats develop words and phrases that they all use, so that the public hears those same words and phrases over and over again, until they sink in. Republicans have nothing to match the Democrats’ catch phrases like “social justice” or “tax cuts for the rich.”

Back when George W. Bush first emerged on the national political scene in 2000, Democrats said that he lacked “gravitas.” The media kept repeating it. People who had never used the word “gravitas” in years were suddenly saying “gravitas” 24/7 on news programs, interview shows and in the newspapers and magazines.

When have you ever known the Republicans to be that coordinated?

Not only do Republicans fail to take the initiative when it comes to political rhetoric, they are not very good at counter-punching when they are hit.

How often have you heard “tax cuts for the rich” from Democrats– without the Republicans saying anything to counter the implication that they are just looking out for a relatively few wealthy people, while millions of other people are losing their jobs and their homes?

The facts are all on the Republicans’ side. But, unless someone articulates those facts, they will be like the proverbial tree that falls in an empty forest.

What are called “tax cuts for the rich” have been reductions in high tax rates under four different administrations, including the Democratic administration of John F. Kennedy. In each case, going all the way back to the 1920s, the reduced tax rates have led to increased tax revenues for the government.

“The rich” have ended up paying both a higher total amount of taxes and a larger share of all taxes than they did before what were called “tax cuts for the rich.” The reason is very straightforward: high tax rates that people don’t actually pay do not bring the government as much revenue as lower tax rates that they do pay.

High tax rates drive investors into tax shelters like tax-exempt bonds or drive their investments out of the country altogether, costing Americans jobs. This is not rocket science– and the data are there to prove it. But somebody has to say it.

Unlike Rocky Marciano, Republicans don’t seem to see a need to work on their punches. They are going to need some knockout punches if Barack Obama calls their bluff on raising the national debt limit, and there is a government shutdown that will be blamed on the Republicans. A few light jabs will not save them.

Today’s GOP Lives in Reagan’s World
by Byron York

On May 2, Republicans will gather at the Reagan Library in Santa Barbara, Calif., for the first GOP presidential debate of the 2012 campaign. It’s not clear which candidates will be there, but here’s a safe bet: Each will declare himself, or herself, a Reagan Republican.

Such is the hold of Ronald Reagan on the Republican Party that it is simply impossible to imagine a candidate not reaching for the Reagan mantle. And such is the hold of Reagan on our politics as a whole that, on the eve of the State of the Union, President Obama felt compelled to praise Reagan’s leadership and “unique ability to inspire others to greatness.”

Just 15 years ago, Obama condemned what he called the “dirty deeds” of “Reagan and his minions” — not an unusual opinion among Democrats. Now, the political world as a whole is coming to recognize, at least a bit, the greatness in Reagan that Republicans have admired for more than a generation.

One reason for Reagan’s evolving image is that we know much more about him than just a few years ago. “There’s been a stunning change in the view of Reagan since 2000,” says Annelise Anderson, who with her husband, Martin — both former Reagan aides — has done pioneering research in the Reagan archives. “The publication of his radio commentaries, letters from throughout his life, and the minutes of his National Security Council meetings — we see the extent to which he was formulating strategy and defining, directing and pursuing his objectives.”

Reagan was indeed the sunny public presence of memory, but the Andersons’ books — “Reagan: In His Own Hand,” “Reagan: A Life in Letters” and “Reagan’s Secret War”– show how his accomplishments were the result of a lifetime spent studying, thinking, writing and preparing for leadership. The newly released papers show how Reagan mixed his personal qualities — an unmatched determination, desire to learn and optimism — with a deep belief in liberty, free enterprise and American exceptionalism. Together, they formed the foundation for the specific policies — lower taxes, strong defense — that changed the United States and the world.

For today’s Republicans, the problem is that it’s easier to talk about lower taxes and strong defense than it is to guess what Reagan would do were he alive now. What would he do about health care, the deficit, immigration and terrorism? Even his old confidants can’t say for sure.

That uncertainty is one reason we see so much yearning among Republicans for another Reagan. “I’m always asked, ‘When will we see somebody like Reagan again?’” says Peter Hannaford, a longtime Reagan aide and author of “Recollections of Reagan.” “My answer is never. He was sui generis. Someday, you’ll have somebody with some of his qualities and with that bigger-than-life aspect — but not yet.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are very much living in Reagan’s party. For Craig Shirley, the longtime conservative activist and author of “Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America,” today’s GOP still reflects the man who was elected president more than 30 years ago. Back then, so-called “country-club Republicans” were a powerful force in the party. “All these moderate-to-liberal Republicans considered conservatism the province of Neanderthals,” recalls Shirley, who is a consultant to The Examiner. Now, it’s the moderates who are virtually extinct. The result, Shirley believes, is “a more vigorous debate and a more honest choice for the American people.”

Starting soon, state and county Republican parties will be holding their yearly Lincoln Day dinners, the way Democrats hold Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners. In recent years, many of those GOP events have become Lincoln-Reagan Day dinners, or just Reagan Day dinners. That trend will likely continue as the party seeks an even closer identification with past greatness.

And Republican politicians will continue to seek that elusive mix of attributes that made Reagan Reagan. Perhaps there is another great leader out there right now, and we don’t know it. After all, no one knew what Reagan would accomplish until he moved into the Oval Office.

So on May 2, the GOP candidates — a group that could include Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour, John Thune, Mitch Daniels, Sarah Palin and others — will take the stage at the Reagan Library and try to convince Republicans that they are worthy heirs to Ronald Reagan. The audience will undoubtedly be skeptical, but inwardly hoping that at least one of them will be right.

On The GOP’s Message Going Forward
by Hugh Hewitt

None of the candidates who seek this weekend to replace Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee are household names. Reince Priebus is the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, Saul Anuzis is the forrmer chair of the Michigan GOP, Ann Wagner is a former ambassador of Luxembourg, and Maria Cino is a former senior official in the George W. Bush administration.

Whichever one emerges as chair will almost certainly define their first tasks as the repair devastated morale at the RNC and the rehabilitation of the donor rolls and the party’s operations.

The most important job of the new chair will not be those mundane but crucial tasks, however, but rather to stay away from the spotlight and leave the news cycle over the next nine months to Speaker Boehner and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. This is especially important over the next two months. The new GOP chair will have the right to remain silent on the budget debate that is about to begin. We have to hope he or she will use it.

This is also the task before every would-be GOP presidential candidate and nearly every GOP senator and representative as well. The crucial agenda for the next nine months is the Congressional agenda, and since the House goes first on matters of budget and since the Republicans have a huge majority there, the necessary discipline that is required from all conservatives in and outside of the Congress is to support the Speaker’s effort to frame the unfolding debate over the size and direction of government.

The House GOP gathers in Baltimore this weekend, and it it will return from there to D.C. next week to vote the repeal of Obamacare and to begin the oversight of the Obama Adminsitration that has been completely lacking for two years. At the top of the latter agenda is the overdue effort to cabin the Environmental Protection Agency before its diktats on cap-and-tax begin to power down the struggling recovery. As the House GOP awaits the president’s budget its most pressing tasks will be these oversight hearings and those hearings will help set the stage for the budget and the big argument over job growth. Each of these hearings will be heavily covered, and responsibility in the execution of the oversight will be a key ingrediant to the success of the effort. Wild charges or fabricated evidence will boomerang, and there is no need for any histrionics as the record of Team Obama is so dismal to begin with. As oversight begins, the task of every Committee and subcommittee chair will be to let the Obama Adminsitration officials talk. And talk. And talk. Pose the right questions –”Exactly where was the stimulus spent?”– and the debate will unfold exactly as it needs to.

After the president’s budget arrives and the State of the Union address is given, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his colleagues will take the center stage and will have to fashion, announce and defend deep, deep cuts in federal spending. As the howls from the left will be high-pitched and long no matter what is proposed, there is no sense in going half way, and Ryan knows this and is prepared to carve away at the mass of subsidies that has flowed out of D.C. over the past four years of Nancy Pelosi’s rule. The House GOP gets one chance at laying out its budget, and one chance to make the case for the massive downsizing that the international credit markets are waiting for. The difficulty in making this argument is that the Democrats know this will be their best chance to define the debate and with it Speaker Boehner’s agenda, and thus the House GOP leadership has to impress on all of its members this weekend that the dumbest thing any of them says in the next four-to-eight weeks will be grabbed by the Democrats and the allied MSM and used to define the entire GOP and the budget debate. Each House member, in effect, holds the ability to destroy the messaging about the budget debate, and the message in Baltimore ought to be that if any member does so, he or she will be stripped of future position and authority in the caucus.

Although there may be a “selective shutdown” of the federal government ahead as the House GOP and the president fail to come to an agreement on spending, it will not be for the House rank-and-file to declare the inevitability of such a impasse.

There is an elected House GOP leadership, which includes besides Boehner and Ryan, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Jeb Henserling, Pete Sessions, Michelle Bachmann and Tom Price. When the debate over the budget begins in earnest, the plan laid out has to be defended by these voices, and primarily by Cantor and Ryan. The new RNC chair and the would-be GOP presidential nominees have to stand back and back them up, as do the GOP senators and the rest of the House caucus. If any “free agents” show up with any excuse to divert attention from the big debate, the effort to focus and execute the agenda will be compromised.

The president can and will use surrogates to try and blow holes in the GOP’s budget, and the president’s numerous allies in the networks and among the newspapers will provide him every assistance even as they did in the campaign of 2008 and throughout the debate over the stimulus and Obamacare.

These are just givens, just the rules of the road inside the Manhattan-Beltway media elite.

The GOP from top to bottom has to realize that in order to win the argument they have to stay on their message and not be diverted from the key facts and the central proposals in the House GOP budget.

The debate will take many weeks, and even after the Budget Committee and then the full House passes the budget, it will then pass to the Appropriations Committee to live within the caps set, and to the Senate to respond to the House budget.

But the next few weeks will decide whether the public buys into lay the GOP’s arguments over the future. To do that the public must first hear and then understand those arguments.

This requires repititon and more repitition. It especially requires clarity and discipline in the messaging. The Speaker and the senior leadership have to be available to all media and especially to those outlets which have a multiplier effect, and their surrogates have to stay on message as well.

The new GOP chair and the would-be presidential nominees will not vanish from the headlines and they should not go into hiding, but they can and should for a season take their cues from the House GOP budget and support it or remain silent. The very worst thing that could happen would be for some high-profile Republican to seek to grab some media leverage via an opportunistic attack on that budget.

Speaker Boehner has made it clear that the 112th Congress will not be a replay of the rule-of-one that defined the Pelosi years. Hopefully his colleagues will return that respect by allowing him and his lieutenants the chance to propose and pass a budget that returns America to a path of fiscal responsibility.

What the GOP Landslide Means for America
by Terry Paulson

P. J. O’Rourke said it best, “This is not just about an election – It’s going to be a RESTRAINING ORDER!” Just what does the Republican landslide mean to America, to Washington politics, and to you?

Elections have consequences. Voters make choices. But a campaign is like dating—it’s the sales phase of the relationship. Once an election is over, citizens are watching to see how candidates live up to the promises they’ve made. Will the “love” and “trust” be earned and re-earned month after month?

This vote was more a rejection of President Obama’s changes and failure to right the economy than it was an endorsement of the Republican Party. The last time Republicans were in control of Congress, they spent more than the Democrats in the previous administration. America will be watching to see if Republicans have learned their lesson and have the backbone to live the principles they so frequently espouse.

The media will harp on the importance of “getting along” and working together to find “non-partisan” solutions. President Obama will call for compromise, but you’ve promised those who voted for you smaller government, lower taxes and a return to the Constitutional principles. Compromise on these promises is not what America needs or voters expect.

The solutions that President Obama brought to Washington involved more government stimulus spending, more expensive entitlements, more intrusive regulations and an exploding deficit. Conservative solutions come from decreasing the size and cost of government so that citizens have the capital and the incentives necessary to unleash the innovation and entrepreneurial strength of this great country.

Conservatives want government to stop punishing producers who have played by the rules and succeeded. America won’t have economic private sector growth and the jobs that creates until investors know that such investment and hard work will pay off. Instead of punishing success by raising their taxes; the investors, entrepreneurs and workers need to be honored, supported, championed and encouraged. Other countries are bouncing back from the recession because they’re cutting entitlements and incentivizing business growth. We must do the same. That involves change, not compromise.

Republicans don’t need the Senate or President Obama to make an impact now. The House, alone, is given the Constitutional power of the purse. Article I, Section 7 of our Constitution clearly reads: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives . . .” And Section 9 states, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Republicans should use the power they’ve earned.

There’ll be costs. You can’t cut government spending without cutting some government agencies, some government jobs, and some government benefits. That involves real people losing jobs at a time jobs are hard to find. You can’t cut or reduce benefits to people who have learned to be dependent on government and expect everybody to applaud. Conservatives will be called “mean-spirited” by every government addict cut off.

Call on Americans to help their neighbors. Tough times are part of the cure on the way to much better times. With the right incentives, there’s private sector money waiting to be unleashed, but jobs will remain scarce until new companies find their markets. It’s a hand up over a handout.

Republicans must lead. That means facing difficult early choices like refusing to extend the debt ceiling and fighting the Fed’s efforts to monetize our debt which devalues the dollar and triggers inflation. Will they take spending back to 2008 levels and initiate zero-based budgeting for the next budget cycle? Will they actually lower the bar on what constitutes poverty so that only the truly poor receive government funds? They must call on communities and charities to once again be the first line of support instead of creating further government dependency. They must become the party of NO to excessive big-government spending and the party of YES to free market solutions and individual responsibility.

While talking about landslides, California voters gave total control to the Democrats. With no viable Republican opposition, California will put liberal solutions to the test while remaining disconnected from the center-right country in which they reside. But if they look to Washington for their “too big to fail” bailout, expect no blank checks with Republicans now holding the purse strings in the House.

Take heart; solutions can be found. The fast-rising GOP star, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, has shown that fiscal responsibility and true budget-cutting can be popular. He recently warned his own party, “If Republicans win the Congress we’ve got to put up or shut up.” Voters are watching. Give us a party with a backbone that we can be proud to support for years to come.

America Just Checked Into Rehab
by Victor Davis Hanson

On Tuesday voters rejected President Obama’s attempt to remake America in the image of an imploding Europe — not just by overwhelmingly electing Republican candidates in the House, but by preferring dozens of maverick conservatives who ran against establishment Washington.

Why the near-historic rebuke? Out-of-control spending, unchecked borrowing, vast new entitlements and unsustainable debt — all at a time of economic stagnation.

So what is next? Like the recovering addict who checks himself into rehab, a debt-addicted America just snapped out of its borrowing binge, is waking up with the shakes, and hopes there is still a chance at recovery.

It won’t be easy. Obama and his Democratic Congress ran up nearly $3 trillion in new debt in just 21 months — after running a disingenuous 2008 campaign that falsely promised to rein in the fiscal irresponsibility that had been rampant during the spendthrift Bush administration.

So the voters intervened and sent America in for rehab treatment. In our three-step road to recovery, we, the sick patient, must first end the denial, then accept the tough medicine, and finally change the entrenched habits that caused the addiction.

First, voters did not reject Obama’s agenda because he was too centrist, borrowed and spent too little money, or did not more vigorously pursue unpopular agenda items like cap-and-trade and blanket amnesty. Nor was the Democratic meltdown because of Obama’s inability to articulate his agenda. The vision itself — not the talking points — was the problem.

Obama failed miserably to keep the nation’s trust. After just 21 months, the country concluded that he was an extremist, and that his attempts to manage the economy through massive borrowing, rapid growth in government size and spending, assumption of private enterprise, and serial harangues against business and the rich had turned a recession into a crisis of confidence and a near-depression. For some strange reason, Obama thought the cure for Republican big-spending was European-style socialism, when in fact, voters wanted an end to Bush-era borrowing and waste — not far more of it.

Second, not being Obama will no longer be enough for the ascendant Republicans, many of them political novices or Tea Party mavericks skeptical of both parties. These outsiders told outraged voters that America will have to step up and start controlling spending in a manner Republicans never did as a majority in Congress from 2001 to 2006. Perhaps a good symbolic start would be to cut back on popular pet programs — agricultural subsidies, for example — whose end the republic will survive. This would be iconic proof of congressional willingness to alienate powerful special interests. Social Security, Medicare and some Defense programs all have to be on the table.

If conservatives plan to cut taxes, they will no longer be able to convince the public that the resulting supply-side growth in the economy will eventually bring in more money and balance the budget. Instead, right from the start, the new House majority will have to demand that we pay as we go — every dollar lost in revenue will require a commensurate dollar cut in federal spending.

Republicans should be willing to be demagogued by a weakened Obama as heartless and cruel budget cutters — even if the president may well be the ultimate beneficiary by running on the new theme of fiscal responsibility and a recovering economy in 2012.

Third, voters want their Congress and president to end the pathological value system that got us into this mess. Instead of the president barnstorming the country handing out borrowed cash to favored constituencies and playing one identity group against another, he had better stay in Washington, keep off Comedy Central and “The View,” and only come out to brag when he has cut unsustainable spending for all of us.

It should also be an embarrassment, not an honor, for congressional members of either party to put their names on the latest pork-barrel projects. And instead of weekly newsletters from Washington that boast of bringing home the bacon, voters prefer hard proof that their government only spent what it took in. Any politician can promise a new project, an expanded entitlement or a special-interest tax break with someone else’s money, but only a statesman can explain exactly how it is all to be paid for.

So for now, voters have said that they are sick of profligate Democrats. But if Republicans do not get that message regarding fiscal restraint, in two years it will be their turn — again.

Wow. Just Wow. Could The Wave Grow Larger Still?
by Hugh Hewitt

I was talking to the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza on my radio show Wednesday when the story broke that Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had raised $5.4 million dollars in campaign contributions in the third quarter of 2010. Cillizza took in a deep and very audible breath, as did I. It is an astonishing amount of money for a single Congressional candidate to raise.

A day earlier the GOP Senate nominee in Nevada, Sharron Angle, had announced that in the same period she had raised $14 million dollars!

I asked Cillizza what these sort of totals meant, and he stated the obvious fact: The intensity and breadth of the grassroots opposition to the president, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is difficult to overstate. These contribution totals are the best evidence of the country’s mood. This isn’t just about an intention to vote or an opinion given to a pollster, Cillizza noted, it is about a deep passion that is opening pocketbooks in a way that has never been seen before.

Democrats are of course praying that the surge to the right breaks before 11/2 and begins to recede, but as every day goes by the evidence of a growing wave accumulates. Whatever the president and Joe Biden might have done to stop the Republican trend, they instead chose to launch a foolish and instantly dismissed attack on Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie as a sort of pair of Sith lords of the campaign finance world. Even Democratic pundits were left scratching their heads and wondering what madness had overcome the “brains” behind the Democratic campaign.

The fecklessness of the president’s campaign rhetoric combines with the near invisibility of Democratic candidates at public events from coast-to-coast to reinforce the electorate’s emerging collective decision to make a major change in Washington, D.C. When no Democrats are willing to defend Obamacare it is very hard for the public to do other than conclude that a giant mistake was made when Obamacare was jammed down the throat of the country.

And when the president himself admits to the New York Times, as he does in this Sunday’s edition, that “There’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects,” he is confessing to a naivete that is as surprising as it is frightening. This admission of error by the president undermines the last claims of the Democrats to effectiveness via the so-called “stimulus.” It is so stunning a concession that most of the Beltway press is still staggering backwards trying to spin the president’s own words.

Less than three weeks to the vote and the Republican grassroots are pouring on the money and the energy, the Democratic candidates are in hiding, and the president is apologizing for his wrong-headed belief in the efficacy of the so-called stimulus.

There is no reason to believe that trends will not continue, and perhaps they may even accelerate. The country wants a U-turn, and even the base of the Democratic Party has got to be wondering if that isn’t the best thing for their directionless, poorly-led party as well. When no one, from the president to the speaker to Harry Reid and lefty Beltway pundits can come up with a persuasive argument to vote Democratic, then it is time to give up and give way.

Republican Trend Continues
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The mainstream media is peddling the line that the Democrats are staging a comeback, slicing Republican leads. It is absolute nonsense. A close review of polling in every close House race in the nation indicates that Republicans now lead in 53 seats currently held by Democrats and are within five points in 20 more.

And the trend is Republican, not Democrat. Of the races where comparative data over the past few weeks is available, Republicans have gained in 33 while Democrats have gained in only 10.

On the Senate level, Republicans now lead in all ten states that are necessary for GOP control of the Senate, the smallest margin coming in Nevada where the Rasmussen Poll has the Republican, Sharron Angle, four points ahead. In West Virginia, Wisconsin, Washington State, and Illinois, the Republican has surged ahead dramatically in recent days and only in Colorado and California has there been slippage. The ten states which are now represented by Democrats where Republicans have the lead are:

North Dakota = +45

Indiana = +18

Arkansas = +18

Wisconsin = +12

Pennsylvania = + 7

West Virginia = + 6

Colorado = + 5

Washington State = + 5

Illinois = + 4

Nevada = + 4

Republican gains should be even greater than this polling indicates. The trend lines are decidedly in the GOP’s favor and Gallup Poll indicates that Republicans are twice as likely to be enthusiastic about voting as Democrats are.

The only note of caution for Republicans is that their leads in Democratic House seats are not substantial. In only 14 seats does the Republican candidate lead by more than ten points and most of those are open Democratic seats. But the Republican turnout machine – animated by Tea Party activists — will likely outperform its Democratic rivals.

And the Democratic Party has no message. Its campaigns are a hodgepodge of personal negatives and fabricated issues. No Democratic candidate is even trying to defend Obama’s health care legislation or argue that his stimulus program is working. Cap and trade is never mentioned by Democrats on the campaign trail. We have the spectacle of the most substantive legislative program in generations having been passed by Congress and now finding that it has no defenders in the election campaign, only Democrats scurrying to prove their independence.

All signs point to a growing Republican landslide.

The gigantic Republican gains of the past week indicate that party trend is now beginning to kick in big time. The Republican leads until this past week are largely due to the voting decisions of people who closely follow the process. The surge in Republican support in the past seven to ten days indicates that the less educated voters who do not follow politics as closely are breaking for the Republicans. Normally, these downscale voters are Democrats, but the economy and the alienating values of the Obama Administration (e.g. Ground Zero Mosque) seem to be driving them to the GOP.

Also boosting Republican prospects is the absence of social issues in the national debate. These elections are turning on unemployment, deficits, the economy, health care, and the national debt, not on gay rights or abortion. So, social liberals and libertarians see no reason not to vote Republican. Only in California are these traditional issues working in driving voters to the Democrats.

A landslide without precedent appears to be in the making.

The GOP’s Ante
by Jonah Goldberg

On the political gimmickry scale, the GOP’s new “Pledge to America” is worse than some, better than others. Let’s say it falls somewhere between the Federalist Papers and a Harry Reid press release — which, admittedly, pins it down as much as saying you lost a cufflink somewhere between Burkina Faso and Cleveland.

First and foremost it promises to focus on job creation, vowing to stop all scheduled tax hikes (i.e., the expiration of the Bush tax cuts). It offers a steep tax deduction for small businesses and a renewed commitment to curbing business-stifling regulations.

The Pledge also stands athwart the Obama agenda, promising to “repeal and replace the government takeover of health care,” cancel the unspent portion of the stimulus, and drive a stake through the heart of TARP. The Republicans also promise to “roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels” and disentangle the government from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That’s hardly all of the substance, but the politics are more interesting. Naturally, Democrats attacked the Pledge before they read it as a mean-spirited, irresponsible return to the boneheaded and miserly policies of the Bush years. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn insisted it would “visit a plague on Americans.”

Compared to what many Democrats said about the Contract With America, this is a ringing endorsement. Rep. Charlie Rangel said of the 1994 Republican platform: “Hitler wasn’t even talking about doing these things.” And though that is technically true — Hitler wasn’t talking about term limits for committee chairs or demanding an independent audit of Congress’s budget — the insinuation was a good deal more sinister. Indeed, Rep. Major Owens said that the ‘94 Republicans were hell-bent on “genocide.” Meanwhile, Clyburn’s biblical-sounding Republican “plague” might invite worries about locusts or, at worst, the killing of the first-born male child in every household.

On the right, reactions were mostly positive, with a healthy mix of skepticism. “I love it,” wrote blogger Michelle Malkin, “provided the words jump off the paper and into reality at some point soon.” Erick Erickson of the conservative website Red State stood out for his rage against the whole thing, calling it a “series of compromises and milquetoast rhetorical flourishes in search of unanimity among House Republicans because (they do) not have the fortitude to lead boldly in opposition to Barack Obama.”

Meanwhile, others, like Charles Krauthammer, argued that the substance was fine, but it was politically dumb to offer any substance at all. The Democrats are self-destructing like a tape-recording in “Mission: Impossible,” why get in the way?

My take: They’re all right.

Malkin is absolutely correct that the GOP must prove it is born again on fiscal responsibility. If the Republicans don’t prove it, then the Tea Party will swoop in like the Shadow Host of Dunharrow in “The Lord of the Rings” and mow down the Republicans like so many dimwitted orcs.

Krauthammer, I think, is uncharacteristically shortsighted. Politicians not only need mandates, they need to understand what their mandates are. Otherwise they tend to think they were elected for their sheer personal awesomeness. President Obama, somewhat understandably, thought he had a messianic mandate to push a hard partisan agenda from the left. In reality, voters thought his mandate was to be “not Bush” and to then govern from the center. He fulfilled the first part and ignored the second entirely.

It’s true that running on something rather than nothing might cost the GOP some campaign victories, but running on nothing would deny them even more policy victories. Sending Republicans back into power without a clear mission is like sending teenagers to Vegas for a school trip without a chaperone. Sure, they’ll check out the museums.

As for the argument that the Pledge doesn’t go far enough, that’s obviously true. But it’s also true that the Pledge is far, far more ambitious than the Contract With America was.

Moreover, the fact that it garners support from across the GOP caucus is a good sign, not a bad one, not least because it shows that the GOP can reach out to both the tea parties and to independents. Obama and Pelosi’s alienation of independents is destroying the Democratic Party right now. Why should the GOP emulate that strategy?

Conservatives shouldn’t look at the Pledge as the sum total of the Republican agenda. They should see it as the opening bid.

The Myth of Conservative Vulnerability
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

This week’s primary victories of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Joe DioGuardi in New York illustrate how the tea party is cleansing the Republican Party and installing true believers over professional politicians. It is a healthy trend that will continue to recreate the Party of Reagan.

But the conventional media, instead of hailing this trend, warns that conservatives cannot be elected and bemoans the victory of true believers saying that it is equivalent to handing seats to the Democrats and the liberals. This reasoning, which made sense in other times, is badly flawed in today’s political climate.

When social issues like abortion, gays and guns dominate the political discourse, moderates have a big advantage. Voters in these times tend to measure themselves on a left to right spectrum and find those flanked sharply to their right to be extremist on these issues and reject their candidacies.

But these days, social issues are in remission and economic/fiscal problems have, understandably, taken center stage. In this environment, purists of the right have a big advantage because nobody doubts the sincerity with which they embrace the goals of limited government, low taxes and reduced spending. Politicians of all stripes — including most Democrats — vow allegiance to them, as does the overwhelming majority of the electorate.

In this environment, the distinctions of left and right give way to the difference between sincerity and insincerity, leaving the voters to judge. With candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada or O’Donnell in Delaware or DioGuardia in New York, voters don’t have to guess. They know real conservatives when they see them.

Of course, Rep. Mike Castle had a big advantage in the Delaware Senate contest because of his name recognition and voter support after having run successfully statewide more than a dozen times (congressmen in Delaware serve at large). But don’t count O’Donnell out. She is the real thing — a conservative small-government devotee whose advocacy of low taxes is sincere and heartfelt. The national Republican establishment was stupid and short-sighted in the negatives they threw at her during the primary. Now they will have to eat their words at great financial and political cost.

But, in a way, their obduracy gives O’Donnell a great opportunity to run as the anti-establishment candidate, putting a plague on the houses of both parties and calling attention to the corruption of each. By separating herself from the Washington Republicans, she is able to embrace the values of small government and low taxes without doubt about the depth of her commitment. She is free of party labels and can luxuriate in that liberty.

For his part, DioGuardi has a very good chance to defeat Kristin Gillibrand. The appointed Democratic senator has not used the primary period, when she had a monopoly of the airwaves, to solidify her incumbency and generate familiarity among voters. Now she opens the general election likely at or even below 50 percent of the vote.

DioGuardi has a great chance to close the gap between them if he can get enough funding. Republicans looking for a lock on the Senate should send him plenty of funding. The Republicans running in Wisconsin, California, Illinois and West Virginia are largely self-funded. It should be possible to concentrate resources on those states where the need is the greatest, and if the GOP is smart, Delaware and New York will be high on the list.

Do journalists overseas have a better understanding of American politics than our own mainstream media?  I certainly think so.  Enjoy this animated video depiction of The Tea Party Express running wild with Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXu4wna11I

9/12 Reveals GOP Intensity for November Elections
by Jillian Bandes

The tea party has something in common with fine wine: it gets better with age. This year’s 9/12 rally came replete with the types of moveable signs that were clearly crafted with care and the types of activists who are quick on their feet with chants and chatter. It was all sponsored in large part by FreedomWorks, a non-profit organization that fights for limited government, and serves as a central force for a strictly volunteer tea-party army.

“There is only one power on this earth big enough to destroy this country,” said FreedomWorks chairman and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, during the Capitol rally. “That is government. Our founding fathers knew that and feared that. That’s why they wrote the Constitution.”

The turnout at Sunday’s 9/12 march was smaller than the number of people who had attended last year’s blockbuster 9/12 rally, possibly due to the fact that Glenn Beck had sucked up the energy of some tea partiers at his 8/28 “Restoring Honor” rally two weeks ago. Also affecting turnout was the weather: a steady drizzle dampened the event from the start of the day until about an hour before it ended. Considering those two factors, the turnout was indeed impressive, according to Freedomworks president Matt Kibbe.

“Is there anyone here who is going to let the rain dampen their plans to take their country back? Is there anyone here who is going to let the rain dampen their plans to remember in November?” he asked. The questions were met with a resounding “no” from the crowd.

The 9/12 march began at the Washington Monument, with a non-denominational religious service starting at 10am, and then a line-up of speakers from local activists groups. Then, the attendees swarmed down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Hill and set up camp in front of Congress, where they stayed until 5pm.

The kitsch factor was high. A sign-making event put on by FreedomWorks on Saturday resulted in the kind of elaborate displays that have come to symbolize the creativity and energy of tea party activists, including 3-d representations of tar and feathers, and a sign that featured President Obama’s moveable mouth.

The march was also highly politicized, with a theme of “Remember November,” in reference to the upcoming mid-term elections. Most speakers stuck to that theme on podiums in front of the Capitol and the Washington Monument, and the crowd seemed to have it on repeat. Armey referenced the importance of the elections by pointing to the many primary elections that the tea party has influenced, such as Joe Miller in Alaska.

Mike Pence, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, was a keynote speaker at the Capitol, and was met with chants from the crowd: “Sign the contract!” The crowd was ostensibly referring to the GOP’s “Young Guns” platform, put out by Reps. Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, who consider themselves the vanguards of constitutional conservatism. Pence has reportedly been “shut out” of the contract, which is set to be released in bookstores on Tuesday.

Despite the hullaballoo, Pence hit hard with an small-government, anti-incumbency message. He himself is a third-term incumbent, but has worked hard at maintaining an outsider image.

“We do not consent to runaway federal spending by either party. We demand an end to the spending once and for all,” said Pence. “We must fight for what has always been the source of American greatness: God and freedom.”

Many of the attendees said similar things to the speakers that manned the podiums.

“The government is heading in the wrong direction, since President Obama we’ve gone much further into debt, and our spending is out of control,” said Joe McKeney, from Farmville, North Carolina. “I believe it has to do with the liberal attitude in Congress. We need to get back to a smaller government, with fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget.”

Another attendee, a father of six children and grandfather of nine, said he came for his family.

“I’m sick and tired of the way the government has been running…. The government is supposed to be for the people, and instead, its all politicians doing whatever they damn well please. And it just isn’t right,” he said.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people that are like me, that are conservative, that want less government, that are just peaceful, passive people, that have allowed the Dems and liberals, Member by Member to eat away at our liberties, our freedoms,” he said. “The constitution is not a flexible document. It was never intended to be interpreted as a work in progress or a flexible document.”

The GOP’s Need for Speed
by Hugh Hewitt

Mike Pence gets it.

In an interview with CNBC –picked up by The Hill– the House GOP’s number three gave the explicit assurance that a return to the majority for Republicans would mean an extension of the tax cuts.

“Well, we’re going to stay focused on Election Day. But I think before that, we’re going to continue to demand that this administration and this Congress make it clear that no American will see a tax increase in January of next year,” The Hill quotes Pence as saying on the business network.

“So the first thing that we will do is try to preserve the tax relief of 2001 and 2003 for all Americans — for all small businesses and family farmers. But we also want to look at the kind of across the board tax relief, the kind of tax relief that will encourage capital formation, to get this economy moving again,” he added.

This is a great start and more needs to come. In an interview with me on my Monday program –the transcript is here– Republican Leader and presumptive Speaker if the GOP regains the majority John Boehner demurred when I pressed him on the GOP’s need for speed. Boehner obviously recognizes that he cannot speak for a majority that doesn’t exist or for members who haven’t yet been elected or given him their votes as speaker.

An appropriate refusal to be presumptuous, however, has to yield to the suspicion in the country that all Beltway electeds are part of a club and that the club really doesn’t feel the country’s pain and fear. The standard legislative schedule cannot control when a new Congress returns to D.C. in 2011. The House especially, the “People’s Chamber,” cannot slip into the old calendar where budget resolutions emerge in April and appropriations bills in September at the earliest. Boehner has to rally his leadership and his troops in November and December and begin the new year with a raft of legislation that atckles the big stuff and proposes serious solutions. The country is ready for that. Not producing it, at least through a House where a majority exists, will be a huge and lasting error.

Pence’s comments to CNBC are a good sign that some inside the caucus know that there is an overriding “need for speed.” Once and future Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier on my program has also pledged immediate action to rescind the move to add 18,000 IRS agents, which is a good goal example of the specificity that the voters are demanding, but about one line on a two hundred line agenda that needs to be laid out.

Paul Ryan is a superstar because he has laid out a plan. The GOP will keep any new majority they gain only if they collectively embrace a plan that genuinely carves back the spending, extends the tax cuts and keeps the Department of Defense fully funded. Obamacare has to be defunded, and a reform of Social Security advanced asap. Republicans have historically waiting until a consensus emerges, but they cannot do so this time or they will waste their opportunity and squander their momentum.

Hopefully John Boehner has a transition team working in some quiet office building in northern Virginia, ready to ship a detailed schedule and very detailed proposals to the members of the caucus on November 3. Those plans will leak and the lame duck session will be awash in recriminations and denunciations, false charges and alarmism.

Fine. If the GOP gets the rarest of all things in politics, a second chance, they have to expect that plans for using it will bring many squeals of false pain and feigned outrage. The Democrats will demand meetings of the sort they did not hold and bipartisanship of the sort they refused on health care and the stimulus. The MSM will amplify every charge.

If we don’t hear Democratic/MSM outrage coming out of D.C. in November and December as Nancy Pelosi prepares to give over the gavel, the country will be in a very bad place indeed.

And the GOP will have fumbled away a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set the country back on a right course.

How Republicans Will Win the Senate
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

It gets tiresome hearing the conventional wisdom say that the Democrats will likely keep control of the Senate. Far from it.

To gain control, Republicans must win 10 new seats. An analysis of the latest polling data suggests that Republicans currently hold the lead in eight pick-up states: Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin, Washington state, Arkansas, Delaware, North Dakota and Indiana. In a ninth, Illinois, the candidates are tied, and in the 10th — Nevada — Harry Reid is ahead by only one point. And, for insurance, Barbara Boxer in California and Kirsten Gillibrand in New York are both below 50 percent of the vote. In Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal is only at 50 percent. That’s a potential pickup of 13 seats and a likely gain of at least 10 (enough for a majority).

Any incumbent who is running at less than 50 percent of the vote is in serious trouble. It means that a majority of the voters have decided not to vote for him or her. (Asked if you are likely to be married to the same person next year, a vote of “undecided” does not bode well for your marriage.)

So here are the numbers:

Aug. 27 polls

Nevada: Reid (D) 45, Sharon Angle (R) 44 (Mason Dixon)

With Reid this far under 50 percent, Angle is likely to win

Aug. 26 polls

Florida (currently Republican): Marco Rubio (R) 40, Charlie Crist (I) 30, Kendrick Meek (D) 21 (Rasmussen)

So much for Crist!

Pennsylvania: Pat Toomey 40 (R), Joe Sestak (D) 31 (Franklin-Marshall)

Aug. 25 polls

Colorado: Ken Buck (R) 49, Michael Bennet (D): 40 (Reuters)

California: Boxer (D) 49, Carly Fiorina (R) 44 (Rasmussen) Boxer has gained a bit, but still in trouble

Louisiana (currently Republican): David Vitter (R) 51m Charlie Melancon (D) 41 (PPP)

Wisconsin: Ron Johnson (R) 47, Russ Feingold (D) 46 (Rasmussen)

Illinois: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 45, Mark Kirk (R) 45 (Rasmussen)

Aug. 24 polls

Missouri (currently Republican): Roy Blunt 54, Robin Carnahan 41 (Rasmussen)

Aug. 21 polls

Washington state: Dino Rossi (R) 52, Patty Murray (D) 45 (SurveyUSA)

Aug. 20 polls

Arkansas: John Boozeman (R) 65, Blanche Lincoln (D) 27 (Rasmussen) This is not a typo!

The most likely results are that Republicans win the eight seats in which they now lead and also take Illinois and Nevada for a gain of 10 seats and control. They also have a good shot in California and possible upsets in New York and Connecticut.

The Year of the GOP Women
by Hugh Hewitt

Analysts across the MSM are still trying to figure out how the GOP comes up not just with Meg Whitman and from a so-called “progressive state” like California, but also Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.

Three of these women are seeking the top jobs in their state –Whitman, Martinez and Haley– while the other three –Fiorina, Angle and Ayotte– want to join the U.S. Senate.

All six mark a sharp break with Republican Party politics of the past.

There have always been high profile Republican women, dating back to 1938, when Gladys Pyle won a special election in South Dakota to become the first GOP woman to be elected to the U.S. (Margaret Chase Smith, whom many wrongly believe was the first elected woman GOPer, won a general election in 1948. Democrat Hattie Wyatt Caraway was the first woman elected to the Senate, in 1932.)

Sarah Palin is of course the highest profile Republican woman of the moment, though if Meg Whitman succeeds in her quest to become the governor of California, she will quickly become as significant in the life of the GOP as Palin.

Palin’s endorsement helped Fiorina and Haley breakout from the packs in their races, and Palin’s “mama grizzlies” movement is a powerful fund-raising tool among the conservative grass roots. The GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee’s example of good natured give-and-get-without-flinching on the stump and the trail has set an inspiring example for scores of female conservatives across the country.

There is no sign yet, however, that MSM wants to draw attention to this unique year of the GOP woman. In 1992, when four Democratic women won their high profile races, the lefties in the nation’s newsrooms couldn’t stop proclaiming the sea change under way in the Democratic Party. Now that the GOP is having its banner year of gender breakthroughs, the story is getting nearly as much play.

Part of the reason –the obvious part– is that MSM remains overwhelmingly populated by liberal boosters of the Democrats, and they are never in a hurry to write a script that helps Republicans.

But less obvious is the media’s indifference to the story as a consequence of the enormous hostility found among the media elite to Sarah Palin, who is to them a sort of continuing nightmare in newsrooms across the land. The Manhattan-Beltway media and political elites have never figured out Palin, and they are even more confounded that she continues to draw enormous crowds and sway important races. That Palin is playing an important role in the careers of other women politicians is upsetting to these elites. They have yet to grasp the fact that Governor Palin is immensely popular because of her beliefs, ideals and accomplishments. That popularity isn’t going to decline no matter how often she is insulted on MSNBC or by late night comics.

Palin, unlike many of the analysts and insiders who dismiss her, is a growing force on the American political stage, part of a vast restructuring of American politics occurring before our eyes.

There is a rolling earthquake shaking and remaking American politics. It began as a rejection of Barack Obama’s enormous lurch to the left, but it has gone far beyond that. One consequence is this new cohort of new women, and among November’s biggest headlines will be their collective success.

Defining the conservative versus liberal divide
by Star Parker

Now that President Obama is getting ready to make his second Supreme Court nomination, the usual banter is taking place about the court and judicial philosophy.

The Supreme Court, of course, profoundly influences the character of our country.

Although, for instance, many look back on the policies of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal programs as the beginning of the real growth of the American welfare state, it is really key Supreme Court decisions during that time that enabled all of this. Court decisions changing the interpretation of “general welfare”, interstate commerce, and the authority of the federal government to tax changed the game and opened a new era of big government.

At the beginning of the 1930’s, the federal government’s take of national GDP was a little over ten percent. By the mid-1940’s it was over twenty percent, and the trend has been only upward since.

Although much of the discussion about judicial philosophy contrasts how conservative and liberal judges relate to the constitution, I think the real key to conservative and liberal divergence is the world view these judges already have when they sit down to interpret the constitution.

The statement of vision defining American values appears in the Declaration of Independence. Understanding that vision is where I think the most fundamental conservative versus liberal divide exists.

Consider how President Obama relates to the Constitution, as he wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope – “Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth….”

Our president is a moral relativist. So we may expect that he doesn’t take very seriously the idea, as state in the Declaration of Independence, that there are absolutes. That we have God given rights that precede government and that the job of government is to secure them.

Rather than seeing government’s job as securing our rights, the liberal sees it to invent them. The politician – or the empathetic judge – defines what is moral and just.

There’s a lot of speculation about what is driving the tea party movement and why, as reflected in the latest survey by the Pew Research Foundation, Americans’ trust in government is at an all time low.

I think most fundamentally it’s discomfort with this moral relativism that is driving the pervasive unrest.

The whole unique idea of American government – the idea of human liberty – was that there are absolute truths and that individual citizens can and must be protected from arbitrary rulers – whether it is a king or a political class with arbitrary powers.

President Obama said the other day regarding the kind of court nominee he will seek, “…I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights…”

What in the world can this possibly mean from our president who has just signed into law a health care bill which will force every single American citizen to buy a government defined health care insurance policy? A health care bill that opens the door to unprecedented government control over how private individuals manage their health care and the most private decisions they make over their own lives.

Or what can it possibly mean coming from our president who opposed the Supreme Court’s decision a few years ago banning partial birth abortion – which is pure and simple torture and murder of a live infant?

The real differences over liberal and conservative judges is most fundamentally about the world in which Americans will live. Whether we live and will live in a nation in which there are absolute truths or one in which we are at the hands of political arbitrariness in which our lives and property are up for grabs.

Our country is being governed today by those with the latter view of the world and, fortunately, more and more Americans are deeply concerned.

Saturday Night Beck [Bill Bennett]

There’s a lot to say about CPAC. This morning the major papers are highlighting Glenn Beck’s speech. I like Glenn a lot and I think he has something to teach us. But not what he offered last night.

Analogizing his own struggles with alcohol to the problems of our polity and in our politics, he said, “Hello, my name is the Republican party, and I have a problem!” “I’m addicted to spending and big government.” ”It is still morning in America.” ”It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hung-over, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America. And it’s shaping up to be kind of a nasty day. But it is still morning in America.” And, again, “I believe in redemption, but the first step to getting redemption is you’ve got to admit that you’ve got a problem. I have not heard people in the Republican party yet admit that they have a problem.”

Glenn is among the best talkers in the business of broadcast. I am not sure he’s a very good listener.

First, there is a good and strong tradition in alcohol and drug treatment that personal failings should not be extrapolated into the public sphere; that too often when this is done, conclusions are reached based on the wrong motives and, often, the wrong analysis. Glenn has made that mistake here and taken to our politics a cosmologizing of his own deficiencies. This is not a baseless criticism; they are his own deficiencies that he keeps publicly redounding to and analogizing to. It is wrong and he is wrong.

Second, for him to continue to say that he does not hear the Republican party admit its failings or problems is to ignore some of the loudest and brightest lights in the party. From Jim DeMint to Tom Coburn to Mike Pence to Paul Ryan, any number of Republicans have admitted the excesses of the party and done constructive and serious work to correct them and find and promote solutions. Even John McCain has said again and again that “the Republican party lost its way.” These leaders, and many others, have been offering real proposals, not ill-informed muttering diatribes that can’t distinguish between conservative and liberal, free enterprise and controlled markets, or night and day. Does Glenn truly believe there is no difference between a Tom Coburn, for example, and a Harry Reid or a Charles Schumer or a Barbara Boxer? Between a Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann and a Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank?

Third, to admit it is still “morning in America” but a “vomiting for four hours” kind of morning is to diminish, discourage, and disparage all the work of the conservative, Republican, and independent resistance of the past year. The Tea Partiers know better than this. I don’t think they would describe their rallies and resistance as a bilious purging but, rather, as a very positive democratic reaction aimed at correcting the wrongs of the current political leadership. The mainstream media may describe their reactions as an unhealthy expurgation. I do not.

A year ago, we were told the Republican party and the conservative movement were moribund. Today they are ascendant, and it is the left and the Democratic party that are on defense — even while they are in control. That’s quite an amazing achievement. But anyone who knows the history of this country and its political movements should not be surprised. America has a long tradition of antibodies that kick in. From Carter we got Reagan. And from Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama we took back a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, with midterm elections on the horizon that Republicans and conservatives are actually excited about, not afraid of.

To say the GOP and the Democrats are no different, to say the GOP needs to hit a recovery-program-type bottom and hang its head in remorse, is to delay our own country’s recovery from the problems the Democratic left is inflicting. The stakes are too important to go through that kind of exercise, which will ultimately go nowhere anyway — because it’s already happened.

The first task of a serious political analyst is to see things as they are. There is a difference between morning and night. There is a difference between drunk and sober. And there is a difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. To ignore these differences, or propagate the myth that they don’t exist, is not only discouraging, it is dangerous.

— Bill Bennett is the host of Morning in America, the Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author of A Century Turns: New Hopes, New Fears.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6EAD3188313F4813