USCG practices lawfare

Facepalm. Just facepalm.

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”…

[T]he Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges…

“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” [Jindal] said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”

Yep - I want the federal government have more control over my healthcare. More.

Back in formation ...

So, I have made it back to the world of 1s and 0s. Thanks to all who kept The Maritime Strategy comments going strong - I don't think we are quite done there either. I have some thoughts that need to season some more; but as you may guess, I am going to be exceptionally busy over the next day or so trying to get hold of all the real world stuff that is clogg'n my Outlook Inbox, my stack of Blue Folders and that blinking red light on my phone. Ungh.

What came to mind as I bounced around my day back? Funny, nothing Navy specific; but in case you are wondering:

- Poland: she proves that she has a more functioning democracy than the USA - they actually made you prove you are who you say and are a citizen to vote. Makes for good citizenship as you actually know you are voting on a level field. Grandmother may not like it - but unlike the USA, voter fraud is more difficult. Good luck to the new Polish gov'munt.

- France: there are a few things that President Sarkozy and Skippy could talk over a beer over- well near-beer for Sarko's part. How classless. Notice all the "I" and "me" in there. Sigh, I am so lucky with Mrs. Salamander.

- Switzerland: she reminded us that no nation is required to commit national suicide. Call people all the nasty names you want, but in the end they will vote to stop their unique nation from becoming another poly-glot of globalgaggle. We are to support diversity, right? In a world where language aside; public transport in Paris looks the same as NYC or London - why not let the Swiss say, "No thanks." Too late really, but I guess the thought is interesting.

- Louisiana: another quaint foreign country that seems to at last found some smarts. Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) was just elected Governor. One of the bright lights of the Gen X Generation of politicians, it is a smart move by those nice people with the funny accents that just can't seem to buy a decent government. Best of luck to both; and watch Jindal. Watch him close; in a good way.

- Nothing is worth doing this: remember the bit I wrote earlier this month about DoD acquisition ethical problems (a common theme)? Well, one of the players, the number two USAF procurement officer Charles D. Riechers, just killed himself in this garage with greenhouse gases. A sad, selfish act. I feel sorry for his family and friends for his loss - and wish he stayed with the living. A smart man, he had much to offer innocent or guilty - but all he leaves is shame.

- Rugby. South Africa won. Great news for what can and should be a great country if they can just make it through envy, hate, revenge, and racism that Zimbabwe has set as the benchmark. I am optimistic.

- 70%: that is the reduction over the last quarter in Iraq. You have to fight your way through discussions of Bin Laden and the Czechs shifting their limited number of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan - but it is there.

- Finally, it is Islamo-fascism Awareness Week. Pass it on.

The Gov. Jindal I know.

BTW - didn't Larry King sound like some Democrat operative? Hostile ...... against Jindal of all people.

Hat tip Cap'n Ed.

Good Adivce, if They Will Take It

From a national security POV, we could smell that there was something not quite right with the Romney campaign by summer.  The strange 600-ship pander-navy articles from a parallel fiscal universe; the complete lack of mention of AFG in Tampa, and the strange tone-deaf neo-con retreads giving advice and writing speeches the American people have grown tired of ... in 2007.

That was just part of a larger dysfunction.

Pat Caddell puts out in better detail what I said late election night - people need to get fired.

The Romney campaign, Caddell said, was driven be establishment consultants and was a failure of mechanics and message.

“But most of all, it was a failure of imagination,” Caddell said. ““It was the single worst campaign in modern history of a challenger who had a chance to win ... and that’s the truth and nothing can take away from that.”

He then brutally told donors in the audience that the Republican consultant-lobbyist-establishment complex took millions of dollars from them to only enrich themselves without having any meaningful impact on the election. 

“You donors and others were played for marks by groups like [Karl Rove’s American] Crossroads,” Caddell said, noting that establishment super PACs cared more about “preserving arrangements in the media.”

Too often, Caddell said the Republican consultant-lobbyist-establishment complex ignores anything that could be effective if it does not allow them to profit.

Caddell said those in the Republican consultant-lobbyist-establishment complex “do not want to hear any views from outsiders" because it threatens their racket. Caddell said this mentality will just result in more Republican losses unless this Republican consultant-lobbyist-establishment complex is eviscerated. 

“As long as the establishment wants to preserve the establishment and their special deals, you will lose,” Caddell said. 

 The Republicans have a good bench to work on, but the neo-cons need to go. No more Bushes of any type of any generation. No more Newt. Anyone who ran in 2012 needs to be shunned. Anyone over 50 should hope for VP and nothing more. 

The losers are sucking the oxygen out of the room. Most of all; stop doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. 

Benchmark Bill Whittle as well. 


Interesting note, you can't blame conservative bloggers; they have been polling them for the last few cycles, and who did they want the least?

In 2008, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…John McCain and Ron Paul.

In 2012, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Given that track record, who do you think they like the least in 2016?

3) If the list were narrowed down to the following 10 candidates, then which one would you **** LEAST LIKE **** to see as our 2016 nominee?
1) Chris Christie (NJ Governor) 32.5% (25 votes)
2) Jeb Bush (Former Fl Governor) 26% (20 votes)
3) Rand Paul (KY Senator) 14.3% (11 votes)
4) Scott Walker (WI Governor) 11.7% (9 votes)
5) Paul Ryan (WI Congressman. VP candidate) 5.2% (4 votes)
6) Susana Martinez (NM Governor) 3.9% (3 votes)
7) Brian Sandoval (NV Governor) 2.6% (2 votes)
8) Bob McDonnell (VA Governor) 1.3% (1 votes)
8) Marco Rubio (FL Senator) 1.3% (1 votes)
8) Bobby Jindal (LA Gov) 1.3% (1 votes)

There you go - Christie-Bush 2016 for the loss!

GOP Could Do a Lot Worse ...

Actually ... he was already on my short list.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he is interested in running for president in 2016.

"I'm not going to deny that I'm interested," Paul told ABC's Jonathan Karl in a segment called "Spinners and Winners."

Paul, who was first elected to the Senate in 2010 and has been frequently mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, said he hasn't made a final decision yet on whether to run in 2016.

"I think it's a little too early," he said. "We'll see what happens."

Sen. Paul (R-KY), Sen. Rubio (R-FL), & Gov. Jindal (R-LA) - not necessarily in that order .... that is a good entering argument, though let's give it a rest for about three years.

Don't let the door hit you in the ...

I won't miss Senator Lott (R-MS) as he heads out the door to make money as a lobbyist - but the shipbuilders in Mississippi sure will.

Minority Whip Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced yesterday he is resigning from the Senate, further changing the team of legislators who have protected the shipbuilding industry.

Lott, who is expected to leave by the end of the year, will depart before Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) who has said he will not seek another term in office. Earlier this year, the shipbuilding caucus on the House side unexpectedly lost Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.), who died of breast cancer.

Additional shifts could result from the 2008 elections, as other members of the Senate who represent coastal shipbuilding states face tough races.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another SASC member, is a proponent of the DDG-1000 program, which is being built at Bath Iron Works. She is locked in a tough re-election battle against Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), who is capitalizing on anti-war sentiment. On the Democratic side, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is on the Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee and is alone in her party feeling the heat in a state with a Republican governor-elect--Bobby Jindal.
...
Warner's impending departure, coupled with the death of Davis was a larger blow directly to the state and Northrop Grumman Newport News [NOC], which is located there, because of the singular role Warner played, an official said.

In addition, this year Congress has made a concerted effort to help the industry, providing additional funding where it could. With so many problems facing programs like the Littoral Combat Ship, congressional support is less difficult than getting the Navy to provide more certainty about its programs, said one industry source.

Speaking of Lott - this about says it all,

By leaving before the end of the year, Lott will not be bound by new ethics rules that prevent lobbying two years after leaving the office.

But in a press conference yesterday in Mississippi, Lott downplayed the role that lobbying rules played in his decision to step down.

"It didn't have a big role in that decision. You know, there are limits on that already. And as I've talked to my former colleagues, they say that a lot of what you do anyway is involved with consulting rather than direct lobbying," Lott said, adding that he would have retired in 2006 but stayed on to pass legislation that would help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. His own home was destroyed in the 2005 storm, and he secured more than $500 million in aid for Nothrop Grumman, which has three shipyards along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi (Defense Daily, May 3, 2006).

His departure will shore up the Republican base about as good as anything else out there. Man, I wish we had term limits.

Hat tip reader Mike.

Song of the South

Don't listen to what other say about you - just by your actions show your true self.

Southern Republicans - especially South Carolina Rethuglicans - are nothing but racist, sexist, homophobic, redneck, uneducated reactionaries. Right?

Sure, this is old news - but I wanted to go there anyway.

Voters in South Carolina nominated a black Republican lawmaker for an open congressional seat Tuesday, rejecting a legendary political name and adding diversity to the national party.

State Rep. Tim Scott defeated Paul Thurmond, an attorney who is son of the one-time segregationist U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. Scott, who won the runoff with 69 percent of the vote, is now poised to become the nation's first black GOP congressman since 2003.

Scott, 44, owns an insurance business and became the first black Republican in the South Carolina Legislature in more than a century when elected two years ago. Before that, he served 13 years on Charleston County Council and was elected chairman four times.

He's now the favorite in the coastal 1st District, which has elected a Republican congressman for three decades.

... and to make it even better ...

Indian Americans are making waves in politics. Nikki Haley won a runoff election yesterday as the South Carolina Republican governor nominee with 65% of the vote. She is favored to take the Governor seat in November. If Nikki Haley wins, she would be South Carolina’s first woman governor and the first Indian-American woman in the country to win such a post. She’ll join Bobby Jindal of Louisiana as the second Indian-American governor in the US. Her backers include the “tea party” movement and Sarah Palin. Let’s see what happens in November.

... and to go with our RC Cola, Slim Jim, and Moonpie of a glorious feast ... we have a little banana cream pudd'n to go with it.

Read Dylan Matthew's jewel over at Ezra Klein's place - it points out something that hit me like a bolt the after living in the Northeast a few years ... and one of the reasons I will never go back.

It starts with a question.

What states experience the highest racial achievement gap and how is has that changed over the course of history?

... and turns your biases on their heads.

On math, for example, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois and Connecticut immediately follow, topping southern states where legally enforced school segregation was a more recent phenomenon. Among southern states, the deep South, where one might expect to see the largest gaps, does not stand out, with Alabama and Mississippi doing roughly as well as the Carolinas or Tennessee. Hawaii and West Virginia report the smallest gaps in both surveys. Both have notably small black populations, which provide less opportunity for de facto school segregation.

Perfect? No, but we've come a long way. If the South's critics would take some time to get out of their glass houses in NYC and LA they would know it. Spend a week in Charleston and Savannah or let me take you through the central spine of FL some day. The sharp among you would have also noticed that both of these Southerners are Gen X.

So - ya'll hater-Yankees and race-hustling poverty pimps; kiss my grits.

Playing Twister with Vaseline

After my, "Dude, you owe me a beer!" call last Friday, I had one of those curve-ball weekends that didn't give me much time to do anything near a computer -- so let me catch us up on McCain-Palin. (be-still my fluttering heart).

I am still a bit off-bubble from this weekend, so mostly I am going to steal from others -- starting with the title of this post.

My support for Palin is mostly that she is just what we need as a nation and a party -- and offers the Republican Party an opportunity to break the dead hand of the old leadership and shift to a new Generation (like Rep. McCotter (R-MI), Gov. Jindal (R-LA), and Rep. Putnam (R-FL) and others ). That is the Strategic view. The Operational view though is that this just twists the Democrats in knots -- not the XX vs XY one that many jerk towards, no --- something much more substantive. Do they really want underestimate this? (full video here)

You need to read it all, but here is a sampler.

In fact, McCain's pick of Governer Palin has lathered the Presidential game of Twister with a nice coat of Vaseline. Obama and Biden best be wary how they contort themselves here. In the words of comedian Brian Regan: "Right foot red... BROKEN! Left foot green... BROKEN."

Let's review the minefield that Team Obama/Biden must navigate with Palin on board.

Palin has more executive experience than Obama himself (having run a company, a PTO, a town and then Alaska).

• WARNING: Bring up the experience issue at your own peril.
• SAMPLE: "When Senator Obama started his first run for local office I was already a two-term mayor. If you simply count the years of experience, I win, frankly."

• Palin fought corruption in an AK GOP party that was (and still is) full of it
  
  • WARNING: Careful around the "ethical" issues
  • SAMPLE: "Like Chicago politics, Alaska politics can sometimes get dirty. In my case I fought my own party tooth and nail for substantive change. I'll let voters decide what Barack Obama did in Chicago."

Her parents sound like they have a nice story too!

The father of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says he's been left "speechless" by the announcement that his daughter is John McCain's running mate.

Chuck and Sally Heath got a call from Palin's husband, Todd, yesterday as they were driving to a remote camp in Alaska to hunt caribou. Todd Palin told them to make sure they listen to the radio news because the camp is out of cell phone range.
...
The announcement has proven amusing to Heath. After dealing with constant phone calls, he says he'd "rather go moose hunting than be involved with politics."

Rich Lowry, I think, hits just the right note.

Palin is the Republicans' first woman vice-presidential nominee and, of course, has a chance to be the nation's first woman vice president. But "firsts" aside, she's potentially so compelling because she has lived so close to the everyday experience of Americans.

Both McCain and Obama come out of elites removed from middle-class life - in McCain's case, the aristocracy of the Navy; in Obama's, the Ivy League and uber-liberal Hyde Park politics.

Obama tried to pick someone with a connection to working-class life, and got Joe Biden - who's famously from Scranton, but has marinated in the US Senate for the last 35 years.

Palin's the real thing. She met her husband of 20 years in high school. As she said yesterday, she and her husband "grew up working with our hands." A fisherman and snowmobiler, he's a member of the United Steelworkers union and works in the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope.

She was "just your average hockey mom," then joined the PTA, got elected to City Council and mayor and won an upset campaign for governor two years ago.

Alaska's Republican Party is a cesspool of cronyism, earmarking and gross self-dealing - and Palin took direct aim at it when she challenged incumbent Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski and beat him in a primary. She went on to defeat ex-Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat, in the general.

And I bet they have no idea what the price of Arugula is a Wholefoods.

Finally, if like me life took you away from the tube - here it is. I like part 2 better, but see both.





Anyway -- she looks better than GWB in a flight suit - and more importantaly takes time to visit her troops.

If you haven't already, please read BeldarBlog's bit, and do like I did - order the book.

---

Enough seriousness. RedState Update, as usual hits the high points.



And remember that Gov. Palin was once a Sports Anchor? Check out that '80s hair!

---

Just to be fair and balanced. One of the leaders of the Obama camp offers this erudite, balanced, argument.

NB: actually Diddy - it's 1 out of 20 --- if you must know. And it is Meth, not Crack that is the issue; if you cared to know.

From Trent and George to Bobby and John

This is why I am optimistic - cautious, but optimistic. Perhaps not '08, but longer.

Picture/remember George Bush (41 or 43) in these venues? Did you wince every time Trent Lott was in front of the camera? How about Dennis Hastert?

Watch how the two brackets of the Republican Party, 71 McCain and 36 Jindal, handle themselves.









Leno embarrassed himself in a way. Stewart did better.

Hat tip HotAir and Michelle.

Go right young man (or woman, or whatever)

A little more Republican belly-button picking.

This bit from Brendan Miniter in the WSJ is close to what I am thinking.

That Republicans are coalescing around these three governors is also revealing for who is not included. Several years ago Christie Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and EPA administrator, wrote a book called "It's My Party Too." She used that treatise to argue for the party to abandon its conservative roots. Even after two serious GOP drubbings at the polls, she has found no takers. Likewise, Lincoln Chaffee, the former Rhode Island Senator once labeled a "Republican in Name Only," was still complaining last week to the Washington Post that "right-wing talk show hosts and the Ann Coulters and that ilk" never understood that the GOP needs people like him.

Maybe that's because Republicans have looked closely at the election results. The country hasn't so much moved left as it has abandoned a GOP that abandoned its own principles. In Ohio, Barack Obama actually won about 40,000 fewer votes than John Kerry did four years ago. Mr. Obama took Ohio only because John McCain pulled 350,000 fewer votes than George W. Bush did in 2004. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters stayed home.

That's not an endorsement of the ideas of the left. It's a lack enthusiasm for a party that failed to deliver the smaller government it promised in Washington. At least the GOP, in settling on future leaders like Governors Jindal, Sanford and Palin, seems to understand that.

On the other side, we have Christine Todd and the Funky Bunch,

While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a nine-percentage-point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.
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In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Obama's vote total exceeded the total won by President Bush four years ago. So even if McCain had equaled the president's numbers from 2004 (and he did not), he still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes) -- and lost the election. McCain didn't lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Obama broadened his base.
...
In the wake of the Democrats' landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn't support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don't find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It's long past time for the GOP to do the same.

The thing is - I don't think the issue really is social conservatives. What brought out my cleaning posts starting before the '06 election and on has everything to do with economics, leadership, and the role of gov'munt. Why do you think I was a Giuliani supporter?

No. I think there is a bit of projection on Christine's part - social conservatism is a critical part of the Republican base - but it is not at the front of what is and should be the discussion on why the base stayed home. As for Palin - just speaking for myself and her other supporters I have talked to, and remember I am an Evangelical, her social issues were not what we talked about. We talked about leadership, corruption, and the role of gov'munt first. I don't know what Palin supporters she has been talking to - if any.

Red State Blues

The good folks over at Red State aren't too happy with the Republican slate for '08.

They are right about Jindal and the future. I have liked him since '02. Good guy.

What the Republicans must do

While sitting over some beers, a fellow Republican Josh Griffin said something that brought back some memories,

As I was voting, I thought of P.J. O’Rourke, great writer, who had an interesting observation 20 years ago about the Republican Party. He said it is the party that thinks that government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.

They missed their chance after '06 to bring in the right kind of new leadership. Perhaps they were a little gobsmacked to do the right thing. Too proud to admit they had lost touch. Especially in the Senate - there is no excuse now (though to be honest, Sen. McConnell (R-KY) is alright, I guess).

Who is there to step up? Simple.

Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI). Congressman Adam H. Putnam (R-FL). Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA). There are my top three in the House (a little more about Putnam in a bit).

There are a few things out there, that together I think the sum is greater than the whole. As usual, I don't necessarily agree with it all, but I am never 100% correct on anything. I do respect what is said, and who it is said by....and it is all good news, soooooooo REJOICE DEAR HEARTS!

From the 06 NOV IBD,

After the GOP’s second straight electoral drubbing, some top Republicans are now calling for a leadership overhaul. A few are already making their moves.

Reform-minded members like Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., say the current leadership is undermining the party.

“If we were a football team after a second straight season like this, you usually replace the coach, whether he deserves it or not,” Flake said. “You have to present a fresh face. That’s even more important in the world of politics.” So far though, only one leadership member, House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, R-Fla., has stepped aside.

BTW, that is a shame because Rep. Putnam is one of the best of the Gen X batch out there. He will come back some time in the future – but the fact he stepped aside is one other bit of proof that he “gets it.”

Sen. Coburn (R-OK) gets it as well,

“Republican efforts to build a governing majority through spending and earmarks have ended in disgrace,” Coburn said. “The Republican Party can either restore its identity as the party of limited government or go the way of the Whigs.”

I would also offer that P.J. O’Rourke again (who BTW is one of the foundation reasons I am a Republican and why I like to think of myself of a (l)ibertarian Republican – read Parliment of Whores and Republican Party Reptile if you need refs A and B – in addition to his writing about his trip to the Soviet Union in the ‘80s) is on to something basic as well in We Blew It - you don't have to buy all of his thoughts, just ponder them with your ego in the safe.

Anyway, a low tax rate is not--never mind the rhetoric of every conservative politician--a bedrock principle of conservatism. The principle is fiscal responsibility.

Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.

"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.

"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.

"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out."

Yes, this would make for longer and less pithy stump speeches. But we'd be showing ourselves to be men and women of principle. It might cost us, short-term. We might get knocked down for not whoring after bioenergy votes in the Iowa caucuses. But at least we wouldn't land on our scruples. And we could get up again with dignity intact, dust ourselves off, and take another punch at the liberal bully-boys who want to snatch the citizenry's freedom and tuck that freedom, like a trophy feather, into the hatbands of their greasy political bowlers.

From TheCampaignSpot - one of the more clearer statements on something more Republicans need to turn their attention to.

Is the GOP Really Turning Into a Regional Party?

If the GOP party is dead in the Northeast, why do Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have Republican governors?

The "they're all squishes" argument doesn't quite fly, as Rhode Island's Don Carcieri is pro-life and tough on illegal immigration. Vermont's Jim Douglas is a tax cutter, supports nuclear power, supports "traditional marriage," and has cut the state's budget in some areas.

And what can Republican congressional candidates learn from these governors who managed to get reelected in Democratic years like 2006 and 2008?

AW1, you're one of my Yankee spies - what say you?

Outside Congress - there is another leadership vacuum out there that needs to be filled. That of the Republican Party Chairmanship. I have seen the mention of Michael Steele mentioned - I liked him in his Senate run that we would have been victorious in any year but '06. I have also seen the mention of Newt. No, not Newt and unquestionably not Duncan.

...Republicans representing diverse views about the party’s direction are preparing to fight for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, a prominent post when the party is out of the White House. The current chairman, Mike Duncan, has signaled that he wants to stay on after his term expires in January, but he is facing challenges from leaders in Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina, among other states.

Mr. Duncan was installed by Mr. Bush, and the fight over his post reflects the effort by many party leaders to erase any remnant of the Bush legacy.

These struggles come as the party prepares for a broad ideological battle, in particular over how much to emphasize social issues like opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. Party leaders said the focus on those issues had constricted the party’s appeal to moderate and independent voters more interested in jobs, health care, education and other issues that touch their lives in more concrete ways.

“We can’t be obsessed with issues that are not the issues that are important to American voters,” said Jim Greer, the Florida Republican chairman and a likely candidate for national party leader.

As for the future, if you strip out Haley Barbour (nothing personal, but stay in Miss.) - I like this line-up; it is a good base to start from.

The session will showcase a roster of governors positioning themselves as leaders or future presidential candidates, including Sarah Palin of Alaska, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Charlie Crist of Florida, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

If this article from the NYT is right, which I believe it is, then there is some good thinking going on.

In my list above of Representatives I like - I may have overlooked someone. Take a look at a Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) bit in the WSJ yesterday. Read it all, as it is a solid, practical, politically informed and clear headed overview.

We cannot simply put up roadblocks to the emboldened Democratic majority. We need to offer an alternative future. Absent reform, our federal government will double in size within a generation. We must change course from this path of stagnation, and we must have leaders willing to provide a path that keeps alive the American ideal and keeps our government limited.

Our party has become too fearful of our own ideas. Since 1997, congressional Republicans began a steady retreat from principled leadership to political expediency. A party built on spending discipline and government reform succumbed to the siren songs of government expansion and earmarked giveaways. Republicans squandered the opportunity to limit and reshape the relationship between the federal government and the individual.

I ran on these bold ideas and innovative solutions in a congressional district carried by Barack Obama -- yet I received 64% of the vote. I challenge my colleagues to rethink political risk taking. Taking on our most serious fiscal challenges will restore relevancy to the Republican Party and will keep alive America's commitment to freedom and prosperity.

All is not lost. As I like to say, the wheel will turn. The Republicans were in for a cleaning. Time to move forward.