The Great RINO Hunt of 2010

MIAMI(CBS4) -- A new poll has found that Florida Governor Charlie Crist's campaign for the U.S. Senate is currently in deep trouble. The new Rasmussen poll of likely GOP voters found Crist and his Republican opponent, Marco Rubio, are tied with 43 percent of the vote. This is a huge swing from just a few months ago when most experts believed Crist would win in a landslide.

While Crist's numbers have been in an almost free fall, Rubio's name recognition amongst Republicans has rapidly grown. The new poll found 34 percent of GOP voters now view Rubio "very favorably." In the same poll in August, Rubio's "very favorable" ratings were at 18 percent.

On the flip side, Crist's numbers have fallen off a cliff. Only 19 percent of likely GOP voters have a "very favorable" opinion of the governor. According to Rasmussen, that's a double-digit decline since August.

The big story in next years elections will be less about how many seats Republicans win than about what kind of Republicans win them.

The rank and file of the Republican party has had it up to here with RINOs and isn't going to take it any more.

Look for next year to be a blood purge of Republicans in name only as the conservative base of the party rises up and retakes control of the GOP.

Left turn?

Gallup has been asking people where they stand on the left-right spectrum and found some interesting results:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.

[. . .]

There is an important distinction in the respective ideological compositions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. While a solid majority of Republicans are on the same page -- 73% call themselves conservative -- Democrats are more of a mixture. The major division among Democrats is between self-defined moderates (40%) and liberals (38%). However, an additional 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative, much higher than the 3% of Republicans identifying as liberal.

True to their nonpartisan tendencies, close to half of political independents -- 45% -- describe their political views as "moderate." Among the rest, the balance of views is tilted more heavily to the right than to the left: 34% are conservative, while 20% are liberal.

There are several interesting things here. One is that the "conventional wisdom" that the nation has moved to the left is pure bull crap. If you will think back to the last presidential campaign you will recall that Obama was running on a platform of fiscal responsibility and promising the vast majority of Americans a tax cut.

That's right. On those all important "kitchen table" issues he managed to get to the right of his hapless boob of a Republican opponent. This was made possible not only by John McCain's incompetence but by a mainstream media which abandoned bias for outright advocacy.

Yet with the worst Republican candidate in the history of Republican candidates and a news media which had transformed itself into an arm of the Obama campaign the Republican still only lost by a few percentage points.

Next please note that those Republicans identifying themselves as "liberal" only make up 3% of the GOP. This should make us wonder how liberal Republicans like Colin Powell have become contenders for the position of "face of the GOP". Since Powell represents only the most minuscule fraction of the Republican rank and file it would seem that only the support of the mainstream media (you know the folks who regard Barack Obama as less a president than as a God-King) keeps Powell from being perceived as what he is - a left-wing operative who is only pretending to be a Republican for the purpose of doing as much damage to the GOP as possible.

Finally note the fact that while only 3% of the GOP identify themselves as liberal fully 22% of Democrats consider themselves to be conservative. In other words there is as much potential for a genuinely conservative Republican candidate to gain the votes of conservative Democrats today as there was back when Ronald Reagan was running for president.

So much for the "Reagan is dead" meme.

The lessons seem very clear. One, the inside-the-beltway "Republicans" care far more about being invited to the right cocktail parties and being asked to appear on the Sunday shows than they ever will about little things like winning elections and fixing the titanic mess that Obama is making of our economy and our international standing.

Two, the way for the GOP to regain control of the legislature in 2010 and the White House in 2012 is to ignore the poisonous advice of the mainstream media and their pet liberal Republicans and follow the lead of men like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. If we run conservative candidates with good communication skills who are unashamed of their conservatism, who are willing to take the fight to the reigning liberal establishment and who are unafraid to criticize Barack Obama by name WE WILL WIN.

More lessons on how to be a loser

Byron York writes in The Washington Examiner:

The Republican strategist who helped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepare for a possible presidential run says the Republican party is in for a devastating defeat if its guiding lights are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. "If it's 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we're headed for a blowout," says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. "That's just the truth."

Huntsman, a favorite of GOP moderates, left the Republican presidential race last week after accepting President Obama's offer to become U.S. ambassador to China. Before that, Huntsman appeared to be working hard on preparations for 2012. "He had not made a decision to run for president, but he had made a decision to prepare to run," says Weaver. "We were probably a month away from announcing the formation of a political action committee, so we were pretty far down the road."

All you really need to know is that Weaver was a "close adviser to Sen. John McCain" and that Huntsman, the man that Weaver thought would make the ideal presidential candidate took a job in the Obama administration.

Let's look at a bit of history. In 2008 the man whom the "moderate" wing of the Republican party regarded as its standard bearer, its very model and ideal - John McCain - gained the Republican nomination.

The result? He went down to defeat at the hands of a half-smart, half-Marxist, no-nothing, done-nothing with zero executive experience who only won the Democrat nomination because he happened to be half-black.

The only time that there was any energy and enthusiasm for the McCain campaign was when he chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

If the John McCain style Republican represents everything the party needs to win elections then why was McCain unable to draw a large and enthusiastic crowd unless he had Palin by his side?

Let's look at another "moderate" Republican who is held out as an example by the RINO wing of the party. Colin Powell. Powell, you will remember, got exactly the candidate he tells the Republican party that it needs to win elections in John McCain and his response was to endorse B. Hussein Obama.

History, from Ronald Reagan's two landslide victories to John McCain's humiliating defeat, teaches us one clear lesson. In a head-to-head race between a conservative and a leftist the conservative wins.

The only remaining question is this. Are these GOP "moderates" really that shit-all stupid or do they actually want the Republican party to remain an ever shrinking minority?

Taking out the trash

WASHINGTON (AP) - Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania abruptly switched parties Tuesday, a move intended to boost his re-election chances that also pushed Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.

"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected at mid-afternoon.

So the wretched old left-wing scumbag finally made official what has been obvious for decades. He is a Democrat.

Good fraking riddance. The GOP does not - and never has - needed trash like this.

Now if we could only get John "Judas" McCain and his detestable little butt-boy Lindsay Graham to follow Specter.

And another positive development:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, "Let's be honest: Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Senator Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don't do it first."

The Republican party finally has a national chairman who will stand up and tell the truth.

Good for you Mr. Steele. Keep telling it like it is and in 2010 we'll have the House and Senate back and in 2010 we'll be saying "President Palin".

The RINO's continue to spin

(CNN) — The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday.

In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month.

"I think the party has to take a hard look at itself," Powell said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. "There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don't object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority."

Powell, who crossed party lines and endorsed President-elect Barack Obama just weeks before the election, said the GOP must see what is in the "hearts and minds" of African-American, Hispanic and Asian voters "and not just try to influence them by… the principles and dogma."

"I think the party has to stop shouting at the world and at the country,"Powell said. "I think that the party has to take a hard look at itself, and I've talked to a number of leaders in recent weeks and they understand that." Powell, who says he still considers himself a Republican, said his party should also stop listening to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" Powell asked. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?"

Zakaria's full interview with Powell will air Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on CNN.

Mr. Powell what Republican better embodied your brand of moderate non-confrontational "reach-across-the-aisle Republicanism" than John McCain?

The fact is that RINO's like you got exactly the candidate that you wanted in McCain. John McCain was the "only Republican candidate who could win", at least that is what you spent the last four years telling anyone who would listen.

Well we all saw how that worked out didn't we?

The only reason that McCain's four point loss wasn't a 14 point loss was the presence of genuine conservative Sarah Palin on the ticket.

Mr. Powell are you and your fellow RINO's so stupid, so blind, so caught up in your delusions that you can't open your eyes and see simple reality. We tried it your way and we got exactly what your way will always bring - defeat.

When you were at West Point or the War College did they teach you to repeat losing strategies over and over again in the forlorn hope that they would somehow become winners?

Mr. Powell if you can't stand to be in the same political party as people like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, the memory of Ronald Reagan (and myself, bty) then leave it and become a Democrat.

Become a Democrat and attempt to use your influence to drag that party back from the lunatic fringe of extreme leftism where it finds itself now.

And what is it exactly that is "in the hearts and minds of African-American, Hispanic and Asian voters"?

Asians want an end to affirmative action in college admissions so that their children stop losing places to less qualified black, Hispanic and white applicants. I stand behind them 100% in this. If the student bodies of Stanford and Berkley and Harvard and other elite schools become 98% Asian it will give the rest of us a wakeup call and cause us to see to our own childrens' education.

Hispanics want unlimited immigration from south of the border and amnesty and easy citizenship for those illegals already here. That would have the effect of turning America into a virtual carbon-copy of Mexico. Is that what you really want Gen. Powell? Really?

And blacks seem to want (on issues not involving race) many of the same things that real Republicans want. Things like school choice and no gay "marriage". It's just that they have been brainwashed to believe that all Republicans are genocidal racists who want to send them back to the cotton patch in chains.

Well, Mr. Powell, the fact that you are at least nominally a Republican seems to argue that you don't buy into that fantasy so why don't you use your influence with your fellow African-Americans to educate them about the fact that the only form of slavery in force in America today is the enslavement of those who depend upon some form of government handout.

Oh, wait. If you did that you might not get asked to all the right Gerogetown cocktail parties and you might get so many interview requests from the mainstream media, at least not for friendly interviews.

Never mind.

Who not to listen to

Now that I have some time off I can get to a few things that I've been wanting to talk about. The first is this column by Chris Cillizza which appeared in last Friday's Washington Post. Mr. Cillizza spoke to some GOP "movers and shakers" about who looked good for the 2012 nomination. Chris begins by explaining why he left someone off of his list:

The most notable omission is that of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. While we expect the former vice presidential nominee will be on this Line in the coming months, she doesn't make it this time around because it is not yet clear how she will find a way to remain in the national dialogue from her far-away outpost in the Last Frontier. Palin is also VERY lightly regarded by many of the opinion leaders and establishment types within the GOP, making it tougher for her to command a leading role.

This pretty much explains why nothing else he says is to be taken seriously. The fact is that the "opinion leaders and establishment types within the GOP" are the geniuses who have led the Republican party to its devastating losses in the past two elections.

Further it was these "wizards of smart" (as Rush calls them) who have been telling us for years that "Reagan was dead" and that the only hope for the party was to move sharply leftward. These are the people who assured us that John McCain was the ideal candidate to broaden the appeal of the GOP to new constituencies, like Hispanics, and eat into the Democrat party's advantage among the "moderates" and independents.

Well we saw how well that worked out, didn't we?

So now that their fantasy of a center-left GOP led by the grand master of "reaching across the aisle" has been demonstrated to achieve nothing but devastating losses at the polls the "go left" crowd is desperately seeking to make Governor Palin the scapegoat for McCain's defeat.

Their first attempts to slime Mrs. Palin were almost unbelievably crude and stupid and backfired on them badly. Now the "party line" on the Governor is that she is simply a lightweight who tried her best but just couldn't hold up her end of the campaign.

This isn't going to work either. The average Republican in the street knows that the "Republican" leaders who are telling anyone who will listen that Mrs. Palin isn't to be taken seriously are the same people who took the GOP from a growing majority party to a shrinking minority party in just a few short years.

We are finished listening to these people and the fact that they don't like Sarah makes us love her even more. The FACT, not speculation or wishful thinking, is that the only time that McCain moved into the lead was right after his announcement of Governor Palin as his running mate. The FACT, again not speculation or wishful thinking, was that McCain had to take Palin on the campaign trail with him in order to draw a crowd of any size. The FACT is that when ordinary Republicans are polled (rather than elite Washington-Manhattan axis RINO's) Sarah Palin is the most highly regarded living Republican.

The fact is that Mrs. Palin will have no trouble staying in the public eye. She is one of the most sought after politicians in the world with offers for book deals, movies, speaking engagements and interviews pouring in from around the world. Her only real problem will be avoiding overexposure.

In conclusion I would just remind everyone that the same class of RINO elites who despise Sarah Palin also despised Ronald Reagan, and for exactly the same reason. The same people who call Governor Palin "uninformed" or an "airhead" also called President Reagan an "amiable dunce" and implied that he was borderline senile.

History shows us how utterly wrong they were about both Ronald Reagan and John McCain so why on earth would anyone trust their judgement about anything else ever again?

It is time, and past time, that we broom these liberal Trojan horses out of the party once and for all. The GOP's tent should be big enough to cover every social, fiscal and national security conservative in the nation, and not one square inch larger.

If we set ourselves to making that happen we will find that the tent is large enough to cover a majority of Americans.

They so wanted it to be true

NEW YORK – MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a Fox News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

The reason that MSDNC was so eager to report this story that they ran with it without doing any basic fact checking was that it added credence to an anti-Palin story. The fact that the source for the Palin smears is anonymous put them in doubt from the beginning and the fact that CNN (of all things) investigated them and found them to be false drives the stake through their heart.

Unless a source, placed highly enough in the campaign to know, comes forward on the record to repeat them.

The ultra-left cable channel thought they had that and so they didn't want to know that they might be false. Any more than Dan Rather wanted to know that the National Guard documents that implicated George W Bush were forgeries.

The Great GOP Civil War

There is a civil war going on within the Republican party. This fight for the heart and soul of the party is being waged between two broad factions which could be termed the Conservatives and the Moderates. Another pair of names which would apply are the Reagan Republicans and the McCain "Republicans".

The war between these two factions for control of the GOP began in earnest with the rise of Barry Goldwater and the Conservatives achieved their greatest victory in the election of Ronald Reagan. Since the time of Reagan the Republican party has run one presidential candidate after another who has pretended to belong to the Reagan wing of the party but in fact has been more closely aligned with the Moderates.

In 2008 the Republican party choose a candidate who called himself conservative but who had in fact been at open war with conservatives for years. The Moderates seized upon McCain as their last best hope to either drive conservatives out of the Republican party or at least marginalize them to the point where they could be totally ignored. The Moderates hoped that they would be able to hold up a McCain victory as proof that "Reagan was dead" and that the truism that "when Republicans run a conservative in national elections they win" was no longer true, if it ever had been.

The problem was that back even before Senator McCain had the Republican nomination locked up his campaign had internal polling which showed that McCain's hold on the conservative base would not be strong enough to bring them out in numbers large enough to have any hope of winning the election (this was before the full extent of Obama's radicalism was known). This caused the campaign to bypass the people that McCain would normally have wanted as his running mate (Joe Lieberman, Tim Pawlenty) or that political expediency might have otherwise forced him to pick (Mitt Romney) and instead choose a died-in-the-wool Reagan conservative.

This led the McCain campaign to Sarah Palin who had the added appeal (to McCain) of being a reformer who had taken on the Republican party in her own state (in McCain's mind true glory can only be achieved by people who oppose Republicans).

The problem for McCain and his "insiders" was they they simply had no real idea of what a bad taste McCain's nomination had left in the mouths of the party faithful. When Sarah Palin's name was announced as the VP pick the wave of pure joy which swept through the Republican party must have been a very unwelcome wakeup call for the McCain campaign and the Moderate/McCain wing of the Republican party.

The contrast between Sarah Palin's night at the Republican convention and McCain's night tells you everything you need to know. Palin electrified the room, filling the hall with an energy which haddn't been seen since Ronald Reagan departed the political stage 20 years ago. In contrast McCain's night could have been titled The March of the RINOs as McCain and his soul-mate Lindsey Graham put the room to sleep.

The undeniable fact is that the one and only time McCain took the lead and seemed likely to win the election was right after Sarah Palin was named as his running mate.

Now that the election is over and McCain's loss has proved the truism that "when you give the people a choice between a democrat and a Democrat they will pick the Democrat" the Moderates are desperate to create a narrative of the campaign which places the blame for the defeat on anything other than the fact that McCain was a RINO. It is acceptable to believe that McCain lost because he was too old or because he wasn't bright, cheerful and optimistic enough but you must not, under any circumstances, think that McCain lost because of all those years on the Sunday shows trashing his fellow Republicans or all those pieces of "signature" legislation that he had his name stuck on with left-wing partners like Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold.

But the Moderates have another option before them as well. Rather than just blaming the fact that McCain was an old fart running against a young telegenic man who could read a speech better than anyone else in the history of the world (as long as someone else wrote it for him) they can kill two birds with one stone and blame Sarah Palin, the Reagan conservative.

This is the reason why the McCain campaign "insiders" are leaking bizarre lies about Governor Palin's behavior during the campaign. Not only do they hope to absolve themselves of any blame for McCains loss they hope to destroy Mrs. Palin's future political viability.

Why is this so important to them? Read this report from Rasmussen:

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.

Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

Three other sitting governors – Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Charlie Crist of Florida and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota – all pull low single-digit support.

These findings echo a survey earlier this week which found that Republicans were happier with their vice presidential candidate than with their presidential nominee. Seventy-one percent (71%) said McCain made the right choice by picking Palin as his running mate, while only 65% said the party picked the right nominee for president.

Right now Sarah Palin is the most popular living politican in the Republican party and the front runner for the 2012 nomination. And she's a Reagan Conservative.

You see the problem for the Moderates? How can "Reagan be dead" if the most beloved Republican in the nation is the one being hailed as "the new Reagan"?

The moderates know that if they are to have any hope of picking the next Republican nominee they must destroy Sarah Palin. She is everything they hate and abominate. She is an unashamed conservative, a devout Christian, a gun owner, not a product of the Ivy League, she has worked with her hands and would do so again, she didn't have her Down's Syndrome baby chopped to pieces and sucked into a jar at an abortion mill, she doesn't really believe in human-caused global warming and she wants to drill in ANWAR.

The very reasons that the McCain wing of the Republican party hate Sarah Palin is why I and most other Republicans love her. This is why I started the Palin 2012 blogroll and why I am writing this piece.

This is why I believe that conservatives must unite behind Sarah Palin and promote her cause. Even if there is someone you personally like better the fact is that any other Republican would have to work long and hard to just arrive at the point of name recognition and popularity that Mrs. Palin already occupies. Sarah has a head start. Help her build on that.

And keep the faith the Moderates will lose. The relative moral strength of the two sides is clearly seen in the fact that the conservatives greatest victory came in their election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency while the greatest Moderate victory to date has been the nomination of John McCain to the candidacy.

Getting the GOP's House in order

In Defeat, Republicans Opting for Insanity By Chuck Muth November 9, 2008 The well-known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. House Republicans appear to be insane. When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) stepped down in 2006, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected to replace him. Boehner went on to lead Republicans with a bland, lame, uninspiring legislative agenda. Voters, led by conservatives who sat on their hands, rewarded him by kicking Republicans out of the majority in November of that year, hoping Republicans would wake up and change their evil ways before the White House was on the line. They didn't. Learning nothing from that Election Day massacre, House Republicans re-elected Boehner as Minority Leader. He - and they, collectively, under his leadership - went on to bore the electorate with an unimaginative legislative agenda in opposition to a Democrat-led Congress under Speaker Nancy Pelosi which was even less popular, if you can believe it, than President Bush himself. Under Boehner's leadership, Republicans couldn't even agree to back a moratorium on "earmarks" and ended up backing that larded-up $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Custer-like, Boehner then went on to lead his troops this week to yet another embarrassing election defeat against the most unpopular Congress in modern polling history. As conservative columnist George Will pointed out this week, Boehner has now lost some 55 seats in two short years. "These are the worst Republican results in consecutive elections since the Depression-era elections of 1930 and 1932," Will reminds depressed Republican voters. "If, as seems likely at this writing, in January congressional Republicans have 177 representatives.they will be weaker than at any time since after the 1976 elections, when they were outnumbered in the House 292-143." There are two things to take from Will's point: One, Boehner has really stunk up the court; and two, under Boehner things could still get WORSE. I'm not saying Boehner is a bad guy or that he's not necessarily a good conservative. I'm saying that when a coach has back-to-back seasons as rotten as Boehner, the team usually fires the coach. But not Team GOP. Indeed, word coming out of Washington this week indicates Republicans are about to commit yet another act of political insanity by electing Boehner once again as House Minority Leader. But don't blame all conservatives in the House for this insanity. It appears it may be only ONE conservative responsible for this pending disaster - just like it wasn't all of George Washington's officers who sold out to the British. Recognizing that Boehner, clearly enamored with power, was unwilling to do the right thing and step aside graciously, House conservatives, especially those who belong to the Republican Study Committee (RSC), were planning to run one of their own - highly regarded conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) - for Minority Leader. Among those planning the conservative challenge and participating in the strategy sessions was former RSC Chairman Mike Pence (R-Indiana). And then Pence sold them out. According to a source close to the situation in Washington, on Thursday - unbeknownst to House conservatives - it was discovered that Pence had cut a deal to support Boehner for yet another term as Minority Leader in exchange for Boehner backing Pence for the #3 leadership position as Republican Conference Chairman. If true, Pence put his own personal ambition ahead of the best interests of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. If this "deal" was indeed struck and is affirmed in the leadership elections scheduled to take place in a week, House Republicans will not only continue traveling down the now well-worn path of electoral failure, but Pence's betrayal will divide the GOP ranks even worse than before. So movement grassroots conservatives, if they have any hope of turning their fortunes around in 2010, need to give John Boehner the old "Harriet Miers" treatment. As you'll recall, President Bush tried to name his longtime friend and highly under-qualified Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. The conservative movement was furious and rose up in unified opposition, eventually forcing Miers to withdraw from consideration. Conservatives need to rise up and oppose Boehner's re-election as the House GOP Minority Leader in the same manner - or forever hold their peace. Let the calls, emails and faxes begin!

Now some of THIS I believe

From the New York Times:

Ms. Palin. . . was the catalyst for a civil war between her campaign and Mr. McCain’s that raged from mid-September up until moments before Mr. McCain’s concession speech on Tuesday night. By then, Ms. Palin was in only infrequent contact with Mr. McCain, top advisers said.

“I think it was a difficult relationship,” said one top McCain campaign official, who, like almost all others interviewed, asked to remain anonymous. “McCain talked to her occasionally.”

But Mr. McCain’s advisers also described him as admiring of Ms. Palin’s political skills. He was aware of the infighting, they said, but it is unclear how much he was inclined or able to stop it.

The tensions and their increasingly public airing provide a revealing coda to the ill-fated McCain-Palin ticket, hinting at the mounting turmoil of a campaign that was described even by many Republicans as incoherent, negative and badly run.

Like I said. THIS I believe. In fact I would have been shocked if it had turned out any differently. John McCain is the blood enemy of conservatives and conservatism and Sarah Palin is the closest thing we have had to Ronald Reagan since his retirement in 1988.

One of the greatest fears that I had during the latter part of the campaign was that McCain, whose choice of Palin was - in his mind - nothing more than a gimmick and a bone to throw to conservatives, would come to realize that Mrs. Palin was far more popular than he was and that if he won it would only be because of her. I feared that this would ignite McCain's legendary temper and cause him to freeze her out of the campaign or even cut her down publicly in some way.

It would seem that McCain did resent her popularity but that he retained enough reason to continue to make public appearances with her. After all it was only her presence that allowed McCain to draw a crowd of any size.

It would be difficult to overstate how pleased I am to hear that Governor Palin went into this campaign with an agenda of her own. Her political instincts are surely good enough to have realized that a McCain victory was all but impossible (remember, if you give the public a choice between a democrat and a Democrat they will pick the Democrat). That she saw the campaign as a convenient vehicle to establish herself on the national stage and further her own presidential ambitions has me almost weeping with relief.

The greatest fear that I have had since last Tuesday is that Mrs. Palin would go back to Alaska and swear off national politics because of the incredibly vile treatment she received at the hands of the media, the left-wing of the Democrat party (sorry, redundant) and even her own party and her own campaign's "insiders".

That doesn't seem likely to happen and that gives me some hope for the ultimate survival of the Republic.