Bah

Mitch McConnell as the Senate Minority Leader is okay with me. It does not exactly show the Republicans as being desirous of a new face at the helm, but at least the man is effective and does not seem to be a train wreck.

On the other hand, Trent Lott for Whip? Yeah, this is the guy who gave in and shared power with the dems after 2000, was forced to resign his leadership post after some ill-chosen racial-inflaming words regarding Strom Thurmond's presidential bid in 1948, and most recently came down hard on Porkbusters last year in a statement that basically asked constituents who requested fiscal responsibility to please SHUT UP.

Yeah, this really shows that the Stupid Party learned its lesson last week....keeping 2 good ol' boys who haven't been out of DC in decades (other than for re-election campaigns; Lott gets an extra for visiting his Katrina-destroyed home), and as such have very little in common with their old base let alone all the brown and black people they'd like to start voting for fellow Republican pals. Lott in particular can not be expected to win many NAACP converts.

Once again the Stupid Party continues to build plans for winning elections based almost entirely on the failings of their opponents instead of sticking to conservative principles and trusting in the conservatism of the voters. Sure, the dems are caught up in socialist infighting for the moment, but at some point they will awaken to discover that they are Americans as well, and will kick their commies out of leadership posts and be a real party again. As long as the reps continue to make their leadership choices from the rolls of the DC Country Club they can expect average voters to continue to reject them. 2008 looms larger than ever, and our front runners are McCain and Giuliani?

We laugh at the dems with the understanding that Kennedy and Truman would have no place in their party today, but the joke increasingly appears to be on the reps -- would Reagan have a place in our party today? Eisenhower?

Unfortunately I strangled my inner hippie to death some time ago and as such cannot support any 3rd party such as the Libertarians or the Constitutionalists. There simply is no effective path to power in that direction. The Dems are more or less the New Communist party, and the Reps are now FDR dems (strong national defense, social vote-buying and damn the budget).

So who am I to support? By default it has been and will probably continue to be the Stupid Party. The tangent of many other posts resonates fully today: "Where is a valid opposition party?" Although many voters chose to stay home or protest-vote 3rd-party or even dem last week, there were many others like me who chose to hold the nose and vote Republican across the board with the idea that a bad Republican currently beats a good Democrat.

Consider two people:

Lincoln Chaffee, arguably the worst RINO in the Senate (and possibly Congress as a whole), who chose not to vote for President Bush in 2004, has been an outspoken opponent of the War in Iraq, and is generally faithless, has a lifetime ACU rating of 37.

Joe Lieberman, hawkish Dem, who is foursquare with the President on the War on Terror, National Security, and Iraq, lost his primary to a peacenik knucklehead, and is generally praised by Republicans and conservatives for crossing the line on matters of security, has a lifetime ACU rating of 17.

That's right -- a terribly reviled Chaffee (and rightly so, in many cases) is an AWFUL republican. But he votes FOR tax cuts, AGAINST tax increases, and tends to support conservative judges. He's anti-war and hates strong defense, but he is 37% reliable on getting our agenda advanced. Lieberman, by contrast, is an unabashed liberal who not only is for increased spending on social programs and raising taxes, but also is a solid supporter of partial-birth abortion and yet is roundly held up as a bipartisan figure that is the "best of the dems" because of his war stance. Yet he votes for our agenda 17% of the time (which is 83% against, in case you're not paying attention).

Still think that forcing RINOs out in favor of dems is going to do anything to advance the conservative stance? The worst RINO is more than twice as reliable for our cause as the best Dem, and that Dem has our RINO beat on what is arguably the single most important issue of our time.

As the title says, "BAH!" It really stinks to be in this position, having to argue for the merits of the likes of Lincoln Chaffee and his ilk. But the broader picture must be observed. Obviously we would prefer more like John Kyl and Rick Santorum in the Senate, but if we can't have the good conservatives, we must still be willing to support the bad ones, the RINOs, because Lincoln Chaffee will get us closer than Joe Lieberman ever will.

In the meantime, the Republican leadership MUST show that they have heard what was screamed at them last week. It is bad enough that Lott is the whip, but to roll over for the dems and not push forward on the agenda harder than ever, would be a gross miscalculation and should be viewed as Political Malpractice.