GOP leadership changes?

I've asked a lot of my more politically connected friends what the chances are of a change in the top leadership for Republicans in the House and Senate when they caucus next month. Most of them tell me "Not much." Boehner has no real opposition for majority leader, though at least Pence is in the running for conference chair.


On the Senate side, I've been exceptionally surprised at the lack of chatter about replacing McConnell. Here's a guy who is only 214 votes and a run-off away having the filibuster lost on his watch and who nearly lost his own bid for reelection in Kentucky. Why would the GOP want to keep him in a leadership position?


Finally I've found at least one voice who agrees with me on this, in an opinion piece today from the DC Examiner.

In 2006 you settled on Mitch McConnell as your leader and quite frankly, the Republicans in the Senate and across the country have very little to show for that decision. We're down six seats in the Senate -- and they're still counting.

Moreover, Mitch McConnell, who supported the Bridge to Nowhere twice, who led you into a disastrous fight on illegal immigration, and who did little to strike back against the Democrats who were slandering the GOP on an almost daily basis, actually campaigned on bringing home pork to Kentucky.

Republican Senators, in their choice for minority leader, get to pick their chief spokesman for their legislative agenda and for the principles they wish to advance....or, in this case, defend. If the GOP really wants to begin the long climb back, it has to stick to principles. My hope - and the hope of so many disallusioned conservatives - is that they will use those principles to pick their leader rather than vice versa.

Diane missing opportunity for free money

Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is upset that people would have the audacity to hope that they could sell their inauguration viewing tickets for a profit (are we still allowed to say that word or is it profane now?).

Diane, dear, don't be mad just because you missed an opportunity to make the government entrepreneurial. If the government had sold those tickets, it could have gained a few extra pennies for the coffers - instead of coming after us in taxes later.

Let's say Congress sold the 250,000 tickets in the viewing area like airline tickets, so the first people get them for cheaper and the later sign-ups pay more. If you can average the ticket prices at $1,000, that's $250 million for Diane and the Congress to play with. Some tickets are going for as much as $40,000 on eBay - sell them all at that price and you're talking $10 billion - that's real money! Hey, you could give that to your friends at GM!

It's not too late! You still have those tickets in a secure location. No one will be surprised by the bait-and-switch on the "free" tickets - though if you're still uncomfortable with it, go ask Hank Paulson. He'll tell you how easy it can be.

O'Rourke accounts for our sins

PJ O'Rourke is mad at everyone:

What will destroy our country and us is not the financial crisis but the fact that liberals think the free market is some kind of sect or cult, which conservatives have asked Americans to take on faith. That's not what the free market is. The free market is just a measurement, a device to tell us what people are willing to pay for any given thing at any given moment. The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. "Jeeze, 230 pounds!" But you can't pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can. And voters--all the voters, right up to the tippy-top corner office of Goldman Sachs--think so too.

We, the conservatives, who do understand the free market, had the responsibility to--as it were--foreclose upon this mess. The market is a measurement, but that measuring does not work to the advantage of a nation or its citizens unless the assessments of volume, circumference, and weight are conducted with transparency and under the rule of law. We've had the rule of law largely in our hands since 1980. Where is the transparency? It's one more job we botched.

Mostly, though, he's mad at conservatives for not making the most of 28 years on top (he dates being on top all the way to Reagan and dismisses the '93-'94 period, I suppose). His rant - which is quite lengthy - is half over-the-top and three-quarters spot-on.

What he does not offer are any ideas on how to fix it, though he seems a bit fatalistic and unencouraged that we shall ever get the opportunity in the lifetime of anyone alive today. But perhaps conservative leaders will read it and be jolted into reality, causing some smart thinker to begin getting us out of this mess.

Will Obama be a great president?

With the election over, it has suddenly become acceptable again to notice that Barack Obama is black and for us to awe at the historical significance of this moment.

It is truly a remarkable moment, and despite the plethora of policy differences I am sure to have with his administration, I agree with my friend Charles that now, in this post-election, pre-governing period, it is right to pause and reflect on the accomplishment of an intelligent and eloquent man and, more broadly, with the truimph of Real People in moving beyond prejudices that affected - and in some cases defined - all but the most recent generations.

Will the historical nature of his election cause Obama to become one of our greatest presidents? Joseph Ellis, in his most recent book "American Creation", discusses the consideration the Founder's gave not to their acclaim while living, but to the fame they would achieve in posterity. "They were, in effect, always on their best behavior because they knew we would be watching."

Now, history will be watching Barack Obama. He won because of a lofty and passionately-told story of where he wants to take America, not because he had a powerful set of policy proposals. Many of the other presidents history remembers as "great" have done the same thing: Roosevelt with his promise for change in '32, Kennedy and his lofty notions of country, Reagan's declaration of Morning in America.

My hope is that a President Obama will be mindful of history's record of him as he governs for the next four to eight years. If he truly reaches across the aisle, if he truly manages to lower the tax burden on 95% of Americans while somehow not undermining our business climate, if he truly rekindles America's connection to the world without compromising our strength and independence, and, above all, if he truly restores America's sense of hope and promise, then he can indeed be remembered as great.

I sincerely hope he does become a great president. To do that, though, he will sometimes have to listen to the voices of future generations rather than the voices of those in the room. Keep wistfully gazing into the future, Mr. President-elect, because that is where your true fame lies.
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Taste the future

I can't believe I live in a district represented by this idiot. If he represents the views of the people here then I've gotta move.

I did my part to get rid of him...I just know it won't be enough.

HT: Andy at Club for Growth