Please note that none of the people you blame were on the ballot, nor were Foley, Abramoff, Cunningham, Specter, Hagel, et al. But Santorum lost, punished for having supported a sitting Republican senator with seniority, but he was clearly one of the good guys, worth 100 of the list you mentioned. J.D. Hayworth may lose and if he does it's because he dared (dared) to accept campaign contributions from the Indian tribes who are his constituents and who he has supported on principle his entire career, all because those Indian tribes hired a lobbyist who is in jail for bilking the tribes out of money for work he didn't do (not, as the media says, for bribing anybody). But "purists" wanted to send a message about "corruption." Talent may well have lost in Missouri because a "Christian evangelist leader" in Colorado, who no one has ever heard of, turned out to be a junky and a pervert, so some Christian conservatives in Missouri stayed home. How does that make sense?
I would ask that all of the self appointed so called "principled conservative" purists who either stayed home this year or voted against the Republican candidate to "teach them a lesson" please ping me so that I can keep a list.
I want to send you one last message of thanks as we are being led off to the "reeducation" camps.
Well done. Truly marvelous outcome. Just like 1992. Congratulations to you all.
Very specific comment to this years protest voters (or non voters): I don't disagree with your complaints, by and large, about the Republican leadership. I do disagree vehemently with your actions this election day. The time to lodge this protest was in the primaries or, better yet, in the local organizing committees in the early stages of this election cycle, sometime in early 2005. That's the point when we need to make ourselves heard and our influence felt. Once the candidates are in place, with as closely divided a legislature as we have now, we have to look at the consequences of throwing away our votes in a "protest" and giving power to people like Nancy, Charlie, Alcee, Harry and Jack.
Don't blame me. I voted for Republicans, Corker and Blackburn. Blackburn would pass even the most ardent purists muster. Corker probably wouldn't, though that has yet to be proven (I wanted Bryant in the primaries, but he lost in a three way race with another good conservative splitting our votes). I decided I wanted a Republican to take Frist's seat instead of a Democrat liberal who voted for Nancy Pelosi for his leader in the House (albeit reluctantly) and would have voted for Harry Reid in the Senate.
A friend in Idaho emailed me election day that he had voted for a dem "to teach a lesson." I felt like I had been kicked in the gutt. This isn't an uninformed individual, which made it all the worse. If it had been I could almost (not quite, but almost) accept the action, but being informed and doing so I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
A lot of these "principled conservatives" like to call themselves Reagan Conservatives. Unfortunately they don't know jack about Reagan. RR was the consummate deal maker. He was always willing to take what he could get and go back until he got what he wanted. Many don't know the potholes he stepped in. The mistakes he made.
I knew what I was getting when I voted for Bush and I can see nothing in his policies that contradict what he ran on. The most important thing he had was his integrity. The Dems have hammered on that public perception for six years. Finally it stuck. I cannot remember very many Republicans coming forward to defend his honor. He was too much of a (whatever) to do it himself. Shame on the Republicans on TV, the Republicans in Congress. They basically have stood by for six years while a good man was dragged through the mud. We should debate policy vigorously, but the way the Pubbies have sat back and allowed out CIC to be called every vile name in the book is worse than just wrong.
And where was the national party when Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell were being crucified for just doing their job?
I have heard a lot of criticism about the Harriet Miers nomination. I still don't know anything about her judicial philosophy. I must have missed the hearings. All I know is that she didn't have the right educational background. Ann told me so. You know, Ann Coulter. She had a stellar legal career and issued ground breaking rulings from the bench. All I have ever heard Coulter do is gripe. She is never lacking for an opinion of "what" needs to be done, but never offers a "how" to get there. Life is easy when when one doesn't have to operate in a world where working with someone is required to actually achieve a goal. She must think there really is an "easy button". And unfortunately she is just one of many we should have been able to depend on for reasoned analysis but couldn't. She(they) failed.