Free Republic

As the public media focuses on the upcoming November elections for House and Senate, a brewing battle within the Republican caucus in the Senate has been largely overlooked. Many ways exist to describe the two sides of this internal civil war—“true” conservatives vs. “RINO” Republicans; extremists vs. pragmatists; new generation vs. dinosaurs. But, as is usual in politics, the battle may be embodied in two senators—Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. DeMint has successfully endorsed candidates, Tea Party and otherwise, opposed by “establishment” Republicans. In Kentucky, DeMint’s choice, Rand Paul, defeated the candidate endorsed by McConnell...

David Frum’s blog post connects his dismissal from AEI with Brink Lindsey’s and Will Wilkinson’s departures from Cato. In the post, Frum makes some important and well-articulated points about the GOP’s lack of direction and what a Republican majority could yield: We are likely soon to have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, maybe the U.S. Senate too. And what will that majority do? The answer seems to be: They have not a clue. Unlike the Republican House and Senate majorities of 1994, unlike the Republican Senate majority of 1980, these new majorities will arrive with only slogans...