Simply in terms of production values, the Republican Governors Association continues to put out the best ads:

14 Weeks from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

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Here’s what your Congress Critters are up to these days.

Sen. Jon Kyl calls the federal lawsuit against Arizona “baloney:”

Rep. Joe Pitts says on the House floor that uncertainty caused by big government is slowing job growth:

Rep. Charlie Rangel posts a video response to the ethics committee finding that he violated House ethics rules in his financial dealings:

Hailing from California, itself fiscally destroyed by excessive union power and influence, Rep. Linda Sánchez defends the protectionist and economically destructive Jones Act, which prevented foreign help from being accepted to fight the Gulf oil spill:

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Proponents of big government are running out of places to hide.  Having been uncovered long ago in the Democratic Party, some had migrated to the Republican side, moving among us as if they were true conservatives.  But these wolves in sheep’s clothing were exposed during the recent run of Republican government, as they ran up spending and debt.  Now, they are being removed:

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C) became the third House member and the fifth member of Congress to be defeated this year, losing by an overwhelming margin Tuesday in a GOP primary that served as a referendum on Inglis’s conservative credentials.

…Before the ballots had been cast Tuesday, many Republican operatives in Washington and South Carolina had written off the prospect of an Inglis victory, chalking up his seemingly inevitable loss to a combination of an anti-incumbent tide and local frustration with his departures from conservative orthodoxy.

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A recent Washington Post editorial discusses the apparent “Party purges” that some have observed in recent years.  Whether or not “purge” is the most appropriate word, I think there is a general truth to the idea that the parties have been slowly but surely sorting themselves out ideologically.  Southern conservative Democrats like John Breaux and Zell Miller are no longer welcome in the Democratic party.  On the Republican side the same can be said of northern liberals like Lincoln Chafee.

The editorial is reasonably even-handed in discussing the good and the bad of these changes, but I think it falls short in one important area.  A significant unidentified benefit of having parties with more clearly delineated ideologies is the increased ability for voters to replace bad policies with potentially better ones.

Assuming neither party has a monopoly on correct policy responses to various problems, when wrong policies are pursued and one ideology fails to deliver on a particular problem, having a clear alternative is preferable to two parties that are just a mix of both left and right.  In other words, if a governing party is already using a mishmash of liberal, conservative or any other policy solutions because they have a “big tent,” then it’s not altogether clear where the failure stems from when a policy flops.  But if a distinctly liberal or conservative party implements a policy and it fails, the source of that failure is easily identifiable.

The obstacle is our electoral system, which really guarantees the viability of two and only two parties, whereas the array of ideological choices is typically greater on most issues.  But just because we’re stuck with a two party system – one that encourages parties to be ideologically expansive despite all the hand-wringing over “purges” – doesn’t mean we have to have two parties with significant, and confusing, ideological overlap.  If you’re conservative, there’s really no good reason to be in the Democratic party, and no real benefit to the voters for having you there.  The same goes for liberals and Republicans.

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I’m not usually one to complain about partisanship because I believe that ideological competition serves a valuable purpose.  But there comes a point when attacking every little minuscule thing the other side does just becomes stupid.  Case in point, the Republicans have picked Tampa as the location of their 2012 convention and Democrats immediately responded with an “attack” on the choice.

Democrats are preparing efforts to hammer the GOP over its reported selection of Tampa as the location of its 2012 convention, pointing to benefits the city and the state of Florida reaped from stimulus and healthcare reform legislation.

Democrats seized on an expected decision this afternoon by members of a Republican National Committee (RNC) steering committee that will recommend Tampa as the site of their nominating convention.

Give me a break.

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The media spin cycle was in full overdrive following the RGA Remember November video.  Act II responds to their distortions, fabrications and scare-mongering.

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I think this ad would have been better if it stopped right before the “april fools.”  Some things are more powerful precisely because they need no explanation.

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When the Republican House Caucus swore off earmarks recently, I noted that this didn’t necessarily mean all the Republicans behind such a move were taking a principled stance.  Some, like Mike Pence, no doubt are.  But others are just capitalizing on the political environment.

And still others, like Senator Inhofe, have gone in the complete opposite direction:

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.), named by the National Journal as the senator with the most conservative voting record in 2009 and rated by the National Taxpayers Union as having the Senate’s fifth-best voting record on bills affecting taxing and spending, told CNSNews.com that he intends to lead a new effort to protect and defend the right of members of Congress to “earmark” appropriations and authorization bills.

Interesting.  Let’s see what his argument is…

Inhofe said it is important to preserve earmarking not only to protect the constitutional prerogative of Congress to control where and how the federal government spends the taxpayers’ money, but also that it is particularly important for Congress to protect its authority in this area against encroachment by the Obama administration.

If Congress bans earmarks and thus restricts its own authority to direct federal programs, Inhofe said, “we would be delegating that back from Congress to President Obama to make those decisions. And I look at him, I look at his social engineering, I see the destructive forces in his administration that are tearing down every institution that has made America great, and I don’t want to put all this power in his hands.”

I find this argument wholly unconvincing.  Earmarks are not the sole means by which Congress allocates funds.  Senator Inhofe is confusing process for outcomes.  Refusing to use the corrupt and unaccountable earmark process to disperse funds does not amount to a delegation of authority for spending from the legislative to the executive.  It simply means that individual members of Congress cannot sneak in special carve out for district interests as a needle in the haystack that is legislation.  They will have to actually make the case for their spending, and Congress will have to use a more transparent approach to funding.

I think Senator Inhofe will find that, in the end, a less corrupt process will provide Congress with more authority, as it will help restore public faith in what is now one of, if not the single, most unpopular institution in America.

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Yesterday the House Republican Conference swore off earmarks by adopting a unilateral ban on all earmarks:

House Republicans approved a conference-wide moratorium on earmarks on Thursday, one day after a House committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks.

The Republicans’ moratorium is more extensive than the House Appropriations Committee’s ban in that it applies to all earmarks for all members of the caucus.

The moratorium was passed via a “strong” voice vote, according to Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who participated in the nearly two-hour-long conference meeting.

Republicans had discussed enacting a ban in the last Congress, but a vote never materialized.

Does this mean that Republicans, after years of profligate spending, have suddenly realized fiscal principles?  Probably not.

The beauty of a competitive political system is that the public, by hounding politicians long enough, can eventually force them to make the right choice for the wrong reasons.  Sure, some of the people involved have taken principled stands against earmarks consistently, but by and large Republicans just want back in power, and they’re doing what they have to do to court voters.

Just remember, they’ll betray these same principles the minute they get back into power if you let them.  That’s why the public has to stay informed, engaged and outspoken.

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Thanks to Heritage:

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