Just read this column by Robert Novak and I can't decide if I should scratch my head or tear my hair out.
According to Novak, the GOP didn't learn much from Tuesday's election. While Hastert is out of the leadership, the Republicans are poised to re-elect John Boehner as Leader and Roy Blunt as Whip. Are Congressional Republicans crazy or just stupid?
It's true that Tuesday's election was mainly a referendum on the war in Iraq and that Congress had little to do with that (other than write the spending bills). But for the Republicans who pulled the levers, connected the arrows, touched the screens, and punched the buttons for Democrat candidates, the reasons given were more numerous and pointed directly at Congressional behavior.
When the 109th Congress started looking more like the 100th Congress (when Democrats ruled), that was a huge problem for conservative voters. Those conservative voters gnashed their teeth at "bridges to nowhere" and other pork projects that were causing their wallets to shrink. Most Republican voters were willing to accept deficits in a time of war, but are unwilling to accept them because of Congressional earmarks.
Yet the leadership the Republicans are poised to re-elect are the same guys who gave us that overspending.
In fact, the voting records of Boehner and Blunt are nearly identical to Pence's and Shadegg's (two other candidates for the top Republican posts). The difference between them was demonstrated last Thursday when Blunt went to the Heritage Foundation to campaign for his retention as whip. He delivered a defense of earmarking, echoing the House appropriators' claim that the elimination of earmarks would do "nothing but shift funding decisions from one side of Pennsylvania Ave. to the other."
What?! That's the thinking that got us the bridge to nowhere as well as other ridiculous (and smelly) projects. If Republicans hope to regain Congress (and win the presidency) in '08, they need to sweep out these big-time spenders and go back to the drawing board.
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