Rep. Jeff Flake on Republicans and Small Government

David Weigel and Katherine Mangu-Ward from Reason magazine ask Representative Jeff Flake about Republicans and small government and here is the answer. Reason: Has the GOP given up on the ideals of small government? Flake: Well, that’s the natural conclusion to draw. There are some—like [fellow Arizona Republican Rep.] John Shadegg and not many others—who still vote for limited government. Of course ...

More on Carrying Water

My thanks to James for inviting me to guest blog here while my home site (ProfessorBainbridge.com) is undergoing construction. After three years of nearly daily blogging, I was ready for a break, but now that my hiatus has gone more than a month, I'm ready to be back. Steven Taylor's post below on the "quotes from Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh ...

Lincoln Chafee Considering Leaving GOP

Lincoln Chafee is considering leaving the Republican Party after his defeat Tuesday. Two days after losing a bid for a second term in an election seen as a referendum on President Bush and the Republican Party, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he'd remain a Republican. "I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my ...

Hispanic Re-alignment

Kevin Drum analyzes the exit polls from 2004 and 2006 and finds that "It turns out that the big lesson is that there's no big lesson." Basically, Democrats did about 5 percentage points better than last go-round overall and between 2-7 percent better with all regional and social cohorts except a few: GroupGainNo high school+15%Those rating the economy "good"+15%Latinos+14%Jews+11%No religion+9%Income $200K++9%Independents+8% Drum ...

Ken Mehlman Out as RNC Chair

The post mid-term purge continues, with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman leaving at the end of his term in January. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party lost both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, will step down from his post when his two-year term ends in January, GOP officials said Thursday. The officials spoke on the condition of ...

Closing the “Donut Hole” in the Senior Prescription Drug Plan

One of the worst things President Bush did in terms of the fiscal outlook for this country was to put forward the Medicare prescription drug benefit. This plan is estimated to add $8.7 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Medicare's $21 trillion in unfunded liabilities. This is money that we won't be able to pay. And one of ...

George Allen Post-Mortem

J. Thomas cites the following data as evidence (as if any were needed) that George Allen ran one awful campaign: Republican incumbant - District 2004 % 2006 % Allen 2006 % Davis - VA01 ...

John Zogby Within Margin of Error

John Zogby has sent out a press release touting his genius as a political forecaster: As the election drew near, Pollster Zogby was quoted widely saying that he believed the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives would pick up between 25 and 30 seats, and that Democrats would almost certainly pick up three or four seats in the Senate, and ...

Lieberman Party Switch?

Jason Smith asks, "[W]ouldn’t it be ironic, if the man Democrats threw to the wolves, Joe Lieberman, decided the best payback to his disloyal colleagues was to pull a Jeffords?" Yes. Yes it would. It would also be, as it was in Jeffords' case, quite despicable. Like his political twin, John McCain, Lieberman is an opportunist who has ironically managed ...

Election Aftermath

Mark Tapscott sums things up pretty nicely: "When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government." I disagree, however, with his long range forecast: What happens in the GOP in the next 90 days will determine whether the party ever again has a realistic chance of regaining majority status in Congress and the ...

University Diversity Of Michigan

One day after the state's voters approved Proposal 2, a Constitutional amendment banning affirmative action programs, President Mary Sue Coleman vows to devote her efforts to finding a way around the ban. In a statement that has a promising second career as a college drinking game, the word "diversity" appears 21 times; I will not stand by while the ...

More Evidence Bush is a Closet Liberal

President Bush says that raising the minimum wage is "common ground" that he'd be willing to meet the Democrats on. It is stuff like this that makes me wonder if Bush really is a Conservative/Republican. As I've argued before, raising the minimum wage does little to address the issue of families living in poverty. A better policy for addressing ...

Hastert Won’t Seek Minority Leader Post

Denny Hastert has, finally, done the honorable thing and announced he will not seek re-election to the Leadership. Triggering a post-election shake-up, Dennis Hastert announced Wednesday he will not run for leader of House Republicans when Democrats take control in January. "Obviously I wish my party had won," the House Speaker said in a statement that added he intends to return to ...

Mike Pence and John Shadegg To Run for Minority Leadership

Erick Erricson breaks news that Mike Pence and John Shadegg are going to run for Minority Leader and Minority Whip. Great news, indeed. Both are reasonably conservative--and fiscal conservatives, at that--and untainted with the stench of the scandals that helped transform the current Majority into the incoming Minority. Rob Bluey has details: As the conservative leader of the GOP in ...

Republicans Lose House, Senate

Absent some dramatic turnaround in the numbers in Virginia or Montana, which I don't expect, the Republicans will lose the Senate. They have already lost the House; the only question is by how many seats. The Senate results are precisely as I predicted Sunday, although I had revised my prediction in the CNN bloggers pool to reflect late indicators that ...