Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Henry Ward Beecher

Early Gates Reax

In his post-election press conference, the president announced that he will nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace Rummy as defense secretary. This is the guy who, while working as chief spook for Daddy Bush, completely missed the signs of the disintegration of the Soviet empire, and was taken totally by surprised by the citizen dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

I told you it wouldn’t go well.  Not that anyone who Bush nominated would get much applause from the side opposite, but nominating a CIA man seems a singularly bad idea.  Particularly since Adele Stan’s assessment for TAP is pretty much right on. 

EDIT:  More reax, this time from the Corner:

At first glance, his history of promoting rapprochement with Iran regardless of the Islamic Republic’s terrorism doesn’t bode well, but as with many other people, once in power and confronted with reality, responsibility and evidence may overcome his inclinations.

I’m not ready to call this the second coming of Harriet Miers, but doesn’t this nomination have that feeling about it? 

Shadegg running for Whip

WASHINGTON - Just hours after his party’s catastrophic showing at the polls, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., is readying an announcement that he will run for the No. 2 post in the new House GOP minority.

Shadegg’s formal declaration that he will seek the GOP’s minority whip position is expected to come as early as today, but Shadegg told supporters in Arizona of his intentions Tuesday night.

...

A Shadegg ally, Rep. Mike Pence, R- Ind., is expected to announce he will run for the top Republican leader’s job. The two, while not running as a ticket, are both expected to stress that they would return the GOP to conservative principles.

My dark horse for Sec Def

Dan Coats.  If it happens, remember where you read it first. 

Edit:  Damn, didn’t take long to be wrong on that.  I don’t like the choice of Gates, a Bush 41 CIA appointee, and I suspect the Senate might not like it much either.  It’s not as if the CIA is well regarded at present. 

About a day too late.

Republican officials say Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down. Word comes a day after the Democratic gains in the election, in which Rumsfeld was a focus of much of the criticism of the Iraq war.

This should be interesting. 

Captain Ed on who should be Minority Leader in the Senate

Another Coburn fan.  Sounds right to me. 

Republicans have to go back to the basics—and I don’t mean the base. They need to settle on some First Principles before they calculate how to convince voters to trust them with governance again. Republicans have traditionally stood for fiscal discipline and a strong defense above all other issues. The GOP needs to return to those values first and keep them foremost when creating their strategies for 2008. They need to elect clean leadership, and Tom Coburn’s phone should be ringing off the hook this morning if Republicans want to get serious about rehabilitation.

Illegal immigration and why I don’t think it mattered

I agree with my friend and former HI colleague Nathan, who believes that both sides are seriously underestimating the nation’s passion over illegal immigration.  I’m not convinced that it was a turning point issue in the campaign, however.  J.D. Hayworth of Arizona was one of the congressmen most passionately committed to that cause.  He was defeated convincingly.  (His being named one of Congress’ ten dumbest members didn’t help.) OTOH, our man Pence was criticized by some for his relatively moderate immigration compromise which introduced some level of amnesty and allowed for a guest worker program (while strengthening enforcement).  BetterImmigration.com has a scorecard of members’ grades on immigration.  Lugar received a D- and the Dems didn’t even run anyone against him.  Hostettler and Sodrel received an A-, Chocola a B and all three were defeated.  If illegal immigration is your hot button issue, you do not respond by making Nancy Pelosi (F-) third in line for the Presidency.  This is not the Dems’ strongest plank. 

There’s more going on here.  I still believe that the exponential growth of government combined with the FU stand of the administration on so many issues is what caused the disaffection of the base.  Bush promised us excellent judges and gave us Harriet Miers.  When the base (quite appropriately) rebelled against the Miers nomination, I knew the Republicans were in serious, serious trouble in the midterms.

I still say Foley hurt worse than anyone is willing to admit.  I can’t escape the feeling that the leadership knew about Foley’s disgusting behavior and simply chose to look the other way.  A lot of people agree with me.  A party that comes to power promising to return dignity and responsibility to government simply can not conduct itself the way the Republicans have.  DeLay, Abramoff, Ney, Foley, Haggard, a poorly prosecuted peace in Iraq, a worthless immigration policy, refusal to curb spending or veto pork, creating vast new entitlements, working with Ted Kennedy to enlarge and empower the Department of Education, allowing the Dems to frame the stem cell debate, Harriet Miers, Don Rumsfeld, Katrina, Rush’s inability to say anything without inflaming everyone… It adds up after a while. 

The simple fact is that conservativism has been replaced with Republicanism, and that is not acceptable.  The kind of governance we’ve seen since Mr. Bush came to office is not what Reagan and Gingrich left us.  Conservativism must be restored.  Conservativism is a philosophy and a methodology that works across party lines to achieve greatness.  Republicanism is about party over philosophy, it maintains the status quo at the expense of our political and personal honor.  That is not us, it is them, and we cannot govern as they do. 

At the risk of beating the Mike Pence drum too hard…

The magnificent message of Mike:

Election day 2006 will be remembered as a turning point in American political history. Twenty-five years after the Reagan Administration came to Washington with a conservative agenda of limited government, the American people chose a different course.

It is the duty of the losing party in a free election to humbly accept defeat and to acknowledge that the people are sovereign in the People’s House.

As we examine the results of this election, it is imperative that we listen to the American people and learn the right lessons.

Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government’s role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, “enough is enough.” Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn’t quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.

How awesome is this guy?  Mike Pence must run this party. 

And if I am beating the Mike Pence drum too hard, well, get your own blog.  This one is mine. 

How effing hard can it be?

WINCHESTER -- For the second time this year, Randolph County residents are waking up not knowing election results, or possibly relying on incorrect numbers.

A representative from Voting Technologies International, the vendor for the county’s electronic voting equipment, had been on site all night, but then left when it appeared the county’s totals were complete. By the time a problem was detected, the VTI representative had left, as had some of the clerk’s office staff and most of the candidates.

Push the button for Candidate A, it adds one to the tally for Candidate A.  We’re not trying to launch a space shuttle here, we’re trying to count a few thousand ballots in one of the smallest counties in Indiana.  If Voting Technologies International isn’t fired as the vendor in Randolph County I demand to know why. 

Good point, Derb, good point.

Look on the Bright Side
The good ship U.S.S. Compassionate Conservatism just took a torpedo in the magazine.

BTW, Mr. President?

About that political capital you said you earned in 2004?  That account is pretty well tapped out.  It’s time to start listening to what we’ve been telling you for a while now. 

My early post-mortum

The Dems are clearly winning and winning big.  The media/Dems are going to play this as a referendum on Iraq.  This is a huge mistake on their part.  This is not a referendum on Iraq as much as it is a referendum on the current crop of Republicans.  Iraq is but a single component of what is wrong today.  Conservatives are annoyed with the spending habits of the Administration and Congress.  They are angered by the President’s absolute refusal to seal our borders, even in the shadow of 9/11.  They are furious about the explosion of the size of government including the biggest new entitlement program since Social Security. 

Congressional Republicans have ignored the conservative base, they have ignored the Contract With America.  The base and the Contract are the reason Republicans swept into power in 1994, and they can only be spit on for so long before there’s a backlash.  Congressional Republicans have been told tonight in no uncertain terms, “We made you and we can break you.”

For the long term health of the Republican Party, tonight’s results are not necessarily a bad thing.  A number of weak Republicans (Lincoln Chafee, for example) are going to be eliminated tonight, a few strong players like Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum are collateral damage.  Power in the Republican Party is going to change hands, moving from the moderate Bush wing of the party back to the conservative Reagan Republicans led by Mike Pence and John Shadegg in the House and Dr. Tom Coburn in the Senate.  It’s going to be clear to whoever wants the Party’s nomination in 2008, whether it’s John McCain or Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney that they’re going to need to have the cooperation and the blessings of the conservatives.  The VP nominee will have to be a strong conservative, and many promises will need to be made and kept. 

Yes, it’s a bloodbath tonight, but my feeling is that this had to happen in order to restore Reaganism as the foundation of the Republican Party that appears to have forgotten. 

Robocall!

Is anyone else noticing a lot of preemptive excuse-making on the part of the Dems?  There sure is a lot of moaning and whining already about “robocalls,” voter suppression and malfunctioning voting machines.  (None of those things affect likely Republican voters, of course.)

Here we go again.

What do you think is the over/under for how long it will be before we actually know the results of this election?

“We’re not going to make the mistake we did last time, which was to wait until after the election for litigation,” said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

I like how Larry Kudlow thinks.

Another post-election surprise just might come from the House Republicans: Mike Pence and his allies in the conservative Republican Study Group—John Shadegg, Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake, Marsha Blackburn and others—could stage a leadership revolt that will get House Republicans back on the messages of limited domestic spending, earmark reform, broad-based tax reform, expanded investor tax-free savings accounts and Social Security reform.

Another little reminder

Of how the other side rolls.  Cindy Sheehan and Hugo Chavez.  Something else to take to the voting booth with you.