Today is one of those rare days when my political panopticon rotates 180° to focus on my own side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Today we throw the rascals out.
The Number One Rascal from my very parochial viewpoint is Rep. Tom Perriello, who has just been successfully returned to private life — or whatever passes for private life for a international NGO careerist bankrolled by George Soros — here in the 5th District of Virginia. He will be replaced by a RINO named Robert Hurt, whose feet we will have to hold to the fire over the next two years to keep his attention on the issues that put him into office. Otherwise he will be granted official “rascal” status himself, and be subject to a Tea Party-inspired primary challenge in 2012.
As I write this, Republicans are winning all over the place. Marco Rubio in Florida, Dan Coats in Indiana, John Boozman in Arkansas, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and many others have taken Senate and House seats away from the Democrats. It looks like LTC (ret.) Allen West is poised to win in Florida’s 22nd District — which means that there will be at least one of us sworn in as a congressman come January first.
But I’m not sanguine about Republicans in general. There is only the slimmest of hopes that the new Tea Party class will be able to effect any real change of direction or momentum in the national GOP pork machine. The party oligarchs are hostile to the Tea Parties and all the gap-toothed rubes out there in flyover land who support them. Many of the freshmen arriving in Congress next January are likely to be susceptible to the blandishments of the old guard, who have decades of experience in co-opting idealistic novices.
Not only that, the Republicans do not have a mandate to tackle to two most deadly fiscal issues facing the country: Social Security and Medicare. Voters want fiscal restraint and lower taxes, but they don’t want to do anything that might limit their benefits from the two greatest entitlement programs. There’s no way to square that circle, and our elected representatives will eventually have to choose between fiscal catastrophe and losing the next election. Which course will your congressman or senator be likely to choose?
So electing Republicans will do nothing long-term to fix the country. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable interlude, and I intend to savor it.
We have no TV, and our internet connection speed is glacial at best. I can’t easily keep up with the news, so readers should feel free to post results that interest them in the comments.
The latest news — which came in just before I hit “publish” — is that Barney Frank has managed to keep his well-upholstered Senate seat in Massachusetts.
And there’s more, much more, to come!
