Nationwide, Speaker Pelosi has an approval rating in the 20% range.  Meanwhile, she and the President are whipping their Party into shape on healthcare.  They are shamelessly, and in full view of the public, promising myriad political favors for “yea” votes and threatening primary challenges and withholding of Democrat funds for “nay” votes.  They are deliberately seeking members who are retiring for vote conversion.  They are buying off Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, flying Dennis Kucinich on Air Force One, and appointing the brother of a previously “undecided” Utah congressman to a Federal court vacancy.  So much for Pelosi’s promise to lead “the most transparent Congress in history.”  Americans aren’t dumb.  We see right through this smoke-and-mirrors sham.

It’s easy to see, too: Republican (and all around right-winger) Bob McDonnell defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s 2009 Gubernatorial election 53%-47%.  New Jersey, a bulwark of liberalism, ousted a crassly-corrupt Governor Corzine in favor of a fiscal conservative US Attorney who successfully prosecuted scores of nefarious politicians.  Chris Christie won with a 100,000 vote margin in that state.  And Scott Brown, a truck-driving regular guy who ran on being the 41st vote against healthcare, defeated smarmy snob Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts (!) race to replace the most liberal senator of all time, Ted Kennedy.  Looking ahead to the Senate race of 2010, here is where the match-ups stand, according to Rasmussen (ten seats needed to gain control):

• Delaware (to replace Biden, since the (D) appointee is not serving a full term):  Castle (R) 53% v. Coons (D) 32%  (February 25)
• North Dakota (open seat):  Hoeven (R) 71% v. Potter (D) 17%  (February 12)
• Arkansas (Democrat incumbent; 4 GOP challengers):     Boozman (R) 48% v. Lincoln (D) 39%  (March 2) Lincoln has recently run an ad stating “I don’t answer to my Party” and another attacking unions (rather unusual for a Democrat).
• Nevada (Majority leader “Dingy” Harry’s seat; 2 GOP challengers):  Lowden (R) 51% v. Reid (D) 38%  (March 5)
• Colorado (Democrat incumbent; may not re-enter race):  Norton (R) 48% v. Bennet (D) 39%  (March 2)
• Pennsylvania (Democrat incumbent; traitor):  Toomey (R) 49% v. Specter (D) 40%  (March 15)
• Washington (Democrat incumbent; 3 GOP challengers):  Rossi (R) 49% (hasn’t even announced yet) v. Patty Murray (D) 46%  (March 9)  Once Rossi announces and the GOP primary is over, he has a very good shot
• Wisconsin (Democrat incumbent; 2 GOP challengers):  Thompson (R) 47% (hasn’t even announced yet) v. Feingold (D) 45% (March 16)
• Indiana (open seat- Bayh retiring):  Three Republicans lead Two Democrats with very comfortable margins (February 18)

If Republicans win these seats and retain the same in KY, LA, MO, NH, NC, FL, OK, and OH (all of which show GOP leads currently), they will only need to pick up one Senate seat to gain control.  In California, there is a three-way race in the GOP primary between a former congressman, a state assemblyman, and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.  The June 8th primary will solidify support behind one candidate, and Barbara Boxer will have some serious explaining to do.  Oregon can’t be discounted either; incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden is polling below 50% in a very liberal state.

The GOP Senate primary in Florida is raising plenty of eyebrows, as Marco Rubio leads Governor Charlie Crist 54% to 36%.  Rubio’s speech at CPACwas nothing short of brilliant.  He embodies conservatism and is the child of defiant Cuban immigrants who fled their communist nation to find hope (the real kind) in the United States.  Rubio’s parents worked tirelessly to provide their son the opportunity he would never have had in Cuba.  And he is going to soundly defeat his Democrat opponent in November. 

In the House, Beltway pundits universally hold there will be tremendous losses for Democrats.  Even liberals concede that point.  Some estimates are in the 40s and 50s, but Dick Morris claims it may be upwards of 80 seats if Queen Nancy gets her way and forces healthcare through today.  What this exercise in tyranny has taught us more than anything: there is no longer such a thing as a moderate Democrat.  None of them can be trusted; not one.  America sees this now, and Obama’s platitudes of “hope” and “change” have been exposed for what they were all along: absolute fraud.

We have an awesome opportunity to seize on this truth, so we must continue to be active and grow our numbers.  Within the Tea Party movement, there have been loud cries for some kind of third party.  While I sympathize deeply with this sentiment given the Republicans’ bad behavior in 2003-2006, it is completely and utterly impractical.  The only thing third parties have ever served to do is spoil elections.  Even Ron Paul knows this, and it’s why he ran as a Republican.  In recent years, we saw this happen with Perot in 1992 and 1996.  On the other side, Ralph Nader (bless his heart) ruined Al Gore’s candidacy in 2000. 

While Rasmussen’s generic congressional ballot finds Republicans having a 10-point lead over Democrats in a two-party race, it also finds that, in a three-party race between a Democrat, a Republican, and a Tea Party candidate, Democrats get 34% of the vote, Republicans 27%, and Tea Party 21%.  What does that mean?  It means that three parties afford the Democrats continued control.  We have to learn to work within the confines of the system we have.  As long as there are primary elections, there will be a two-party system in this country.  We must unite as conservatives and bring our Party back to its roots, not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  We have to regain control of the Republican establishment so that we can reject liberals like New York’s Dede Scozzafava and throw the infrastructural weight of the GOP behind true conservatives like her primary opponent, Doug Hoffman.  And this movement cannot just be a national one.  It is and must continue to be very much a local one.

In 2006, conservatives, disillusioned by their Party’s spinelessness, stayed home.  The Democrats wrested control of both houses of Congress.  In 2008, the Republican nominee for President was a 72-year-old moderate (at best) whose favorite song was “Dancing Queen” (1976).  John McCain previously called Christian conservatives ”agents of intolerance,” and he was the architect of the aforementioned “Campaign Finance Reform” legislation.  Virginia and Indiana, once Republican bastions, voted for a Democrat for President for the first time in 44 years.  North Carolina went blue for the first time since 1976.  The GOP lost the swing states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, and Iowa.  Here in Harford County, a fiery and unapologetically pro-life Maryland State Senator who inspired conservatives with his message of limited government handily defeated a perennial incumbent RINO in the primary for Maryland’s first Congressional district, only to be upset by a Democrat in the general election in a region where John McCain enjoyed an 18-point margin of victory.  To add insult to injury, pundits like James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville declared that the political climate post-Obama would yield 40 years of Democrat dominance. 

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Mr. Carville.

See, what conservatives and liberals alike didn’t presage as Obama enjoyed his late winter honeymoon with America in 2009, was quite obvious when one considers elections of the past: when Americans are reminded of what hegemonic Democrat control of the White House and Congress actually means to them, the phrase “buyer’s remorse” becomes a gross understatement.  For their utter lack of practical aptitude, those on the Left are just plain dangerous when it comes to forcing their agenda down the throats of unwilling Americans.  In a little over one year, a President who had promised bi-partisanship and transparency, lamented his predecessor’s deficit spending, and reminded the American public ad nauseum of an “inherited recession,” has

• Increased the national debt by $2,000,000,000,000 and quadrupled the deficit with two “stimulus” packages
• Overseen a rise in unemployment from 7.4% in December of 2008 to 10.1% in October of 2009 (10 months), with a meager drop to 9.7% currently–this despite claims that passing record spending measures would keep it below 8%
• Made the United States government the majority stockholder of General Motors
• Bowed to other world leaders while traveling abroad and apologizing for “American arrogance,” hence rejecting American exceptionalism
• Increased the quantity and expanded the power of ”czars,” which require no confirmation hearings (nor apparently, in Mr. Obama’s case, any vetting)
• Had nearly a score of nominees or appointees resign due to tax evasion or extremely radical tendencies
• Spent a fruitless 14 months lobbying for government-run healthcare, holding closed-door meetings with only the majority party (despite promises to air all debate on C-SPAN), forcing multiple votes on the floor of the House and Senate that ignore a growing 65-35% public stance against the legislation, thereby endangering the careers and political legacy of members of his own party
• Nominated activist Eric Holder for Attorney General
• Promised the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, broadcasting to the world his preferred plan of imprisoning enemy combatants within the borders of the United States
• Played to his fringe base of America-blaming, ACLU-supporting sycophants (or as we call them, “Democrats”), by proposing we try 9/11 conspirators in US civilian court.  His puzzling defense against criticism for this process?  Citing the fact that the shoe bomber was also read his Miranda Rights.  Never mind the fact that Richard Reid was arrested two months after 9/11, before we had any detention facility or legal precedent for punishing al-Qaeda terrorists.  Never mind that Jose Padilla was held as an enemy combatant five short months later.  But good defense, Mr. Obama.  We can see how popular trying KSM in New York has become with the folks in Manhattan.

So many are down on being a conservative at the moment and the truth is, few leaders for the last eight years have modeled / pushed true conservatism.  For some reason the Republican Party continues to stray from his core principles and embrace elements of ideas that we simply do not believe in.  Reading essays like this make it a little easier to support McCain even though this article has nothing to do with him.

Enjoy, or not.

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’