Today’s Kim Strassel column in the Wall Street Journal is more appropriately titled “Libertarians vs. a Senate Majority.” It is a must-read for anyone interested in rescuing our nation from Barack and Harry Reid.
Strassel writes:
Two things stand between Mitch McConnell and the Senate majority leader’s office: Democrats, and the conservatives who might help elect Democrats. Should Mr. McConnell come up short in November, no one should forget the latter.
Republicans have more than a presidential primary roiling their party. In states across the nation, grass-roots organizations like the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks are staging a repeat of 2010, ginning up divisive GOP primaries. This is the process that gifted Sharron Angle to Republicans, helping deny Mr. McConnell Senate control in 2010. The difference this time? The stakes are higher.
Fifty-one seats gives the GOP control over votes and committees. Fifty-one is the difference between Republicans being able to cut spending and oversee Supreme Court nominations, or Harry Reid continuing to Taser the House agenda. If Republicans win the White House, 50 seats plus a GOP vice president lets them roll back ObamaCare through a “reconciliation” process that skirts the filibuster. If President Obama wins, 51 is the backstop to a lame-duck president’s ambitions…
We are as libertarian as anyone at FreedomWorks or Club for Growth, and are as often dismayed at the squishiness of Senate “Republicans.”
That said, as Strassel points out, we cannot afford any Sharron Angle-like candidacies in 2012. We must be rid of Obama and Harry Reid must be removed as majority leader.
Orrin Hatch and Dick Lugar are not always as “small government” as we would like, but they can hold their seats. Money spent on unseating them either risks a seat and Republican control (Lugar) or diverts money that ought to be spent elsewhere gaining seats (i.e., Tester, Manchin, McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, etc.).
This analysis conveniently forgets all the Tea Party candidates who were elected and instead focuses on two who lost, one being to Reid who had the overwhelming support of the unions in Las Vegas.