Via The Politico:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has some Republican-to-Republican advice for Gov. Sarah Palin: If you want to make a run at the White House, keep your hands off my Senate seat.

Murkowski, up for reelection in 2010, is nervously awaiting word on whether John McCain’s former running mate will run against her in the GOP primary. But she says Palin is the one who should be nervous.

“I can guarantee it would be a very tough election,” Murkowski said in an interview.

Sen. Murkowski's RINOHunter rating is 56.58%.

Via the New York Times:

Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, one of the Republican Party’s most prominent Hispanic leaders, announced Tuesday he will not seek a second term in 2010.

 

His seat was widely seen as vulnerable here in a state that has been trending Democratic, particularly among Latinos. And though Senator Martinez said in a statement that his decision was not based on re-election prospects, he also acknowledged that he was making public his decision now “to give the many qualified individuals who might choose to try to succeed me an opportunity to organize and gather support.”

Mel Martinez' RINOHunters profile is here.  While not bad on guns and money, Martiez was atrocious on immigration issues.  Can an immigration hawk win in Florida?

As it should be:

Palin looks to be stealing Huckabee’s thunder among Republican religious conservatives and working class voters. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and his highest GOP totals still come from Born-Again Christians (15%) and weekly churchgoers (18%), but those numbers are about half of those drawn by Palin. Despite his populist economic message, he wins only 10% of blue collar Republicans.

Posted at The New Yorker:

“I was scratching my head, saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. She’s wonderful, but the only difference was she looks better in stilettos than I do, and she has better hair.’ It wasn’t so much a gender issue, but it was like they suddenly decided that everything they disliked about me was O.K. . . . She was given a pass by some of the very people who said I wasn’t prepared.”

Okay, Huckster, as soon as you show me the evidence of Sarah Palin kissing up to the NEA, blowing the state budget through the roof with new spending, begging the Alaska state legislature for huge tax increases to pay for said new spending, salivating all over Al Gore's global warming bullshit, fighting for cheaper college tuition for illegals at taxpayer expense and begging for a national tobacco and fat-assed tranny ban, I'll give it to you that Sarah Palin is every bit as squishy as you are.  Unless you can do that, you should admit that you don't have a damn clue what you're talking about when it comes to who is--and who is not--conservative.

Sarah Palin isn't perfect, but what we see in her tells us that she understands, like Reagan understood, that conservatism is fundamentally about liberty, and about a bias of power toward the individual citizens as against the state.  Sarah Palin is, at worst, center-right on most, if not all, issues.  She is definitely to the right of McCain.

Conversely, very little of what we've seen in Huckster's track record disabuses us of the idea that he is a center-left squish who sees our nation as a group of people who need to be "fixed" by means of a laundry list of new do-gooder government programs.  He is, in general, to the LEFT of McCain.  DO NOT WANT.

UPDATE: I've been informed that Mike Huckabee did not, in fact, call for a national "fat-assed tranny" ban.  Turns out it was a trans fatty acid ban.  Fat-assed trannies will apparently be safe under a Huckabee Adminstration.  Apologies for the confusion.

Via The Hill:

The tactics used by Democrats to secure at least 58 Senate seats may have damaged their chances of winning vital support from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in key votes in the 111th Congress...

 

Collins and her home-state colleague, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R), have voted with GOP Senate leaders less often than any other Republicans. They are the two Republicans whom Democrats are expected to court most often.

 

Before Congress adjourned, Collins voted with Democrats and against her own leaders to advance an emergency stimulus bill. She also recently voted with Democrats to quash a Republican filibuster of the defense authorization bill.

 

Yet her willingness to cross the aisle from time to time didn’t stop Democrats from lobbing attacks during her recent campaign for reelection. Collins received her hardest shots from Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio).

I'll believe it when I see it.  Collins' voting profile is here.

Via NRO:

In the House of Representatives, John Boehner should use his influence and leadership position to appoint Rep. Jeff Flake to the Appropriations Committee. Flake fans may recall the Arizona representative’s pursuit of an appropriations seat nearly a year ago. Though conservatives rallied to Flake’s cause, the House Republican Steering Committee rejected his bid. …

 

In the same vein, Senator Mitch McConnell should appoint Senator Jim DeMint to the Senate Finance Committee — one of the most powerful committees with jurisdiction over all tax issues and entitlement programs. … With no disrespect to Sens. Enzi and Voinovich, Senator DeMint is exactly the kind of leader the GOP could use at this low point in its history. Not only does DeMint have a business background, he has demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of the country’s tax and entitlement problems. He is one of the few members of Congress to think creatively about solving these problems in a manner that increases personal freedom and prosperity.

Via AgoraVOX:

John McCain met with Barack Obama, how nice. Let’s be friends, my friends. My friends, I know how to work across the aisle, I’ve been doing it my entire career my friends.

 

Please, every time I hear McCain discuss crossing the aisle and calling audiences his friends I cringe at his appeasement and lack of Conservative credentials. Mr. McCain, you only think you were a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution, somehow you don’t know the definition.

 

If your working for the wrong policies like amnesty for illegal immigrants and McCain-Feingold, which reduces your first amendment rights, than the price Americans pay for politicians crossing the aisle, my friends, is too steep.

Seems to me that 'bipartisanship' usually means Republicans working to pass unpopular left-wing ideas, combined with Democrats acquiescing to popular laws they wouldn't dare oppose.

Posted at Human Events:

It is...unfortunate that, at a time when the GOP needs to close ranks and seek unity, Governor Mike Huckabee has aimed his fire at his fellow Republicans. In the just-released Do the Right Thing, which he has been promoting on news shows and in major newspapers, Governor Huckabee takes shots at several prominent Republicans, including his one-time rivals for the GOP presidential nomination Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson...

 

[T]alking with Huckabee was like playing whack-a-mole, because he had a number of issues that posed problems. It wasn’t just that he didn’t get it on foreign policy. His record on taxes and spending, illegal immigration, his apparent backing of Al Gore's carbon cap and trade scheme, support for voting rights for Washington, D.C., and cozying up to unions like the NEA all worried me. Huckabee can call it whack-a-mole. But for me there were just too many items where he wasn’t sufficiently conservative coupled with a lack of attention and experience on foreign affairs.

"I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." - Ronald Reagan

"The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it's this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism" - Mike Huckabee

Via Jon Henke, who adds:

Social conservatives have to realize that they need the fiscally conservative, socially moderate/tolerant voters if they want to be a part of a winning coalition.  The limited government message won revolutionary victories for Republicans in 1980 and 1994; it is the only viable organizing principle for the current Republican coalition. 

Steve Schippert asks: "What is Wrong with Mike Huckabee?"

He was well-known as one of the biggest RINOs in the U.S. House, and now he's gone.

Christopher Shays (R-CT) lost his seat this November:

[I]n an election defined more by his district’s angst and sense of dread than his own, Mr. Shays, the Republicans’ leading escape artist, ran out of rope. So after 10 terms in Congress, and after holding on as the last Republican representative from New England, Mr. Shays, 63, was back in Washington on Wednesday. He had 15 days to move out of his office, and plenty of time to ponder the wreckage of the Republican brand, particularly in the Northeast.

Although it's unfortunate that Shays' former district is likely to be represented by an even more liberal Democrat, Shays was definitely no great shakes.  The numbers show he was more of a loyal liberal vote than many Democrats on the key grassroots issues.  Although Shays was good (74%) on borders and immigration and borderline passable (58%) on taxes and spending, Shays' record on the right to keep and bear arms (7%) and on the right to life (13%) were positively abysmal.

Posted at Human Events:

Like any entity that abandons basic quality control, political parties rot from within. It happened to the Democrats long ago, and now has become the case with the Republican Party, which has strayed from its conservative underpinnings.

There are really only four things I have a strong aversion to: unloaded guns, dull knives, banjos, and Republicans in Name Only (RINOs).

The Nugent family simply doesn't allow any of those things in our lives.

Via The Guardian:

He's been a body-builder, a movie star and leader of the most populous state in the US. But could Arnold Schwarzenegger, now nearing the end of his days as California's governor, be offered a place at Barack Obama's side in Washington?

 

Speculation is swirling that Schwarzenegger will be offered the role of energy czar in the incoming Obama administration. There has been Beltway chatter about the prospect ever since he was named as a contender for the job by the authoritative politico.com website.

Via HotAir:

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint is pushing his party’s leadership to expel Sen. Ted Stevens from the Senate during this month’s “lame duck” session, according to people familiar with his plans.

 

DeMint, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, is said to be angry with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for tolerating a convicted felon in the GOP caucus.

 

McConnell called on Stevens to resign last week after the Alaska senator was convicted on seven federal felony counts. McConnell said there was “zero chance” Stevens wouldn’t be expelled from the Senate if he didn’t resign – but he also made it clear that Stevens would have a chance to appeal his conviction first.

 

Stevens, who has rebuffed calls to quit, claims he has “not been convicted yet” because he still has the right to appeal.

RINOHunters' profile on Jim Demint is here.

As anti-Stevens as I am, it seems to me that voting for Ted Stevens probably remains the right thing for Alaska conservatives to do. If Stevens is re-elected, he'll have to step down, and will be replaced by someone appointed by Gov. Palin. She can be expected to appoint an ally, which will serve to strengthen Palin's position within the party power structure. As a Palinista myself, this is something I'm all on board for.

If, on the other hand, Stevens' Democrat opponent is elected, that's just one more seat for the Democrat Party, putting them one step closer to a filibuster-proof majority. That's not small potatoes, folks.

Thus, despite my disdain for the corrupt (and embarassing) Ted Stevens and the embarassing (and corrupt) Don Young, and despite my deep respect for the very smart guys at RedState, I have to disagree with their call for Alaska's conservatives to stand down and let the Democrats take over by default.

No, the Republicans don't deserve to retain power, but we don't deserve to be ruled by leftist Democrats.

Am I wrong on this one? Let's hear it.