From National Review:
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. – Rep. Mike Pence
Now, if only the “conservative commentariat” that aided and abetted the neocons, faux conservatives and FDR-Republicans will admit to their complicity in this Republican debacle, perhaps the party would have a chance of turning things around in time for 2008. But that won’t happen. No one in that party is going to listen to me or any of the very small number of people who saw and publicly predicted this sort of result more than a year ago, instead they’ll continue to listen to the siren song of Powerline, National Review and the Radio Rushbots as they whisper sweet nothings about how Republicans must move left and turn to anti-conservatives such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney to rescue conservativism.
I’m not in the least bit bitter about being ignored since I believe the nation’s fate is sealed regardless of who is in power, I just wonder why people continue to give such credence to people who are so reliably and spectacularly wrong.