The Incumbent Purge is Underway!

Over the weekend, three term Republican Senator Bob Bennett failed to win a spot on the GOP primary ballot in Utah. Yesterday, Congressman Alan Mollohan failed to win the Democrat nomination in West Virginia. Over the next few months, at least a dozen additional incumbents could lose their seats in the primaries. Among them are three Senators -- Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, and John McCain.

Specter typifies what's wrong in Congress. The guy has been locked away in the District of Columbia for 45 years. The world was a very different place when Specter got to Congress in 1965. At this point, he's completely clueless about most everything. He also doesn't have any philosophical foundation or moral center. All he cares about is hanging on to power.

McCain is so scared that he recently released a disgusting, disingenuous, and pandering television ad about the border, in which he completely reversed his long held positions on illegal immigration. JD Hayworth is currently behind McCain in the polls, but fortunately the Arizona primary isn't until August. By then, McCain's famous temper will have torpedoed his campaign.

In Kentucky, conservative-libertarian Rand Paul holds a double digit lead over the establishment hand picked candidate Trey Grayson in the GOP Senate primary. Grayson used to be a Democrat, who supported Bill Clinton. That didn't stop former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate leader Mitch McConnell‎, and much of the rest of the GOP establishment from endorsing him. Why? Because they are scared to death that Paul will be an independent voice who will not go along to get along.

The slaughter in the general election in November is likely going to be much larger. House Republican Leader John Boehner claims that as many as 100 House seats are up for grabs. I'm not a big Boehner fan, but I agree with him on this -- there is an anti-incumbent furor that could result in as much as 20% of the House turning over this year. All of the losses won't be on the Democrat side.

If unemployment stays around 10%, there will be another slaughter in 2012. This isn't only bad news for Barack Obama. Establishment types like Mitt Romney will likely be causalities as well.

This is all great news. The voters are finally waking up and throwing the bums out.

Unfortunately, Americans usually don't pay much attention to the goings on in the District of Columbia. They are this year and they did in 1994, but generally they don't.

In the absence of a diligent electorate, we need term limits. Unfortunately, regardless of who controls Congress, elected politicians are not going to pass a law, let alone a Constitutional amendment to limit their power in any way. That's the big problem.

I for one am looking forward to seeing large numbers of incumbents in both parties being booted from office this year and in 2012. Those that remain will be so scared that they will clean up their acts and do what we want -- at least for a short period of time.

Why should we trust them again?

House minority leader John Boeher was on Michael Medved's show today. In response to a caller's question, Boeher said that the the GOP did indeed have a health care proposal. He gave the URL where it was posted.

REALLY??? I'll bet that most people have no idea that the GOP has a health care plan. Of course Boehner didn't articulate AT ALL what was actually in the plan.

Reagan and Gingrich understood something that Boehner doesn't -- being shy and keeping things quiet is NOT how one wins in the marketplace of ideas.

The sad fact is that the current GOP members in Congress lack the kind of great leadership and communication skills that they had in the 1990s under Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Bill Archer. Not only did those guys accomplish a lot (welfare reform, capital gains tax cut, balanced budget, etc), they also set the stage for what would happen when the GOP took control of the Presidency. I remember the big debates between Armey and Archer on how they would scrap the current tax code in favor of either a flat rate income tax or a national sales tax. Even "moderates" like Pete Domenici (R) and Sam Nunn (D) came up with their own version of radical tax reform (a “consumption-oriented” income tax).

ALL reform (let alone talk of even more radical reform) died in January 2001 when George Bush became President. Instead, George Bush and Karl Rove tried to emulate the Democrats by buying votes with the first new entitlement program since LBJ and the largest federal intrusion into the classroom in history. It didn't work and they got booted out of office. Boehner was part of the mess that Bush made.

The result was inevitable -- the Democrats now control the federal government and are doing everything possible to make it even larger.

I am so VERY happy that Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. It signals that virtually everyone except the most brain dead socialist is waking up to reality. However, this doesn't mean that we should automatically trust John Boehner and the Bush GOP sell-outs again. We need to take it candidate-by-candidate and really take a hard look at whether or not they going to return power to the people or continue to consolidate government in the hands of a few elitists.