Below The Beltway

Gordon Smith is a Republican Senator from Oregon and here is his rather extraordinary ad:

If that’s not a sign that the down-ticket knows that the GOP is in trouble this year, I don’t know what is.

They’re both in Alaska, ironically:
A new poll shows that the two longtime Republican elected officials from Alaska, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, face serious obstacles to winning reelection.
Stevens trails Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D), 51 percent to 44 percent in the poll, while holding fairly high disapproval ratings. While 49 percent of respondents […]

A self-professed partisan Democrat diagnosis quite well the choice that the Republican Party faces on a local, state, and national level:
Republicans have a serious problem on their hands, and it’s one of their own creation. While mouthing the long time conservative claim of being for limited government, respecting the Constitution, and hewing to fiscal conservatism, […]

Marc Ambinder takes a look at the Senate races coming up in November and finds some not so good news for Republicans.
One seat, Virginia, he ranks as almost a dead-lock certain flip from Republican to Democratic:
Democrats are enthusiastic about their nominee, ex-Gov. Mark Warner, and Republicans are not enthusiastic about their nominee, former Gov. Jim […]

Ronald Reagan, circa 1975:
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals-if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be […]

Publius at Obsidian Wings makes these suggestions about fixing the primary system in both parties:
Replace Iowa and New Hampshire with Rotating Regional Calendar

The Michigan/Florida debacle is a direct consequence of Iowa and New Hampshire’s unholy monopoly on the early elections. David Broder aside, there is absolutely no justification for allowing the same two states — […]

Rick Sincere has several posts up about Saturday’s contentious by some accounts Republican Party of Virginia Convention in Richmond. First, Rick posts video of the concession and victory speeches by Bob Marshall and Jim Gilmore. Then there’s the keynote speech by former Senator George Allen and speeches by newly-elected RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick. Vice-President […]

Let’s say you are part of a political party facing the possibility of an electoral disaster in November.
Your supporters are demoralized and the numbers look worse by the day.
Along come a group of people who are committed and actually want to be involved in the Republican Party.
What do you do ?
You do the logical thing, […]

So, you really consider yourselves the heirs of Ronald Reagan ?
Well, watch this speech from 1964, then come back and tell me how anything that has happened between 20 January 2001 and today even comes close to living up to this ideal and how John McCain even comes close.
You might recognize the guy making the […]

This is actually a pretty good response:
FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY:
Huckabee is right: Libertarianism is a threat to Republican hypocrisy
Party responds to former GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee’s comments about the “threat” of libertarianism
Washington, D.C. – In a recent interview with Huffington Post contributor Will Mari, former GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee called libertarianism “not […]