AMNESTY DEAD; NOW A PLAN OF ACTION FOR 2008

Well, that was quite a ride. It started with Ted Kennedy and President Bush and then got some help from the McCainiacs...McCain, Graham, Martinez and Kyl. They tried to push an amnesty bill through in the dead of night like the Baltimore Colts in a Mayflower truck. The Conservatives in America responded and responded with a vengeance. If you'd thrown in Harriet Myers, you might have had an all-out civil war.

But then it got weird. Conservatives jammed phone lines, talk radio covered the story and the blogs gave us second-by-second updates. That's not the weird part. What gave us all double-takes was the amount of vitriol aimed at the blogs, talk radio and the grassroots from Republicans. We saw Trent Lott, Trent Lott of all people bashing talk radio, the very talk radio hosts that were his only defenders during the Strom Thurmond fiasco. He says the likes of Rush and Hannity are running America and "we've gonna have to deal with that problem." He also accuses his constituents and other across the country who have been calling his offices of practicing "intimidation." George Voinovich of Ohio, no conservative I grant you, but still a Republican who admits he hasn't read the bill but accuses those who have (i.e. talk radio hosts) of being simplistic.

Does this mean there would be Republican support for the Fairness Doctrine? Maybe. I've always been doubtful that it could ever really come back due to the one ultimate factor in any legislation: money. The National Association of Broadcasters and other TV/Radio lobbying groups will fight the Fairness Doctrine tooth and nail. If it were actually made law, it would destroy AM radio, and money talks in D.C. However, while I still think it won't happen, I'm not as confident as I once was after what has transpired in this Amnesty debate. The Rockefeller Republicans are really turning on the conservative wing and making their displeasure with them known. It's time for action.

What should we do? I think in 2008, the Conservatives should follow this line of action: Get behind the best Republican candidate for President. Face up to the fact that there was only one Ronald Reagan and you're not going to find his clone in this race. Find the guy that comes the closest to Reagan in conservative principles and most importantly who is very hawkish on the War on Terror, whether it be Rudy, Fred or Mitt and do everything you can to get him elected.

As for the Congress, that's where the conservative base needs to take a different approach. It's time to weed out the dead wood. The half-a-loaf approach in the hopes of getting/keeping a majority in either House Chamber has come back to bite us in the ass. It's given us the likes of Lindsey Graham, Mel Martinez, Arlen Specter and the like. Yes, it would suck if the Dems increased their numbers in '08, but sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.

These are the guys that voted for Amnesty in the Senate: Bennett, Craig, Graham, Gregg, Hagel, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Snowe, and Specter. You could probably also throw in a few others who would have voted for it, if they thought it was the winning side, the most notable being Senator Sam Switchback and Senator Mitch McConnell who changed their votes. I'm inclined to cut McConnell a little slack as he is the Majority Leader who is somewhat obligated to serve the President and was very much in a no-win situation here. Anyway, the guys on this list have to go. Find a conservative candidate and get them to run in the primary. If they lose, then don't vote for the incumbent in the general election...let him go. If we lose seats, then we regroup and get better candidates in 2010.

Why not send a message with the presidency? Because the president is still the one person that can do the most important job in government: protecting the people. While this Amnesty debate was going on, we might have been inclined to forget that we're also at war with Islamofascists. We need a strong man leading this fight, but what we don't need any longer are guys like Lindsey Graham (who should be target #1) taking us to the dance and then ditching us for the drunk party-girl (for lack of a better metaphor).

Weed out the dead wood.

MORE SENATORS TURNING AGAINST AMNESTY

There's reason for optimism in the hope that the Senate Amnesty bill will be deep-sixed. Day by day, another Senator or two announces that he or she will vote against cloture. We've got the two Texans and the two Georgians coming around as well as the Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill (amazing what representing a Red State can do for a Senator's decision-making skills).

Now, there's word that Gordon Smith of Oregon will vote against cloture (which smart readers of the Astute Bloggers know is the real vote on Amnesty).

More via PoliPundit.

JIM DEMINT: THE NEW JESSE HELMS

I mean that in a good way. As a libertarian, I disagreed with Helms on almost all of the so-called "social issues," but Helms was also the stalwart of the Senate's true conservatives and saved our country from peril on more than a few occasions. To me, his shining moment came in 1999 when he was able to engineer the defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which would have rendered the United States impotent without a reliable nuclear arsenal while the rest of the world (i.e. Russia and China) did whatever the hell they wanted. It occurred to me then that we need guys like Helms in the Senate to stop these once a decade movements of sheer madness.

Turn the clock ahead to the present day and we find a Republican President and a Democrat Congress pushing for immigration reform that essentially rewards criminals and makes sure the Democrats hold a majority in government for generations. Helms is long retired, who's gonna pick up the conservative mantel?

Enter South Carolina Junior Senator Jim DeMint. He is considered the key player in the move that (at least temporarily) killed the amnesty bill (from Right Wing News):

After the cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote.

At that point, all the senators who were participants in the "Grand Compromise" AKA the "Masters of the Universe" by the opponents of the bill, leaned on DeMint to try to get him to give consent for the bill to move forward. Unfortunately for them, DeMint wouldn't budge. This essentially killed the entire afternoon that the pro-amnesty side hoped to use to shore up support for the bill.

While DeMint was gumming up the works, the opponents of the bill, including most prominently Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Coburn, huddled and came up with a list of conservative amendments they wanted considered.

The proverbial three amigos (pardon the ethnic pun): DeMint, Sessions, Coburn. These guys have stepped up the to plate and are defending our country and its foundation as a nation of laws, not men.