On brush-fire political reform...

Ryan's posts about OH and IN budgetary reforms weren't news to me... but it is interesting to see the dominoes lining up to fall, isn't it?

Will's article summed it up nicely... the DNC has simply become the party of government. Their mantra, their entire platform, is based on the premise that only Government can fix what is broken... they have forgotten or ignore the FACT that history shows that government isn't the answer, it is the problem. Just as Reagan said, all the way back in 1980. The size and scope of government that they advocate necessitates a level of "centralization" that rivals that of any European socialist system still functioning, and that is contrary to economic and fiscal freedom that the US has traditionally enjoyed prior to the turn of the century (the 21st Century, I mean).

Will made another point that I thought interesting: he said that the leadership that shows through in the coming months and years is what is going to provide the best yardstick for a strong President, and that leadership is going to come from Governors and not Senators or Representatives. I'm not saying Congress doesn't have good candidates (and neither is Will, I think), but the strength will lay with the executive experience that the candidates have... not with the ability to ignore compromise that defines a legislative leader. Veterans of Congress have the luxury of sticking to partisan lines of thought... but governors (at least good governors) have shown an ability to weigh both sides and find what works best for the whole. Governors that have won successive terms must have shown an ability to articulate plans and agendas to the voting public well enough for them to be able to see success in 30-second blocks... or they'd never be re-elected in the first place.

I can't think of a better example of this than the State of Mississippi, where all of us lived for so long. MS became a State in 1817, and from that time till today, there have only been 23 years of non-Democratic control of the Governor's mansion (and six of those years were during Reconstruction, when the military was in control). They have had 5 GOP Governors (three of which were Reconstructionists) and one Whig (who was in office for exactly one month). Kirk Fordice and Haley Barbour are the only TWO GOP Governors that weren't associated with Reconstruction... and they account for 16+ years of the 23 I mention.

Even with that said... the State of Mississippi is a RED STATE! The last Democratic Presidential candidate to win MS was Carter in 1976... but how can this be?

Because the "Blue Dog" movement began in MS, and the party was leaving behind its "conservative" roots as long ago as the Carter Administration. With the campaign of Mondale/Ferraro, we saw the end of traditional conservative "Truman" Democrats and the rise of the liberal agenda, the likes of which even FDR couldn't have imagined.

This sort of "reawakening" that is happening across the States is what is going to usher in the end of the radical liberal agenda in Washington DC... or nothing is.