A group of people who believe nothing about President Obama somehow trust him implicitly when he says that Richard Lugar is his favorite Republican. The Tea Party should be attacking the president for that, not Lugar. But it’s no surprise that the Tea Party fell for yet another of the Obama campaign’s political tactics. Why can’t we win the Senate back again?

First, the reason why Lugar is Obama’s favorite Republican is not because Obama said so; it’s because of Lugar’s dismal record in the Senate.  Not only does he have a liberal voting record on fiscal issues, he is a pacifist globalist as the Ranking Member on the Foreign Relations Committee.  He has worked hand in glove with John Kerry, whether it’s promoting the Palestinians or ratifying Putin’s New START treaty.  In fact, I don’t think Kerry, Obama, and Lugar disagree on anything in the realm of foreign policy.

Moreover, notice how liberal Republicans always throw in innuendo about the Tea Party ruining our chances to take back the Senate.  No, Mr. Lugar.  It’s people like you who have handed defacto control of the Senate to Democrats by voting with them on everything, even when Republicans officially controlled that body.  Why is it so important that we win back the Senate as long as people like you are there?

Lugar’s comments bring to mind my favorite political cartoon, courtesy of my wife.

Perhaps the most salient debt milestone Obama will be remembered for is that our debt surpassed the size of our economy on his watch.  Here is a chart courtesy of Zero Hedge that illustrates the sort of unsustainable trajectory that the president has stimulated.

Chalk another one up to “bipartisanship.” David Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas, spent time in November hanging out with his left-wing friends in Washington D.C. to raise a little scratch for his run for the Senate. One of those friends was Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party, who held a fundraiser at his townhouse for Dewhurst.

The hosts of the party were all typically fundraisers for Democrats. Podesta himself heads up the Podesta Group, which earned a whopping $27.4 million in lobbying fees last year. Salon.com, no right-wing outlet, labeled the Podesta Group a firm with “close ties to the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.” Tony and his brother John are frequent visitors to the White House. Podesta has worked for political campaigns for Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, and Michael Dukakis. He was a founding member of the radical liberal group People for the American Way.

Maybe this relationship with these supercilious rich liberals is what prompted Dewhurst to support tax increases.  Is it too much to ask that we elect a somewhat conservative Senator from a state like Texas?  Luckily, we won’t have to settle for someone who is even somewhat conservative.  We have a rock solid conservative fighter in Ted Cruz.

Unfortunately, Dewhurst’s connections to the permanent political class is paying off.   This is a race that we absolutely must get right.  While Cruz’s average donation was $319, Dewhurst has enjoyed an average of $2,286 a pop.  There are many more bigwigs who are willing to fund someone who will look out for special interests instead of the unencumbered free-market.   Let’s help Ted Cruz fight Dewhurst’s liberal money machine, and put him over the top.

According to a senior House GOP aide, the House bill will be shorter than the bill (HR 7) that was supposed to move to the House floor next week. How much shorter is unclear; the aide said it would still “provide plenty of time for a new Congress and new president to enact a long-term reauthorization.”

The aide also said the changes to transit funding that the bill had originally contained — primarily, getting rid of its funding link to the Highway Trust Fund — will be “postponed.”

Additionally, since the bill’s duration will be shorter, funding may be reduced below current levels. This could potentially help the GOP deal with the fact that $15.5 billion worth of the bulk of the pension changes they had planned to use to offset the bill’s spending are now gone.

The revamped bill will retain such provisions as project expediting and environmental streamlining. Additionally, the bill is expected to continue to link infrastructure funding to an expansion of energy production. Procedurally, the aide said the truncated surface transportation bill is expected to be attached to the energy production bill the House passed last week (HR 3408).

While this is definitely good news, let me offer a cautionary note.  As bad as HR 7 was, it was actually disliked by some liberal Republicans.  They didn’t want any cuts to mass transit, wishing to continue funding public transportation projects from gas tax revenue.  The new bill might be a compromise for liberal Republicans, not for us.  They might use the same illusory cuts that will never pass in order to offset the cost of the shorter term bill (perhaps, two years or so).  The overall cost will be much lower, but it will still continue down the same top-down failed federally controlled transportation policy.  It will just kick the can down the road for future bailouts. It will also allow them to continue funding mass transit from gas tax revenue.

At the very least, the shorter term nature of the bill should make it slightly less costly, but we have to reserve judgement in order to render a final verdict.

The bottom line is that any bill that fails to either devolve transportation funding to the states or permanently eliminate mass transit, will still create the need for future bailouts.  We’ll update y’all as the details become available.

Nevertheless, there was one man who refused to own up to his lack of conservatism; Mitt Romney.  Romney consistently criticized Rick Santorum for his support for things that he undoubtedly would have voted for had he been in the Senate.  Some of the items, including NCLB, Planned Parenthood, and bailouts, he did support even without a voting record in the Senate.

Let’s face it; had Romney won the Massachusetts Senate seat in ’94, he would have voted for earmarks, No Child Left Behind, every bailout under the sun, funding for Planned Parenthood, and yes – he would have supported Arlen Specter.  After all, he ran to the left of Ted Kennedy in ’94.   We all know that Romney would have made Olympia Snowe look like Jim DeMint had he been more successful at electoral politics.  So don’t try to use your time out of Congress to your advantage, Mr. Romney.  Own up to your liberalism.

The most egregious claim from Romney was his false declaration that he opposed raising the debt ceiling without a cut, cap, and balance provision.  Romney asserted, “I said yes we should increase the debt ceiling in this last vote, but only if we have a cut, cap and balance provision put in place. Only in that case. And, therefore, I did not agree with the deal that was done in Washington. That was the wrong way to go.”

This is simply not true.

While most other Republican leaders were weighing in on the debt ceiling deal throughout July, Romney remained silent in his Mittness Protection Program.  Then, when it became abundantly clear that Boehner would cave on CCB and would agree to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for nebulous cuts (everything except for a few final details had already been worked out), Romney’s campaign issued the following statement on July 26 praising Boehner for working out a deal that didn’t raise taxes (a total non-sequitur to CCB).

“Gov. Romney thinks President Obama’s leadership has been an historic failure. He applauds Leader Boehner for standing firm against raising taxes when our nation can least afford them.”

Throughout the last week of July, conservatives were protesting Boehner’s cave.  I had written no less than 9 articles protesting the preliminary deal that eliminated CCB.  Other conservatives weighed in pro and con.  Romney remained silent.  It wasn’t until August 2, after the deal had already been signed into law, that Romney issued a statement opposing the deal.  Yet, throughout the end of July, when it became clear that Boehner would jettison CCB from the final deal, Romney had no problems.  As with every other liberal vote that Romney accuses his opponents of taking, there is no doubt how Romney would have voted had he been in the Senate last year.

Then again, he will always have the luxury to say whatever he wants.  Indeed there are some perks to losing Senate races.

Over the past few years, it has become clear that in order to fundamentally restore our constitutional republic, it is not enough to elect just any Republican, especially one who will coalesce around the party establishment.  We need leaders who are willing to stand up to leadership in both parties.  This week, Ted Cruz has shown once again why he exemplifies that imperative.

When asked whether he would vote for John Cornyn as Republican Whip, Ted replied that he would withhold judgment until he sees how many “constitutional conservatives’ got elected.’”  The clear implication of Cruz’s equivocation was that Cornyn is not a constitutional conservative leader, and he would wait to see if there’s more support for a better candidate once he is elected to the Senate.

Moreover, Cruz’s hesitance to endorse Cornyn for Whip shows a much deeper level of courage than appears on the surface.  If Cruz is elected to the Senate, Cornyn would be his senior senator from Texas.  It is almost unprecedented for a member of the same delegation and the same party to oppose his colleague’s leadership bid.  Also, Cornyn is the current chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), an organization that is vital in funneling money and resources to senate candidates.  Yet, Cruz has no compunction in declining to support Cornyn upfront.

It is narratives like this that demonstrate to us how a candidate would perform in elected office.  It is abundantly clear that Ted Cruz would oppose McConnell and the GOP leadership when necessary, which unfortunately, is all too often.  We need more Ted Cruz’s for this election cycle.

This past week, Chris Christie was foist into the debate over the ridiculous concept of gay marriage when the state legislature in New Jersey passed a law recognizing these “marriages.”  Christie is keeping his promise to veto the legislation; however, some of his appointments to high offices within the state raise serious doubts about his commitment to fight for traditional marriage.  Here’s the scoop from NRO’s Maggie Gallagher:

Chris Christie is publicly opposed to same-sex marriage and indeed, to his credit, he fulfilled a campaign promise by vetoing a gay-marriage bill. But he raised eyebrows and doubts by appointing to the New Jersey Supreme Court an openly gay judge who has publicly pushed for gay marriage.

Now a New Jersey judge has reinstated a gay couple’s claim that New Jersey’s marriage laws violate the federal Constitution — in part, she said, because the defense of the marriage law offered by Christie’s attorney general, Jeffrey Chiesa, was so weak: “tradition.”

Chiesa is not some rogue Republican; he was Christie’s chief counsel for several years before the governor made him AG. It raises eyebrows, because it’s frankly what Obama’s attorney general did for years — pretend to defend the law, by offering only a token defense.

Do we want a president who will appoint those who will not defend our values?  Christie might be satisfactory for New Jersey, but he is not what we need from a party leaders.  He  will certainly never be a conservative leader.