Giving credit where credit is due, Senator Corker voted with Senators Coburn, DeMint, and a paltry 10 others in voting against a super-sized-pork burrito.  Thank you, Senator Corker!

By Michelle Malkin  •  January 12, 2009 06:39 AM

Hey, did you know the Senate was in session yesterday? Harry Reid gathered up his troops for a weekend vote on the massive omnibus lands bill I told you about last week. In a rebuke to conservative GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, the Dems (along with 12 go-along, get-along, spend-a-lot Republicans) agreed to proceed with a mega-package of some 160 lands-related separate measures wrapped up in a big government bow and stuffed with earmarks.

Here’s the roll call vote, with the big-spending GOP dozen who joined the Democrats underlined in yellow.

As for our Republican Leadership Team, McConnell, Kyle, and Senator Lamar Alexander were recorded as not voting.  

Leadership doesn’t get it.  I’m continually amused at the feeble attempts to attribute GOP losses to social conservatives or the *racist* immigration issue!  Nope, it’s about the spending, stupid.  We need bumperstickers. 

In swing district after swing district, we find swing voters either rebuking the GOP for their big spending ways or actually laboring under the belief that the Democrat will show more fiscal restraint.  For instance, if we look at polling in the black community, we find for the most part, they are socially conservative. But they don’t vote that way, do they?  Why?  That’s the great question to ponder.  It’s the economic question—how do we appeal?  It won’t be through pandering.  

Personally, I think the GOP needs a major change-up in debate.  We gave up on crime.  We gave up on education. Property rights.  Selective enforcement of laws (and yes, this includes addressing our illegal immigration issue). These are issues that cut across race, gender, ethnicity.

This is a discussion for another time and I’m out of time this morning.  The main issue is that our Republicans have bought into the ideological premise that government is a cure and answer for everything. Hardly.  Government honestly creates most of the problems so that they have a reason to stay in office and fix it. It’s political Münchausen Syndrome. 

That was why Reagan was loved.  He attacked the ideology and delivered the message that the greatness of America is found in her people.  And yes, I mean people-not her bleating, helpless sheep in need of more government because we’re all too stupid and incompetent to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  Reagan communicated  that if government gets out the way, the possibilities are limitless.  That is the understanding of people around the world who want to legally immigrate to the land of opportunity!  That still applies today.

And speaking of our Tennessee Senators this morning, several of you asked where and how did I get that great picture that I posted earlier.  Like many great pieces of art, it was commissioned.  Back during the Drill for Oil Gangland Wars of 2008, I asked the hellraisers at Six Meat Buffet if they’d help me out with a little photoshop work for Senator Corker and his Gang of 10. They graciously obliged.

Thanks to Preston Taylor Holmes for the masterpiece.  I’m told that even some of Senator Alexander’s staff got a kick out of it!