I seldom exclaim in joy more than once while reading any one article, especially an interview, but this one had me fist-pumping "Yes!" and raising my arms with a triumphal "AB-so-LUTE-ly RIGHT!" with virtually every statement by the interviewee, Senator James Warren DeMint of South Carolina. It's a great read. Don't miss it.
In the last years of the George W. Bush administration, DeMint and Tom Coburn were almost alone in the Senate fighting for the Club for Growth's pro-growth agenda of lower taxes, less regulation, and free trade.
Today, help seems to be on the way.
Pat Toomey -- the Club for Growth's soft-spoken president from the moment he was defeated by a hair in his 2004 primary against Snarlin' Arlen Specter until he decided to run against him again this year -- seems likely to defeat lefty Joe Sestak and to replace the reliably traitorous Specter.
Rand Paul -- the son Ron Paul named for Ayn Rand -- is headed to victory in the Kentucky seat last held by Jim Bunning, who Mitch McConnell hounded into retirement. McConnell's goal was to bring in the malleable Trey Grayson, but now, McConnell will have to contend with the ultimate maverick.
The exciting and glorious Marco Rubio will very likely knock Charlie Crist out of politics to take Florida's seat.
Mike Lee is virtually guaranteed the Utah seat almost every political observer thought of as Spendican Bob Bennett's personal property until the Utah Republican convention this year dispossessed him.
Ken Buck knocked another Republican National Senatorial Committee favorite for a loop in Colorado, and seems likely to defeat the appointed Democrat.
Sharron Angle has Harry Reid pinned down in Nevada spending his money on his own race, alternately trailing and leading him by a point or two in the polls. Assessing the turnout to weight the partisan responses is driving the pollsters loopy, but Republicans are turning out in far greater percentages in contested races than Dems, so Sharron Angle even now seems likely to unseat Reid, especially given the weight of Nevada's 14% unemployment.
Ron Johnson in Wisconsin alternately nips at Russ Feingold's heels or shows him his own. Again turnout will tell all.
And now the evil Spendican-from-birth Lisa Murkowski has to battle the upstart Joe Miller -- whose we-need-to-stand-stand-on-our-own-two-feet campaign message rivals DeMint's own -- through a follow-the-absentee-ballot-box chase in Alaska.
It can't get much better for Jim DeMint than if all those folks win and bring a little revolution to the Republican caucus. As the fate of Specter, Bennett, and Murkowski rises in the memories of the Spendican class of 2006 through the last two years of their terms, constituents' hisses and booes echo in their ears whenever they try they go home to town halls to tout their ill-gotten gains of other people's money.
It can't get better for DeMint, of course, unless the Republicans take the Senate....
