The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (don't ask me how I find these things) runs an article today concerning a public demand in Alaska by conservative Republican State Representative Mike Kelly that GOP Senator Ted Stevens, GOP Representative Don Young, the Alaskan Senate Rules Chairman John Cowdery, and the Alaskan GOP Chairman Randy Ruedrich resign before the next election.

Fairbanks Republican Rep. Mike Kelly made a public call this weekend for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, U.S. Rep. Don Young, and two other prominent members of the GOP to step aside to help restore trust in government and keep the party strong. Kelly, a Republican, wrote in a letter to the editor published Sunday in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that the Alaska Republican Party needs new leadership and has only two options in the coming year - "further revolution" or reform. "A new governor and changes to ethics legislation gave us a start," he wrote. "Next steps would involve selfless sacrifice for the benefit of the Republican Party and the conservative agenda by powerful individuals whose action could permit a new team of conservative candidates to rise without risk of offending current longtime office holders.

Needless to say, the Republicans Kelly targeted have refused to go along. But they might soon not have a choice in the matter. From the same article:

Stevens and Young are both under investigation by the FBI for ties to VECO Corp., the oil field services company formerly run by Bill Allen, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to charges of bribing state lawmakers. Cowdery was one of the state lawmakers whose offices were searched last August by the FBI. Ruedrich stepped down as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission amid allegations that he misused the position for political purposes.

Ted Stevens and Don Young are selfish egotists, either oblivious to the damage that they are doing to the national Republican Party or so cocksure that they don't care. In which case they might as well be Democrats. With that in mind, there's a very real possibility that Republicans in Alaska run candidates against Stevens and Young in the GOP primaries, turning those races into referendums against corruption. That's how the current Republican Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, won in the last election.

When you spend a lot of time in the blogosphere it's easy to forget about the existence of that seemingly rare creature that inhabits the American electorate: the principled swing-voter. I'm not talking about independents, rather, members of either the Democratic or Republican party who, when compelled for whatever reason, cross the divide and vote for the other side. After enduring the moral shortcomings of Bill Clinton, many of these voters were drawn to George Bush and his promises to restore dignity and honor to the White House. Well, the same phenomenon seems to be happening this time around, only now it's some Republicans who are flocking towards Democratic candidates.

Disillusioned supporters of President George W Bush are defecting to Barack Obama, the Democratic senator for Illinois, the White House Candidate with the best chance of uniting a divided nation. Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum $2,000 to the president's reelection campaign and gave another $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat newcomer appealing.

Who else is hitching up to this fledgling bandwagon? Well, two of the most prominent former GOP supporters are Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief campaign strategist in 2004, and Robert Kagan, founder of the neo-con Project for the New American Century. Then there's Navy reservist, John Martin,who has started the website, Republicans for Obama.

First, let's remind ourselves how FUBAR it all is. A Washington Post article details how 190,000 AK-47 rifles and pistols have just somehow gone missing after the U.S. gave them to the Iraqi security forces they were training. It is estimated that 30% of the weapons we have shipped to Iraq are in the wrong hands and yet the Republicans scream bloody murder when 6 Iranian weapons are found. John McCain says "bomb bomb Iran." The entire Republican field (Ron Paul is as much a Republican as Joe Lieberman is a Democrat) continues to support President Bush's war. They are very vocal and don't say the war is wrong just that we haven't done enough. Now comes the topper:

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's campaign stood by his assertion that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good "deterrent" to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the United States, his spokeswoman said Friday. "This shows that we mean business," said Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser.

How insane is that? Let's start WW3 off with a bang, shall we? Let's just go nuclear on them, that will show them. I mentioned this item to a few people at the office and the reaction was uniform along the lines of rolling eyes and 'You've got to be kidding.' Most Americans realize we live in a real world, not some imaginary place where we can bomb away and solve problems. A bit more on the flip.

For almost one year, I have been contributing to "The Stump" as a blogger. Throughout that time, I worked hard to try to see things impartially. I clearly failed. After one year of analyzing and dissecting the news, I cannot understand how people could have bought into President Bush's policies and especially, his decision to attack Iraq.

Sure, Saddam Hussein was a horrible guy but there are plenty more like him in the world. Some are allies. The surprise is that good honest people who care about America, really believe that we should have preemptively attacked Iraq. To me, the evidence was clear, Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. However, the Bush spin machine convinced the majority of Americans that it did.

A number of Republicans within the administration spoke out against the war. They were ridiculed and described as unpatriotic. Now, Alan Greenspan has spoken. He is a lifetime Republican. He believes that the war was for oil. He believes that the party that was suppose to balance the budget and bring fiscal sanity to Washington, spent money excessively to win elections. And who does he think did a great job as president? None other than Bill Clinton.

Recent polls confirm what I've suspected for some time. Republicans like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are not idiots. They're smart, they read data, crunch numbers for breakfast and can get stories in the media easily. It's why we're seeing a raft of stories on Pelosi's trip to the MidEast. She's "negotiating" with terrorists, she may have committed a felony and she wore a scarf!

Let's dig beneath this story. First, who else has worn a scarf? This first lady and this Sec State. Now, in case anyone thinks these are photoshopped, the images are from the White House Web site.

Enough already. It's inane. Conservate Republicans like Rep. Frank Wolff and Darrell Issa are over there and they are supporting Pelosi. They are doing what is common sense (and recommended by the Iraq Study Group): open lines of communication, try a little diplomacy, look for any common ground while standing on principle. Defuse the Mideast bomb before there's a war with Iran or Syria. in other words, get a grip.

Fortunately, a number of Americans who happen to be Republicans or independents are getting a grip. They've come to realize the Republican Party they knew and supported has sold them a bill of goods and left them up the river without a decent candidate for next year. Some real numbers on the flip

Last year, after seeing how the uproar over earmarks was hurting them both in public and with their conservative base, the Republican-led House passed a reform bill that, according to Congressional Quarterly, required full public disclosure.

Last year's package required public disclosure of earmarks and their sponsors in appropriations, tax and authorizing bills.

When the Democrats took over they promised to be even tougher on earmarks. But they chose not to. The Democrats publicly stated that information on earmarks in appropriations bills would not be divulged until the conference committee reconciling the Senate and House versions of spending bills met -- meaning after the bills had been passed. In effect, the earmarks would be secret until after it was too late for the public to weigh in. Any changes to earmarks after initial passage would be under the sole discretion of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.

Karma will get you. When you violate the principles of a political ideology to the degree that the current Republican leadership has and to the degree that it has, it is only a matter of time that the voters will simply start abandoning the party.

According to the Politico, the polling organization Public Opinion Strategies has noticed a huge trend of voters no longer identifying/affiliating with the Republican Party. While the article mentions that the most significant drops in affiliation would be Independents who formerly favored conservative ideals, it also ignores the fact that many former registered Republicans are moving more towards the Independent ticket disenfranchised with the party. While these voters won't cast a pro-Democrat vote, they will simply opt not to vote at all preferring to stay at home in protest with the hopes that in the long run letting the current Republican leadership lose office and somewhere down the road be replaced by a legitimate conservative.

Yes, the Iraq war is a major part of the Republicans losing popularity, but there is more to it.

One of the huge fallacies about political groups in the United States is that all Republicans are conservative and all Democrats are liberals. This is not really an accurate sentiment as there are conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and moderates in both parties. (And, yes, there are also fringe element radical and reactionary groups within both parties as well.)

What is utterly perplexing about the Republican Party is that it has moved more and more towards a hybrid of the classical Rockefeller Republican (often derided as country club Republicans) and emerging Neo-Conservatives (There are variants to the origin of what a neo-con is, but it is usually a combination of former conservative democrats who drifted to the Republican wing and globalists) yet the base of the Republican Party is primarily classical Reagan and Goldwater conservatives and the base isn't happy with this new crop of Republicans who are heavy on government spending, open borders, globalization, et al. In June, rage and anger from the base over President Bush's pro-amnesty stance led to a revolution of sorts which saw a massive drop in grass roots donations combined and this has now manifested to a multitude of the conservative base moving towards independent status.

This should come as no surprise. Why should conservatives affiliate themselves with a party that is not conservative?

Full disclosure: I'm not a Republican. I'm a Democrat (albeit one who occasionally strays from my party of choice). Whether you want to consider the words below a bad-faith effort to meddle in the GOP or a perspective that is valuable from an outsider is up to you, but here's my take on the 2008 race for the Presidency among Republicans. I'm writing this because my recent Cattle Call on the Democrats proved so popular. I'll work on making these regular features as the races advance.

TOP TIER

1. John McCain. Unpopular though he may be with rightwing bloggers, McCain learned his lesson in 2000 and knows that in the Republican Party, being the choice on the insiders is key. While he has an ongoing feud with some people in the GOP establishment, many of the rest have rallied to McCain as someone who can save the party from electoral defeat in 2008. And while he may be a "maverick" on issues like campaign finance, McCain is a defender of economic elitist policies and was the real neocon in the '00 primary. That said, the base is still wary of him. The conservative blogs have yet to prove an ability to raise money or marshall real grassroots support, but if they can, St. McCain is in trouble.

2. Rudy Giuliani. America's Mayor should be at the top of this list by some accounts. But Giuliani has to face a lot of questions before he can be bumped to frontrunner position. Here are just a handful: Does the base know that he is pro-choice and pro-gay rights? Has he sufficiently answered questions about his relationship with disgraced former NY police commissioner Bernard Kerik? What about his divorce or his decision to bring his mistress into Gracie mansion before the divorce was finalized? And what about the pesky fact that he wanted New York's emergency command center based in one of the twin towers -- despite the fact that when he came up with the idea that the towers had already been targeted in one terrorist attack? Too many questions. Until Giuliani proves he can handle them, he isn't going up.

As Rep. Christopher Shays begins to get over the shock of being almost the only Republican in a close race to win, the fate of one of his Connecticut colleagues is still undecided. Rep. Rob Simmons is currently down in his challenge with Democrat Joe Courtney by 167 votes. Twelve term incumbent Republican Rep. Nancy Johnson lost her re-election bid to a newcomer, and while Republican governor Jodi Rell was re-elected, none of the Republican underticket will be joining her. The Connecticut House now has a veto-proof majority. So what happened to Connecticut Republicans?

Rep. Shays was able to win because he isn't really considered a Republican, more of an independent maverick like John McCain. Simmons, typically considered more in-step with his party, now mired in a drawn-out recount process, is being abandoned by the governor. Rell apparently hasn't even contacted Rep. Simmons to offer support or encouragement. Gov. Rell does have a reputation for only being interested in her own political survival, which might be said to be a reflection on the Connecticut Republican party as a whole. If the party had been more cohesive, then "Republican in Connecticut" might have actually stood a chance in this past election. Instead, it was a massacre, with only politicians like Shays, often derided as Republican in Name Only (RINO), winning.

The Columbus Dispatch has a profile of a Republican, Kevin Bacon, (no, not that Kevin Bacon) who is running for state rep on an explicitly reform package. i.e. he's running against Columbus even though Republicans have controlled Columbus for 12 years.

I especially like the use of the word 'even' in the headline.

This is what many have councilled Ken Blackwell to do and he did, but in the primary only.

I received an alert e-mail about 11:30pm last evening to tell me about this little article from "The Politico" about one of my favorite congressmen, Jack Murtha. It seems that he got a little hot under the collar when one of his pork barrel spending projects that he attempted to slide into a bill last week was criticized. And, like the thug that he is, he responded:

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) threatened to deny any further spending projects to a Republican who challenged him over an earmark last week, the GOP is charging – a potential violation of House rules that could cause a spike in partisan tensions.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who questioned money that Murtha inserted into an intelligence bill last week, turned the tables Thursday night by saying he would call for Murtha to be reprimanded for violating House rules.

Murtha doesn't like it when daylight is shone on his little empire. This ($23 million) argument has to do with Murtha attempting to re-fund a thing called the National Drug Intelligence Center in Pennsylvania. The reason why it was being shut down was that it's duplicative and useless, especially in its location.

What a stupid thing to say:

Rep. Ford is then shown saying that "my friend Lincoln Davis, who chairs our campaign, says there are, there's one big difference between us and misfortunate Republicans when it comes to our faith: He said "Republicans fear the Lord; he said Democrats fear and love the Lord."

I honestly don't get the point of saying this at all. Ford just riled up the entire population of Christians who usually vote Republican. All of them have their dander up. Not a good idea.

And besides that I'm not even sure what valid point Ford was trying to make. It just makes no sense.

I agree with Tennesseean Glenn Reynolds. The Ford campaign needs a good night's rest. They seem a little bleary.

According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, Republicans make up 36.6% of Internet users, 30.8% are Democrats and 17.3% consider themselves Independents. Interestingly, the top five Republican websites are:

Rushlimbaugh.com
NewsMax.com
Billoreilly.com
Matt Drudge
Salt Lake Tribune

And the sites with the highest concentration of Democrats are:

Blackamericaweb.com
AOL Black Voices
BET.com
Salon.com
Village Voice

It's an interesting breakdown. The self-identified Republicans list all conservative news sites while the self-identified Democrats tend to be more entertainment sites with the exception of Salon and to a lesser extent the Village Voice. The NY Times Web site and the WSJ sites did the best among other newspapers.

More on the breakdown and other data con be found at Market Wire.

Before going into the politics of Google, let me just say that I own the stock and it is now sitting comfortably at a price of $500. The next celebration target is $600. Go Google.

This very liberal company saw the light last year. Though its founders and concepts are liberal, its god is money. Google compromised with the Chinese government in order to get its search engine into China. It had to agree to censorship.

Google "has a big stake in the battle about net neutrality, an issue it supports because it would ensure that high-speed Internet lines are available on equal terms to all companies." The Republican controlled Congress was not willing to buy into net neutrality. Some of the more moderate Republican Congresspersons did support this concept. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Google last year contributed 61% of their PAC money to the Republicans. The Google employees gave 98% to the Democratic candidates.

In November, I wrote my first blog regarding this involvement of Google in national politics. That article pointed out that with Google's help, Heather Wilson, Republican Congresswoman, was reelected by a slim margin. Google has quickly realized that it is very important to be politically bipartisan in its efforts to help pro Google individuals to Congress. Go Google!