Conservatives have long understood that America is a center-right nation. In election after election, our values win the day. When liberals do win office, they do so by nuancing their own positions and pandering to specific sections of the electorate. But when elections are about ideas, our ideas win.
Twenty-eight of these United States - encompassing 164 million people, 53 percent of the American population and 285 Electoral College votes - are suing the federal government to stop Obamacare. This litigation challenges the constitutionality of Obamacare's mandate that individuals purchase health insurance. The U.S. Supreme Court likely will decide once and for all if the Constitution's Commerce Clause empowers Congress to force Americans to conduct commerce.
The conservative "red" states should see their political clout enhanced as a result of the Census Bureau's announcement Tuesday that the nation's population grew 9.7 percent over the past decade to nearly 309 million, with the fastest growth centered in states that went Republican in the 2008 presidential election.
As President Obama's advisers plan his 2012 re-election campaign, they not only face shifting political winds but must navigate an electoral map much tougher than the 2008 version. The past decade has seen population shift from states with high taxes and big government to those that have embraced private-sector job creation. As a result, 10 states are projected to lose congressional seats and Electoral College votes, while eight states will gain them. Following this round of reapportionment, small-government red states are likely to have greater clout in Congress and the Electoral College, threatening to derail a liberal agenda on Capitol Hill as well as the president's 2012 re-election bid.
President Obama's inability to carry Rep. Tom Perriello across the finish line in his re-election bid for Virginia's 5th Congressional District is one of a number of troubling signs for the president in this week's elections.
Sometimes earthquakes in small places say something about what happens when a quake strikes in big places.
In a strange and dangerous pandering to populism over constitutionalism, the Massachusetts legislature approved a law on July 27 that overturns the Electoral College in that state. In other words, nullification is alive and well in the Bay State. According to Democratic state Sen. James B. Eldridge, "every vote will be of the same weight across the country." This nullification of Article 2, Section I, Clauses 2 and 3 (Electoral College) of the Constitution is meant to facilitate a particular political outcome.
Democrats should try doing a little research before launching gratuitous attacks on the Bush administration. For two weeks they have hammered Vice President Dick Cheney because his office does not comply with a 2003 executive order, under which the National Archives gathers information about the classification and declassification of national security materials. Mr. Cheney claims that the order does not apply because neither he nor his office are an executive branch "agency" or "entity." He's right, and his position is supported by the written opinion of the Clinton Justice Department.
