Over on the conservative discussion forum Free Republic, partisan Republicans are desperately trying to separate themselves from those Senate Republicans cutting a deal to pass a massive "stimulus" spending bill, a tough task given the fact the Republican Party will in no way discipline "yea" votes and the RNC will continue to spend millions re-electing those senators.
One reader, posting as AdLibertas, gets it and calls his own party to task:
"In this thread, the grousing about how only a handful of Republican Senators voted with the Democrats in favor of the "stimulus" bill is intriguing. Particularly interesting is how the Nay votes of the majority of them are construed to mean they are for tax cuts and for liberty.
"I state (without proof) that the reason most Republicans voted against the bill is that the bill so empowers the political left that it threatens their cushy Senate and House jobs—we don’t give them credit for much, but they are smart enough to know that giving hundreds of billions to unions, ACORN, etc. is going to cripple their own re-elections and chances for political advancement. Remember: the raison d’etre of political parties is to propagate and empower the party—almost any action in-line with the will of the people is coincidential.
"Furthermore, let’s not forget that President Bush—i.e. Republican—signed into law the TARP and bailed out the automakers against public majority sentiment. This act very clearly sided ‘against voters to explode the national debt and expand the government.’"
