And Sanctimonious Santorum Provides Evidence of What I Just Posted

From The Hill, headlined Frist Will Go Nuclear:

Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, has reassured conservative activist leaders that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is committed to triggering the “nuclear option,” stripping Democrats of the power to filibuster judicial nominees.

Santorum met the leaders Tuesday to dispel growing anxiety among conservatives that Frist was wavering over what some Republicans call the “constitutional” or “Byrd” option — a procedural tactic that would disallow judicial filibusters by a ruling of the Senate chair and a ratifying majority vote.

Conservative alarm surged when the Republican leadership canceled a briefing of Senate staff and activists by Martin Gold, a former Frist aide and master of Senate parliamentary procedure who is advising Republicans on the issue. The cancellation of the special meeting, which was scheduled for the Easter recess, left some with the impression that Frist might be backing away in the face of Democrats’ threat to retaliate by shutting down the Senate.

Business interests on K Street are urging Frist to delay the tactic because it could imperil their legislative agenda, as The Hill reported this week.

The conservatives’ concern was also fueled by Frist’s efforts to negotiate with Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to find a compromise. One Democratic aide said that Frist appeared to be backing away from the tactic.

Now consider this.

Polls are showing that a majority of Republicans (while most show between 45 and 55% of GOPers, want the filibuster maintained and while 45% doesn't sound like a majority, the number who WANT the filibuster killed is only 30-32% tops; the rest aren't sure or have no opinion). Even more GOP folks want Democrats to do a better job of standing up to the agenda being steamrolled through (I guess the GOP voters have given up on getting reason from GOP politicians ::smirk::).

But Santorum and DeLay and Frist and Bush don't give a fuck what voters want. They want to do whatever it takes to ass kiss the extremists who are all too willing to vote the way a Limbaugh, a Falwell, a Robertson, or an O'Reilly tells them.

As an aside, this is critically important because it may signal that more mainstream voters of all types may be finally "getting" the danger many of us have known for too long. Remember: historically, voters have always wanted to exercise great care in making certain one party did not control everything because it gave them more hope of a balance. We've been out of balance for a long time considering the grave dangers facing us right now as a country and a part of society. If GOP voters in the mainstream are getting the problem, they may be less willing to vote a straight ticket (and historically, GOP moderates are more likely to vote straight tickets than Dem mainstreams who are more willing to vote for someone they deem as a better choice even if it's not a Dem).

Ed. note:Somebody's got a great ad on TV now - don't know the sponsoring group - with an extremely articulate, decent-seeming GOP firefighter saying why the filibuster can't be nuked in a democracy. This guy is extremely effective because he's very reasonable, very mainstream, and very believable. You look in this man's eyes and you know he believes what he says (I never have that reaction with say, Bush or Randall Terry).