Pence for Minority Leader!

Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) is running for Minority Leader in the House of Representatives; and this humble blogger supports his election. Why? Listen to his words, spoken Wednesday after the Republican's Election Day defeat :

Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.
While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, 'enough is enough.
Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn't quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.

That about sums it up, in even, measured tones (you see, when Republicans lose elections, they don't throw tantrums screaming about "disenfranchised voters" and "fraud" and "jackbooted brownshirt thugs" - they simply lift the hood, fix what's wrong, and move forward).

The bottom line is, as Republicans became less conservative they became less popular, and thus easily replaceable by, and barely indistinguishable from, conservative Democrats. The further they tried to distance themselves from the President and his policies, the more estranged from the base the candidates became. Note how few liberals whom we would define as "flaming" were elected this year over an incumbant - instead, pro-gun anti-abortion Democrats replaced apparently less conservative Republicans!

But the Democrat's urge to tax and spend is almost irresistable to them (it is almost sexual in nature); it won't be long until they are spending billions on inane social cure-alls funded by taxing businesses out of existence and re-defining who a "rich" American is.

That's when we will need men of clear principles like Pence to lead the party back to its conservative roots; from which it was madness to ever stray...

Economic policy led by tax cuts and less regulation has allowed the stock market to flourish (thus enriching every middle-class American that has a 401(k)); an aggressive foreign policy has prevented attacks on the American mainland for over five years;, and a social policy promoting basic moral values (sorry, gay marriage fans!) has proven popular with mainstream Americans.

The party should have stuck by its values; instead it was felled by cowardice, opportunism, and greed.

Pence undeerstands this. Give him the reigns and let him go...

UPDATE: Others in agreement here and here .