Immediately after President Bush indicated his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment in February 2004, I decided not to make a planned contribution to his campaign and decided as well not to give to the Republcan National Committee or any other GOP outfit. But, as the year progressed and the Democratic (and media) attacks became ever more shrill, especially with the release (and box office success) of Michael Moore‘s festival of deceits in June, I changed my mind and ended up giving money to my party and to various candidates. I thought my side needed resources to defend itself against mean-spirited and dishonest attacks.

My finances being tighter this year, I thought I couldn’t afford to contribute to Governor Schwarzenegger’s “California Recovery Team,” an effort to raise money to support four reform initiatives on this fall’s state ballot. But, it seemed that whenever I worked out at my gym and looked up at the TVs, I saw another commercial from some left-wing interest group attacking not only those proposed reforms but the Governor himself. The commercials were dishonest as well as mean. I wanted to support my governor’s efforts to clean up Sacramento.

When Log Cabin e-mailed me an invite to a fundraiser with that good man (which I will be heading right after I post this), I looked through my finances and found the means to make a donation. I may have to cut back in a few areas, but that seems entirely fitting since one of the propositions on the ballot, Prop. 76, would place a limit on state spending.

His political opponents decry the governor as a movie star who isn’t very bright, using similar terms to those Democrats and their media allies used to attack Ronald Reagan a generation ago, another California governor with an ambitious reform agenda. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s record shows both a man with command of the issues (and problems) facing the Golden State and a real commitment to reform. While George Will, a keen observer of politics observed that our Governor does not completely understand his own political problems, “he does understand a large part of the state’s.”
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In the wake of Tom DeLay’s indictment on one count of criminal conspiracy, Democrats are crowing. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sees a “culture of corruption” in the GOP while even some conservatives fear that the current Republican Congress resembles the Democratic Congress of 1993-94, the last one where Ms. Pelosi’s party had a majority in the House.

Some Democrats (and even a few Republicans) believe that they can use the corruption charge against the GOP and so regain the majority they had enjoyed for all but four of the sixty-two years prior to 1994. That year, Republicans ran against the Democrats’ liberal and spendthrift policies, their corruption and abuse of power and put forward a positive reform agenda, The Contract with America. They won a majority in the House (and the Senate) and have had uninterrupted control (of the House) ever since.

While I’m no fan of Tom DeLay, I believe the charges that Travis County (TX) District Attorney Ronnie Earle leveled against him are baseless, a political vendetta by a prosecutor who routinely indicts his political adversaries. Earle’s political indictments rarely result in conviction. But, the focus on DeLay should remind us how far House Republicans, under his leadership, have strayed from the conservative reform agenda which brought them to power just over a decade ago. Ankle Biting Pundits observes:

Clearly the Congressional GOP has lost much of its bearings, and is turning into the 1992-1993 version of the Congressional Democrats. And the question arises, what’s the point of having a majority if that majority doesn’t stand for anything useful? If the result is more of the same spending binges, nonchalance on the issue of illegal immigration, an expansion of the welfare state (i.e. Medicare Modernization Act), and the lack of backbone when it comes to cutting taxes permanently and reforming Social Security, then what have we really won?

(HT: Instapundit & Polipundit‘s Lorie Byrd.) Unlike that last Democratic Congress, however, there is already grumbling within the majority ranks. Under the leadership of Indiana Republican Mike Pence, the House Republican Study Committee [RSC] has “proposed “budget options” that would cut spending by as much as $102 billion in one year.”
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