In past years, when I’ve put together the ballot for the most coveted crown tiara in the blogosphere, that which will soon decorate the head of the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, I crafted a list of several of the blogresses who fit the description of a conservative blogress diva, a strong and confident blogress who commands the respect of (gay) conservative men.

This year, given my schedule, I neglected to put together an initial list, so will rely instead on our readers to supply the nominations.

So far, the potential nominees are (in no particular order):

• Fausta
• Pam Meister
• Jill of Pundit & Pundette (also at Potluck)
• No Sheeples Here
• Neo-neocon
• Robin of Berkeley
• Clarice Feldman (of American Thinker)
• Elizabeth Scalia (AKA The Anchoress)
• Ann Althouse
• Sister Toldjah
• Dr. Helen (AKA the Instawife)
• Michelle Malkin
• Tammy Bruce
• Cassy Fiano
• Mary Katherine Ham
• Melissa Clouthier

There were several other nominees, all of whom met the criteria for diva, but may not meet the criterion for blogress, so I will consult with the committee about whether or not they are eligible for nomination.

All nominations must be submitted and seconded by this Sunday, December 20.

You can indicate your choices in the comments below or in an e-mail to me.

Over at his blog, Sonicfrog has a great piece on the legislative game-playing one of the two most unpopular incumbent Senators reelected last month, Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Sonic faults ol’ Harry for delaying a vote on the budget for political reasons — “to deny the Republican yet another example to show just how out of control spending is with the Democrats in charge“, and takes him to the woodshed for his procedural shenanigans with Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell repeal:

Reid has been playing procedural games with the repeal of DADT, for which he has been rightly criticized. Well, it looks like we’re about to see at least one more act of gamesmanship from Reid before he’s through. There are two vote scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Saturday. One one vote, the repeal of DADT, it certainly looks like there are enough Republican crossover votes for that outdated and useless military ordinance to finally get throw into the dustbin of history where it belongs. We are just learning another vote is schedule to occur tomorrow – a vote on the Dream Act. There is no Republican support for that at all. Twenty to one Reid will tie the vote for the two together, which will all but guarantee that repeal of DADT fails and that onerous policy stays in place. Why would Reid do this? Simply to be able to exclaim that it’s the Republicans fault that DADT was not repealed. Yes, he’s just that partisan.

I hope I’m wrong on this one, but given the pattern of manipulation by Reid in the past, i would be surprised if he didn’t take this route.

Personally, I think he secretly wants to keep this policy is place because its repeal will give gay voters one less reason to want to keep Democrats in power.  I too hope Sonic is wrong on this.

It’s not just those of us to the right of center faulting the Nevada Democrat for the way he’s handled DADT repeal.

Over at his blog, Michael Petrelis has put together a list of over 50 people, including yours truly, who have called for HRC’s Joe Solmonese to step down.  It’s fascinating that despite the change of power in the House in Washington, there is no talk for this Democratic partisan to step down from an ostensibly non-partisan organization.  Given his failure to understand the appeal of conservative ideas, Joe is ill-equipped to reach out to the new leadership in that chamber.

And while Republicans may not have won back the Senate, we learned yesterday that the power of those conservative ideas — and their advocates in the Tea Party — helped torpedo the Democrats’ omnibus spending bill.  If would seem that if an organization wanted to have influence in Washington, it would bring on leadership able to adapt to the new political climate.

Not to mention the problem that Solmonese hasn’t shown much of a knack for playing hardball with Washington Democrats, letting them play lip service to the agenda of HRC and other left-leaning gay groups while doing little to enact that agenda.

Now, while I have been as critical of Solmonese as I have been of “Equality California’s” Geoff Kors, in the wake of last month’s elections, I refrained from calling for the latter’s resignation.  Simply put, while Kors is equally as partisan as Solmonese, his strategy of backing Democrats paid off; his fellow partisans held onto power in the (once-)Golden State.  He would continue to have influence in Sacramento.

And yet Kors is the one stepping down while the only individuals calling for Solmonese to step down are activists, pundits and advocates outside his organization.

Guess HRC must have an agenda a bit different than that of actually advocating for gay Americans.  Perhaps, their real goal is turning out gay votes for Democratic politicians.