The Wrap-up

Campaigns and Elections

Is the Club for Growth hurting the cause of conservatism by backing primary candidates who likely cannot win a general election? Michael Crowley of the New Republic says yes; Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review says no.

The WSJ profiles the likely committee chairs under a Democratic-controlled House.

Newt Gingrich proposes 11 “values-led policies” for Republicans to embrace in their fall campaigns. Cato’s response: “Gingrich’s Big Government Manifesto.”

Linc Chafee may have beat Stephen Laffey, but as National Review summarizes, “Sometimes it’s better to fight and lose than not to fight at all.”

Ticket splitting is counterproductve, says ACU board member Craig Shirley. Partisanship is the ticket.

Under the leadership of Harold Ickes, wealthy liberal donors, including George Soros, are forming a new 527, the September Fund, to help Democrats regain Congress in November.

Spending

Pork-barrel Governor Frank Murkowski has his chair at the taxpayers’ table pulled out from under him.

Watch Jeff Flake on the House floor explain why congressmen today “do far too little authorizing, far too much appropriating, and far too little oversight.”

War on Terror

“The Israelis are generally regarded as having the safest air travel in the world because, instead of searching for weapons, they use profiling to search for terrorists.”

Lawrence Wright, author of the new book The Looming Tower, goes inside the mind of Sayyid Qutb, the godfather of Islamic terrorism.

Miscellaneous

RSC chairman Mike Pence provides an update on the activities of his caucus. Also check out the recently launched RSC blog, as well as Lawrence Kudlow’s defense (similar to David Keene’s) of Pence’s immigration proposals.

After reading Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, Estonia’s now-former prime minister transformed his country from a Soviet Union satellite into Europe’s new boomtown, the world’s most economically and politically free country, according to the State of World Liberty Index.

Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard reports on the latest abuse of eminent domain, in which the city of Piscataway, NJ, is trying to commander a 75-acre family farm. Click here for ACU’s action alert, “My Home Is Not the Government’s Castle.”

AEI president Chris DeMuth assesses Reaganomics 25 years later.