I'm suspect that today's  MIke Murphy would select Bob Dole or Howard Baker as more electable in the general election than Ronald Reagan.

Pushed back hard?  You guys were fawning over the guy's "superior knowledge" of Washington inside baseball.  I couldn't believe that no one challenged Murphy's implication that Mitt Romney is a winning general election candidate because he can make complex economic policy arguments and hold the President to task for his mismanagement of the economy.  The whole problem is people in DC who think they can "manage the economy."  The issue in this election is the bankruptcy of big-spending, big-government thinking, and the need to restore the federal republic of our founding.  Mitt Romney is not the poster boy for  limited government or humility in elected office.  He's just another elite politician who doesn't fundamentally disagree with the statist outlook of the Washington establishment, he just argues we picked the wrong Ivy League guy to run things in 2008.

The fact that Romney didn't disavow RomneyCare at least a year ago totally disqualifies him for me.  Because:

1)  He ostensibly believes his rhetoric about the problem being in the execution not in the conception of that horrendous program.  If so, he is just a big government technocrat who thinks big government IS the solution, it just has to be run by smart guys like him.

2)  or, he doesn't, and  he is just too arrogant to admit he was wrong.  In this case, the fact that he still expects us to nominate him indicates that he actually believes that the presidency should go to the smartest guy in the room, because smarts matter more than convictions.

I know above all else, we need a nominee with solid conservative convictions.

So Rob, I am from Maryland, but not Baltimore.  I was wondering if you shared the perspective of my life-long Baltimorean friends on the show "Hairspray."  They were really insulted by the show's depiction of Baltimore - specifically with regard to the way race relations were depicted, rather than the de rigeur ribbing about its blue collar rough edges.  For me, the depiction was just another one of those predicable story lines (like the evil big businesses trying to throw Yogi Bear out of the park), but they took it very personally.

This podcast was SO entertaining that I felt guilty listening to it for free.  I'm not saying this for effect, that feeling actually came up for me while listening.  And since Reader's Digest says that "laughter is the best medicine," I think you guys may owe Kathleen Sebelius a tribute under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010!

 We left the east coast 3.5 years ago.  Haven't missed it a bit!  You forgot to put the tag line under your signature:

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas" - Davy Crockett

It's no Texas, but I have to admit, on my many visits to Silicon Valley, I almost always found Californians much warmer and friendlier than I was expecting them to be. I hope they dig their way out of this mess.

There seems to be a lot of interest in assessing what these survey results say about our religious institutions. Based on the simple questions I saw, the poor performance of Americans on this survey reflects most on the sad state of our educational system. Most of this is stuff I learned in school, not in church.

He didn't just join the Chorus of Arrogance, Kerry is the Choirmaster.

I am sorry I don't have anything encouraging to say to the Dems about their new logo, but I do like the fact that they seem to realize that they are at the center of the bullseye this November 2.

The mistake that the pragmatic tacticians who support folks like Castle make is that they think we can hold our nose and vote for the RINO in each of these instances, and yet somehow emerge from it all with a party that can produce meaningful conservative reform in Washington. The party itself needs to change. It cannot give us the Castles of the world as their favored pick. Had the party encouraged more mainstream and proven conservative candidates, we wouldn't have had to choose between a RINO and a inexperienced eccentric. The time frame is not six weeks, it's 2012 and beyond. Unfortunately, we may have to pass up control of the Senate to take advantage of a "teachable moment" for the party.

Sorry, Claire - maybe you are too far away to have the pulse of middle America. I lived in DC all my life until 3 years ago when I moved to Texas. I have a degree in economics from an elite institution on the east coast. Since this administration put the pedal to the metal on deficit spending, and launched its demonization of business rhetoric I live in DREAD of the massive debt we are piling up. Unless we plan to default, our children and theirs will be staggering under the weight of unprecedented debt. And they will have to pay that debt back from the proceeds of economies that grow at a fraction of the rate we have been used to in our lifetimes. What impresses me about middle America is that they don't need an economics degree to understand the implications of what Washington is doing - and they are as a consequence increasingly angry about what is unfolding. I moved to Texas to escape the nanny state. Now, Texas is under assault- from Obamacare and the education bailouts and the unemployment extensions - to either jump on the runaway spending train or forego its fair share of federalincome taxes

Rob Long beat me to it, but I had the same reaction to the NYT article when I read it this weekend - I hope the US can attract any and all young Europeans with ambition, unwilling to spend the rest of their lives paying off Euro-debt.

Now we just need to make sure their only alternative isn't to spend the rest of their lives paying off Obama-Reid-Polosi-debt!