For shear diabolical cleverness, you have to admire the liberal media for appointing their own mainstream Republican spokespersons. The Davids (Frum and Brooks), Kathleen Parker, George Will, etal...people so out of touch with the conservative mainstream that they don't "get" Sarah Palin and much else that happens between the coasts.

There is a clear agenda, driven from the White House, to make the media disenfranchisement of the conservative heartland complete, by working hard to excise actual effective voices of mainstream American conservativism--namely Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

The Vichy Republicans are only too happy to be of service in helping Democrats in their search and destroy mission, although I'm not sure how influential trust-find baby Meghan McCain is in her peer group.

To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter. I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time. But no matter how much you or I disagree with her, the cult that follows Coulter cannot be denied. She is a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most notable female members of the Republican Party. She was one of the headliners at the recent CPAC conference (but when your competition is a teenager who has a dream about the Republican Party and Stephen Baldwin, it’s not really saying that much).

Coulter could be the poster woman for the most extreme side of the Republican Party. And in some ways I could be the poster woman for the opposite. I consider myself a progressive Republican, but here is what I don’t get about Coulter: Is she for real or not? Are some of her statements just gimmicks to gain publicity for her books or does she actually believe the things she says? Does she really believe all Jewish people should be “perfected” and become Christians?

I absolutely believe that Meghan McCain doesn't "get" Ann Coulter. Meghan doesn't share the fury of conservatives, doesn't realize that this is war and that the courtesy of her liberal friends will end with her usefulness to them. Ann Coulter knows exactly who the liberals are and what they want from us--everything.

Nevertheless--conservatives have a problem here.

At my age, I've long ago tempered my native optimism with the realism that comes from experience, so while I'm hopeful that the growing consensus about a prospective Republican majority in both the House and the Senate is accurate, I'm not holding my breath.

Nevertheless, I am pleased with what is going on in the Republican party.

Usually the up elevator attracts 'the entourage'--those useless, flattering sycophants who cluster around the good fortune of others. We saw a lot of that with the Democrats in 2006 and 2008--easily controlled people who could be entrusted with a senate or congressional seat. They vote the way the leadership tells them too, and if it goes wrong? Well, they were always disposable anyways.

Its not a partisan thing either--lots of hacks got seats at the table during the 1994 Republican revolution. Yet, that isn't the case this year thanks to the Tea Party movement, which decided that voters, and not officials, would decide who would get the nomination. Some pretty unlikely, and according to the liberal-left media, 'unacceptable' people are running for office this November, and that's a good thing because they won't be in hock to Mitch McConnell, but rather their honest-to-God constituents.

I could actually see myself registering as a Republican for this and one other reason. When you see a dark face in the Republican party, its not because someone thought it would look good with the drapes, but because they earned it

Haley, whose early campaign strategy was exuberantly indiscriminate ("go anywhere and talk to anybody") won the nomination by defeating the lieutenant governor, attorney general and a congressman.

If elected, she will be the second Indian-American Republican governor in Dixie, joining Louisiana's Bobby Jindal. Tunku Varadarajan of Stanford's Hoover Institution and NYU's Stern School of Business suggests why they have risen in the GOP while no Indian-American has comparably risen in the Democratic Party:

"Could it be that because Democrats put more of an emphasis on identity politics, an Indian-American Democrat would have to contend with other ethnic constituencies that might think that it's 'their turn' first? And once you go down the 'identity' route, your success as a politician tends to rest more on the weight of numbers -- the size of your ethnic constituency, or your racial voting bloc -- than on the weight of your ideas."

Because of his ideas, Tim Scott, 44, an African-American Republican, will be elected the new congressman from the heavily Republican -- and 72.8 percent white -- 1st District. It includes Charleston, the cradle of secession, in whose harbor sits Fort Sumter. Scott won the nomination by handily defeating (68 percent to 32 percent) Paul Thurmond -- son of Strom, the Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948 and eight-term US senator.

In 1995, he became the first black Republican elected to any South Carolina office (Charleston County Council) since Reconstruction, and in 2008 he became the first black Republican since Reconstruction elected to the state House of Representatives. His Web site stresses economics: "Tim has never voted for a tax increase" and "Tim was heavily involved in bringing Boeing to the Charleston area."

With all the crap that we have to contend with, and will have to contend with for years to come, its refreshing to see the American spirit being renewed and a pleasure to contemplate what it means for the future. All those people counting out the U.S.A. might want to hedge that bet...again.

The RNC is 20 million in debt and worried.

At Monday's debate at the National Press Club, all five candidates focused on fundraising, particularly as incumbent Chairman Michael Steele has come under fire for several financial decisions made during his tenure.

Steele's challengers were quick to point to the committee's debt burden.

"We had historic victories, absolutely,” said former Missouri Republican Party Chairwoman Ann Wagner. But the RNC wasn’t “really a big player in those victories … because the RNC was not fully funded to the extent that it should be.”

Wagner's observation is an understatement. The RNC was irrelevant in the past election cycle and one has to seriously ask the question of whether that's merely a function of Michael Steele's alleged incompetence or the new reality of citizen-activism.

I tend to think its the latter and now that its clear that the Tea Party can effectively perform the RNC's function the only real responsibility left for the RNC is staging the Republican National Conventions.

There are very good reasons to keep the RNC out in the cold.

The virtue of populist movements like the Tea Party (liberal-Progressive delusions about mysterious billionaire puppet-masters notwithstanding...) is that their message is simple, clear and unadulterated. When these people fund your campaign, you know exactly what they are asking in return. Can the same be said of the RNC? There are 145 committee members and they raise funds from God knows where. How is this any different from the DNC?

In my view, the RNC should become the party-planning committee and leave it at that.

UPDATE: An excellent rejoinder to Michael Steele's conflation of the party's performance in the just finished electoral cycle, with his own dismal record.