The Senate GOP Cave In

Erick Erickson at Red State yesterday got his hands on some emails flying around the Senate this week. The long and short of it is that the emails confirmed what we knew was coming. A staffer for the Senate GOP's number three in leadership has made it clear to other Senate staff that that the leadership team is looking to push legislation that is either authored by Democrats or has a Democrat cosponsor.

In short, bipartisanship is the new buzzword in the Senate Republican cloakroom.

This morning's Roll Call confirms the Red State post. John Stanton reports:

Senate Republicans outlined a modest election-year agenda Wednesday based on the cooperative, bipartisan approach that new Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) has pushed while avoiding issues like immigration and earmark reform that have caused rifts within the party.

According to internal Conference e-mails and participants in a daylong, closed-door Conference retreat at the Library of Congress, Senate Republicans will rely largely on supporting legislation that has garnered bipartisan support regardless of who the lead sponsor is.

Bipartisanship is not in and of itself a bad thing. But the sleepy senators in the Republican Party have made the mistake of reading a poll that says the American people are tired of partisanship and concluding that they want the Republican Party to play nice with all things liberal.

As I have said before, that is a sure fire strategy for permanent minority status. If we prove that we can work with the Democrats to pass legislation (and wait until you see the actual atrocious contents of these would-be bipartisan bills) then all we have proved is that there is no need to once again bestow the majority on Republicans. Unfortunately, one gets the impression that the go-along-to-get-along crowd in the Senate could care less who is in the minority or majority, so long as business as usual in the Senate is maintained.

Thanks to the Framers and fortunately for conservatives, the House of Representatives is not as insulated as the Senate. Boehner continues to make moves, and he may over time be able to have some influence over his Senate counterparts.

But I get the impression that the Senate will continue to be unresponsive to the deep desire of the American people to see bold leadership based on principled beliefs -- not bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship. Sadly, it may take another drubbing at the polls for the old men of the Senate to wake up. Let's hope the House guys and our eventual nominee can save us from that disaster.