Hm.

Schweikert considers himself a guarded optimist, but interviews with nearly three dozen GOP lawmakers and senior aides revealed plenty of doubt. The majority is “adrift,” according to a longtime conservative. The top five leaders hail from blue states that voted for President Obama, making them out of step with a conference dominated by red-state Republicans. A junior Republican called it a “fractured” conference when it comes to the biggest issues.

So the problem with the top Republicans in the House is that they herald from Blue States, and are thus out of step with their red state caucus.  A common enough problem — how does a political party expand past its geographic base, which is busily entrenching itself in its geographic base?  And then comes the manner that John Boehner survived to retain his speakership.

The leaders have come under intense scrutiny. Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker. Still, Boehner came within a few votes of failing to secure his speakershipon the initial vote, an outcome that would have forced a second ballot for the first time in nearly a century.

Determined by the Congressional figures who herald from these parts:

Last month, for the third year in a row, Louisiana’s Senate Education Committee killed a bill to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act. LSEA is stealth legislation that creates a loophole for creationism to be snuck into public school science classes. LSEA allows classroom use of supplemental creationist materials that “critique” evolution. […]

You might think that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Brown University biology major and someone who recently called on the Republican Party to “stop being the stupid party,” would not support nonsense such as critiquing evolution with dragons. You’d be wrong.

The torments of the two faced partisan figures.  I note that the Brown University biology major also was involved in an exorcism, which in some online discussion I’ve come upon the defense of “Letting college years be by-gone”s.  (See too, I suppose, Rand Paul’s weird “Aqua Buddha” thingy, but probably not the frequent obsession I occasionally see with a college professor for Obama or with Hillary Clinton’s college thesis.)

Tired of hearing that the campaign to repeal LSEA had been endorsed by 78 Nobel laureate scientists and multiple major science organizations representing tens of millions of scientists worldwide, Quinn explained that the scientists whose discoveries had built our way of life were just people with “little letters” behind their names whom she had no interest in hearing from.

Eventually we’re going to end up with an alternate regionally based Boy Scout organization.

A note about the up-coming blue (though easily revertable to red in doldrums of partisan narrowing — see 2009) state elections.  The Democratic governor for Virginia is none other than … damned Terry McAullife. :

After attention was drawn to passages from McAuliffe’s memoir revealing that he left his wife in the car to attend a political fundraiser — on the way home from the hospital where she had just given birth — Salon’s Alex Pareene called McAuliffe a “soulless political animal with no redeeming human characteristic.” People who know McAuliffe say he’s actually quite generous and kind in person, but has difficulty translating that on the stump.

The Republicans have a bit of a right-winger in the gubernatorial race.  But he’s nothing like the Lieutenant governor’s candidate.  Who is your Christianist nutcase of the highest order.  And will solve the Democrat’s “short bench” problem, by giving them a state wide office holder for the next four years.

Still, it’s early yet. Almost 40 percent of the electorate still doesn’t have an opinion of McAuliffe, giving him a big opportunity, while a quarter are still unsure about Cuccinelli. Right now, McAuliffe is ahead by 5 percentage points, but all eyes are on the June 11 Democratic primary, where McAuliffe will be formally nominated and find out who will be running alongside him in the lieutenant governor and attorney general slots.

Those races will be key to building out the Democratic bench in the future — whoever gets nominated to face off against Jackson is expected to cruise to victory. Which means Virginians might actually get some candidates they like next time.

On the Senate side… your red states …

National Republicans are already facing the possibility of trouble in two states where they should easily win back Democratic-held seats. In West Virginia, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is seen as the strongest possible Republican candidate in a general election, though some conservative groups dislike her record on spending. In South Dakota, former Gov. Mike Rounds is the front-runner, though Rep. Kristi Noem is taking a serious look at running as well. On Sunday, Moran voiced support for both Capito and Rounds.

Doesn’t matter.  The Republicans will win both of them.
… Or tell me I’m wrong.

And the specter of ugly primaries is rearing its head once again. This week, Joe Miller, the conservative Alaska activist who beat Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a Republican primary in 2010 before losing to Murkowski in the general election, said he would run against Sen. Mark Begich (D) this year. National Republicans would prefer Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who has formed an exploratory committee; most party strategists will confess privately they do not believe Miller can beat Begich.

In heavily Republican Georgia, three congressmen, a former Secretary of State and several other wealthy Republicans are running for retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss’s seat. The prospect of a primary divided between so many candidates trying to portray themselves as the most conservative possible option, some Republicans worry, could give Democrats an opportunity to make a close race out of what should be a slam dunk.

Doesn’t much matter.  The Republican will win Georgia.

On the House side, it’s all gerry-mandered so tightly we’re stuck with John Boehner to kick around.  Unless God changes his mind.

As for the party’s youth problem… “pop culture outreach” will do the trick, an earlier report from the party suggested.  Or maybe this doesn’t matter much either — young people don’t vote, do they?  And aren’t we just a few years away from the ground breaking analysis that the red staters have such a high birth rate that they’ll have us with heartland god-lovers who seek God’s guidance on John Boehner’s House speakership over the blue staters’ low birth raters who’ll stick alongside the soulless Nancy Pelosi she-devil?

Also isn’t the next Republican Senator from Michigan going to solve all this problem by taking the lead on pot?

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