I have been saying for a while that two words that Republicans should be highly contemplating bringing back into use are "accountability" and "discipline"; you also cannot have one without the other. You cannot use one without the other. As noted earlier, Republicans in TN and CA have used both (I do need to do a follow up on these actions sometime in the future…).
The question I pondered was if the national party was going to do something to the Triad that deserted their comrades in the House and the Senate: Snowe, Collins, and Specter. Seem like that may well happen!
From Politico:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says that he might support primary challengers against the three GOP senators who voted in favor of the stimulus package.
Asked if he was open to the move during an interview Monday on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” Steele said, “Oh, yes, I’m always open to everything, baby, absolutely.”
Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) all voted in favor of the stimulus plan after much haggling with Senate Democrats and the White House. Many conservatives have attacked the senators for their votes. Specter is the only one of the three who is up for reelection in 2010.
Steele said that he would not defend the trio against conservative criticism back home.
“My retribution is the retribution of the voters in their states,” he said. “They’re going to have to go through a primary in which they’re going to have to explain to those Republican voters in that primary their vote.”
“That is something I’ll talk to the state parties about, and we’ll follow their lead,” Steele said of supporting Republican primary challengers.
“My responsibility is to follow the lead of the state parties, to get their advice, what their intent is. Those senators are going to have to account to those voters there. And we’ll work with the state party and we’ll follow their lead,” he added.
…‘We have a problem with that candidate,’ so does the RNC.”
The psychological barrier has now been broken – good. The best part, however, is not that this is going to be driven from the top down (the RNC telling the States what to do) but from the bottom up (the States to tell the RNC what they need). I hope he follows through…we’ll know soon enough!
