CalvinDude.com

Ken Mehlman sent me an e-mail.  Apparently I’m on a list.  Anyway, normally it goes straight to el spamo and is then deleted when I delete that folder every evening, but today I read it since I happened to see it as it came in.

Now for those who don’t know, Mehlman is the head of the RNC.  Here’s, in part, what he had to say (my comments in bold):

Over the last two years, you and millions of others from across our great nation banded together to support our Party. I am well aware how much each and every one of you dedicated yourselves to this cause, and I know that yesterday’s results included many disappointments. On behalf of the President and the Party, I thank you. You mean, thank you for letting us disappoing you.I want to tell you something I believe with all of my heart: you made an important difference. Our Party and our cause were worth the effort in 2006. Yes, worth every single thing I didn’t do.

Our messages of expanding freedom at home and defending freedom abroad persist as the right answers for our nation. Indeed, many of the Democrats who won yesterday embraced our platform and our values. Too bad we didn’t. Last night, however, the voters sent a message, and we need to make sure we receive that message loud and clear. We need to recommit ourselves to conservative reform. That would be a pleasant change; I won’t be holding my breath. Our leaders must work to provide bipartisan solutions to the challenges facing our country…. Yup, already dropped the whole “conservative reform” bit for this illusive idea of bipartisanship, which really means “doing whatever the Democrats tell us to do.”

[W]e faced an historic challenge - and we were not able to overcome it yesterday. But adversity is no excuse. Sure it is. But let’s look for reasons instead of excuses. Reason you lost: you abandoned your principals. Our party is built on ideas and values that transcend any one election. They transcend them so far that we haven’t even been able to find them since Reagan left office. The principles of Lincoln and Reagan were polar opposites and yet somehow remain alive and well in the policies of our President just like any other contradictory idea he’s held. Like, say, vetoing stem cell research while also funding it in already existing lines… Your commitment is about more than politics. It is about more than Party. Which is why I’m not in your party anymore. So please accept the thanks of a grateful President and a grateful party. It’s time to regroup. And then let’s get back to work. Back to work? How about starting to work?

I read an interesting quote from John Calvin this morning:

If I wanted to weave a whole volume from Augustine, I could readily show my readers that I need no other language than his.  But I do not want to burden them with wordiness.

(Calvin, John (1960). Institutes of the Christian Religion Volume 2 (III. xxii. 8) F. L. Battles Trans.,  Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. (p. 942))

Yes, that’s right.  On PAGE NINE HUNDRED FORTY TWO Calvin starts to worry about being wordy…

I showed one of my co-workers today; he had just recently read this in a textbook for a class he’s taking:

At the farthest extreme, death is the ultimate sign of poor health.

(Berger, Kathleen (2005). The Developing Person Through The Life, NY: Worth. (p. 498).)

All I can say is…what would we do without writers in this world? :-D

Here’s a couple of things analysis-wise that I’ve read this morning (and agree with :-D)

From Chuck Colson:

The other thing, of course, that figured in all of the voting, I think, is that the conservatives who came into power in 1994 determined to clean up the corruption in Washington, and they became as corrupt as the people they had run out of town. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, Lord Acton said. And we saw conservatives do it, which I’ll talk about on the air tomorrow because we betray our trust when we do it. We’re hypocrites when we do it—not so with the other side.And I think that the other issue is the disillusionment with the Republican majority in the House, because they swept into power in 1994, cleaned out the culture of corruption and the K Street entanglements, all the money that was misused, and then they turn around and do exactly the same thing. We had fifteen congressmen alone with ethical challenges! It has been an epidemic. It’s bad when anyone in public office betrays their trust, but particularly bad with a conservative, because the first principle of conservatism is the preservation of the moral order. And so when conservatives misbehave and betray the trust, it goes to the very definition of who we are. It goes to our very character. And that’s why it is so egregious. I think that is why people were so grossly offended by it. And it shows in the election returns.

Quotes Compiled By The Federalist (not yet updated on their website, AFAIK, but sent via e-mail):

“This is a message from the voters that we really need to step up and reclaim the mantle of reform that propelled us to power 12 years ago.” —Rep. Eric Cantor ++ “The House has just engaged in runaway spending for far too long… [T]he one thing we could have stopped, but didn’t, was runaway spending.” —Rep. Jeff Flake ++ “I don’t care how many times the news programs, papers and magazines tell us the blowout last night was because of the Iraq war. It wasn’t. It was because the American public has decided that Republicans are no longer good stewards of the U.S. Congress and threw them out.” —Rich Galen ++ “I think a fairly good case can be made that the story of Election 2006 is more about poorly-led House Republicans losing than Democrats winning.” —John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union ++ “Republicans have made matters worse by abandoning the reform agenda that animated their capture of Congress in 1994 and helped George Bush win the White House in 2000 and keep it in 2004. With scarcely a fight, Republicans gave up on Social Security reform in 2005, immigration reform in 2006, and never really got started on tax reform.” —Fred Barnes ++ The numbers from every corner of the country make it clear that the American people meant to send a message to their leaders, and the future of the conservative movement depends on an accurate reading of the substance they meant to communicate, and a realistic reassessment of the current state of our politics.”—Michael Medved