"It's the Spending, Stupid!!", Part 95,684

Besides borrowing my oft-used 'spending' phrase, Henninger makes other very good points.

Back in April, the New York Times/CBS did a poll of tea party supporters. When asked, "What should be the goal of the Tea Party movement," 45% said, "Reduce federal government." That is, cut spending. Everything else was in single digits.

I'm convinced that beneath all the economic turbulence in the land is anxiety that's been building for years as public spending has continued to grow. What was a chronic "concern" has exploded this year into a broad public movement—in Washington, California, New York, New Jersey and indeed across Europe. This isn't "concern," Mr. President. It's a crisis.

And Henninger identifies the cause of the (R) washout in '06: (repeat after me): The SPENDING, Stupid!:

...Rasmussen points out that the only time it recorded a higher shrink-the-government number, at 70%, was in August 2006. That was just ahead of the famous off-year election in which Republican voters withheld support for their party's free-spending members in Congress.

Ron Johnson acknowledges that with his remarks on the Social Security Ponzi scheme. And to prove the point, there's a long, long list of (R) Ruling Class bozos that went down to defeat this year, BEFORE the general elections, Brett Davis among them...

And he has a serious warning for the (R) Boyzzzz.

...the GOP's impending victory is meaningless, a win by default. If the Republican rookies entering Congress next year don't do something identifiably real to stop the federal-spending balloon, voters two years from now will start throwing the GOP under the bus. Absent action, the political rage and cynicism on offer in 2012 could make this year's tea parties look like, well, a tea party.

Which, of course, triggers my next default-tagline:

BUY MORE AMMO!!

(Which tagline I don't expect Hemminger to borrow.)