HS Endorses John Shadegg

Yeah, that's right, our support is going to put the Arizona Republican over the top for the honor of succeeding Tom "the Hammer" DeLay as House Majority Leader. You read it here first....

Well, heck, he made a real good case in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. And he is free, by all accounts, of any Abramoff stink.

A Majority Leader Shadegg would be the icing on a cake that is already looking better than the perpetually skewed "conventional wisdom" suggests:

So how is the lobbying scandal that’s obsessing the nation’s capital playing in Peoria? It’s barely on the radar screen.

In early January, the Pew Research Center updated its news interest index. Washington, D.C., stories weren’t generating as much interest as other stories were. Forty-seven percent said they were following very closely news stories about the deaths of miners in West Virginia, and 40% said so about news from Iraq.

But among Washington-based news stories, the highest attention being paid was the 32% who were following the wiretaps authorized by President Bush. Just 18% were following stories about former lobbyist Jack Abramoff bribing Members of Congress, and 14% said they were tracking the Judge Samuel Alito Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Digging further on the Congressional ethics scandal, 81% of respondents to the poll said recent reports of lobbyists bribing Members were examples of common behavior in Congress. Just 11% said they were isolated incidents. Perhaps the belief that this kind of behavior is common may explain why 34% in the news interest index question said they weren’t following the stories about Abramoff at all.

Ah, the instinctive wisdom of the American people. They figure this is a bipartisan scandal that is the function not of any "culture of corruption" (imagine the fanatical defenders of Bill Clinton making such a charge) but of the sheer size and unconstitutionally arrogated power of the federal government. And whaddaya know, that's exactly what it, in fact, is.

In fact, I'll do RCP's John McIntyre a favor and raise his estimated Republican losses of 5-7 House seats and 2-3 Senate seats to a true "status quo" election next November: no House losses and a net 1-seat pickup in the Senate (GOP gains Mark Kennedy in Minnesota, Tom Kean in New Jersey, and Michael Steele in Maryland, loses Rick Santorum and Linc Chaffee). If Chaffee pulls a Specter, you can (sort of) make it a two-seat gain.

And then, picture a Shadegg-John Kyl leadership duo. Under that regime, Republicans might actually be able to run the country, and shrink its government at the same time.