EXCELLENT POST! I agree totally. The Senate is the biggest major obstical to conservatism being put into practice legislatively. Much of the conservative agenda that the Senate has accomplished is ONLY because the DeLay led firm conservative majority keeps passing conservative good legislation and forces the Senate into action instead of sitting around picking their noses fo rmonths at a time which they would do if the House wasn't putting the onus on them to "pee or get off the pot" as it were. The Senate must be dealt with.
The Senate IS being dealt with.
If you go to the article I referred to and looked in detail at the compilation of the GoA scorecards in detail (or go to their site to begin with) or go to any of a number of other scorecard sites, you can see that the Senate is s-l-o-w-l-y becoming more conservative as the super-lib Senators retire.
It is amazing to me at how almost totally invariant a senator's voting is from session to session in most of these scorecards, so trying to apply additional "conservative leverage" seems pretty useless. We have to engage in the decades-long process of replacing a Senators.
It only takes four years to elect a new president, so people think the whole country can change quickly. It doesn't, though, it takes decades. It is hard for people in the more conservative regions of the country to appreciate how far the conservative movement has come in this regard when they don't see their desired legislation being passed. My best advice to them a couple years ago was to send money to Thune, and to live with Shoomie. Now, it is to try to defeat Byrd, and similarly vulnerable liberals, with at least a slightly conservative Republican - even if they a supporter or protectionism, etc. Get them one or two at a time...
We have to be big-picture oriented, and not focussed on the short term situation.