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The Senate can hold if the purists stop whining about the Pubbies (many) mistakes and start voting the party line. Santorum is an obvious candidate for FR support, but no, people still want to whine about his support of Specter over Toomey. While I personally would have greatly preferred Toomey as a senator from Pennsylvania, I doubt he would have won the general election.

It would be nice if every GOP office holder were like Chambliss and Coburn in philosophy, but they're not. Its time to suck it up and support the only party that has a chance of promoting our ideals, the GOP, not staying home or wasting a vote with some minor party.

Most of this administration's mistakes have resulted from trying to finesse something past the opposition. Making the opposition stronger will not help Bush nor our cause(s).

Keep that in mind with SupCt cases too. Swinging for the bleachers may be emotionally satisfying, but it works only infrequently. We should use a more "nibbling" approach: partial birth abortion ban, expand parental notification, restrictions on the morning after pill, expanding fetal rights, etc. It is a more long-term strategy, but one that is more likely to gain traction with the public.

What you refer to as a "nibbling" approach, the same approach others have called "incremental", is inevitably doomed to failure. It only disheartens the social conservatives that the GOP fairly invariably takes for granted, while empowering the social left and convincing the general public that the right doesn't believe in their own positions on social issues enough to "swing for the fences".

Swinging for the fences is the way to go: people respect strong stands. Imagine if Ronald Reagan had taken a "nibbling" approach to the USSR: the Soviets would still rule Eastern Germany.

"Tear this wall down" was a bold stroke.

"Overturn Roe vs Wade" is a bold stroke.

In the end, bold strokes are what win the game.

The Senate can hold if the purists stop whining about the Pubbies (many) mistakes and start voting the party line. Santorum is an obvious candidate for FR support, but no, people still want to whine about his support of Specter over Toomey. While I personally would have greatly preferred Toomey as a senator from Pennsylvania, I doubt he would have won the general election.

Although I believe Toomey would have won the general election, and that Santorum needed to be taken to task over his misguided support of Spectre, Santorum is still a great conservative and worthy of all the support Republicans can give him this Fall.