Although I am disappointed that Pence only got 27 votes...because I really like him...
The 3 or 4 times that I saw Boehner on talk shows in the last few months...he was pretty outspoken..and didn't hold back on the war in Iraq..and what is necessary.
He IS a relatively new face/voice, since he just took over for Tom Delay in the last year.
I am a little more disappointed that they didn't go with the younger Pence for Whip....Blunt has had his time.
Again, I'd like to have seen Pence/Shadegg, but Whip is not a policy position, it's an organizational position, and in fact the Whip is very constrained in being a spokesperson for anything other than mindlessly repeating the party line while threatening members who step out of bounds.
I don't think Pence would have wanted that position, and I think Blunt is perceived as being good at it, just as Lott is seen as being good at that job in the Senate. Whip is an internal communications job, talking to your own party behind closed doors.
Let's give the new leadership (it is new, Hastert was the party leader before the election) a few months to see how they deal with the democrat majority, before we hang them out to dry. let's beat them up for what they do or don't do, not for what we think they will do or won't do.