George Voinovich is nothing if not consistent. If he’s not crying over the confirmation of UN ambassadors then he’s whining about tax cuts or his lower lip quivers at the idea that United States citizens might be permitted to exercise their right to keep and bear arms in more than just their home state. Now comes the report that Weepin’ George can hardly contain his emotions over the state of the Republican party. While this author also marvels over the shambles that state and national party leadership have made of the Republican party our analysis of why could not be further from Sen. Voinovich’s.

According to this CBS (pronounced “See? BS!”) Political Hotseat report George is blubbering that the reason that Republicans keep losing presidential and state and national re-election races is because the Republican party is “being taken over by southerners.” According to CBS, Voinovich believes that “shrinking demographics and southern senators are alienating his conservative constituents.” And this is where Voinovich and Republican party leadership, both in Ohio and nationally, run off the rails, crash and burn like a munitions train. What is alienating conservatives is most assuredly NOT southern conservatives. Voinovich says “[Southern politicians] get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr…People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'” (so much for the end of regional stereotyping and bigotry on the part of national office holders).

Wrong, George and while we’re at it wrong, Kevin DeWine, who never misses an opportunity to mis-read the political will of Ohio’s conservative voters. It’s a near certainty that Kevin De Wine will issue some kind of rambling drivel that attempts to use Voinovich’s whimpering as an excuse to further alienate “values voters.” We can see an example of De Wine’s political tin-ear in his attempts to shove his uncle and former US Senator Mike De Wine down the throats of Ohio voters.  Thanks, but we already choked on him and the experience was not one we wish to repeat, as his defeat at the hands of Sherrod Brown, a flaming Marxist, demonstrated in spades.

What the conservative base is saying, by staying home and refusing to vote for the Hobson’s choice of a liberal Democrat or a liberal Republican handed to conservative voters year after year (think John McCain), is that they demand more Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns, not fewer and they want them to run in their own states so that they can safely return to the polls without seriously endangering their first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth ninth and tenth amendment rights. Even George Voinovich hasn’t voted to destroy the third amendment-  yet (if you don’t know what right this one guarantees then read it here). And don’t kid yourself. The reason that liberal Republican candidates are being defeated is because conservative voters are staying home. Hence, the whining about conservative “disloyalty” from Ohio party leaders who themselves defected in droves in the 2006 gubernatorial election to Ted Strickland and actively worked to undermine the Ken Blackwell campaign in a bid to destroy him and his conservative supporters politically. These “leaders” can look in the mirror to see the cause of the Republican party loss of Ohio to the Democrats in the presidential race in 2008

The article also quotes Tim Pawlenty, liberal Republican governor of Minnesota whose lack of intestinal fortitude in the 2008 Minnesota Senatorial election resulted in the most blatant election theft since the Republican party stole the presidential election of 1876 from President Samuel J. Tilden, as lamenting that the Republicans are losing the ability to “…compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states. Indeed, the Republicans can’t compete when they try to become more liberal than Democrats, especially when Democrats are beginning to successfully run “blue dogs” in conservative districts who are more conservative and, as the health care debate demonstrates, have considerably more political backbone than their Republican opponents.

Good-bye, George in 2010 and good riddance! Now if only the Republicans can only come up with a better candidate for the Senate than constitutional flim-flammer Rob Portman (more on that later).