United Liberty

Despite a recent poll showing him with a lead over Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) will stay put. Erick Erickson has the details, including a letter from Pence:

After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to remain in the House and to seek reelection to the 6th Congressional District in 2010.

I am staying for two reasons. First because I have been given the responsibility to shape the Republican comeback as a member of the House Republican Leadership and, second, because I believe Republicans will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010.

Former Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) trailed Bayh by 3 points in yesterday’s Rasmussen poll, though inside the margin of error. Bayh was unable to receive anymore 45% support against any of the three Republicans polled.

Over at Red State, Erick Erickson has lit into the organizers of the National Tea Party Convention, which costs between $349 and $549 per person, and Sarah Palin’s scheduled keynote speech:

The tea party movement was always about the unorganized masses of concerned, passionate Americans uniting together with a common voice to protest the direction of the country. From that passion, others have sought to make money off the tea party movement. Some have done it for good. Many have not. And more and more we are seeing some people rise up to claim the mantle of “leader” of the tea party movement. Many of us who have been around for a while just want to know who the heck these so called leaders are.

The tea party “leaders”, if there are any, are actively at work in their home towns changing things one letter to the editor, one contribution to a candidate, and one protest at a time. They are not on bus tours profiting off the hard work and sometimes the names of others (some also on the bus with no pay) headed to Nashville licking their lips at the $500.00 per person payments coming in to their for profit company.

Sarah Palin is certainly giving the National Tea Party Convention legitimacy. But at what cost? I am fearful this thing will blow up and harm her. I am more fearful that a bunch of well meaning people from across the nation are going to show up, expect more, and then grow disaffected or burn out when the deliverables they expect do not come in.

Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, sent out this tweet today:

People keep questioning me so let me make it crystal clear: I, Erick Erickson, do fully and without reservation endorse Rand Paul for KY-SEN

Good news for Rand Paul.

As we said during our live-blog on Saturday and as Jeff Scott noted earlier today, Republicans made a mistake in supporting the Stupak Amendment to ObamaCare. It ultimately caused the bill to pass out of the House, as several pundits and reports said that Democrats didn’t have the votes to move HR 3962 without it.

Erick Erickson from Red State, a hub for conservatives in the blogosphere, takes aim at his own for supporting this amendment, and ostensibly allowing ObamaCare to pass the House:

It is more and more clear that the House of Representatives will not keep Bart Stupak’s amendment in the health care legislation.

Harry Reid will put something abortion related in the Senate version, but not so strong as to turn off pro-abortion Senators. Likewise, Obama is already saying this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill, and is instructing Congress not to go overboard.

Stupak will go out. National Right to Life, as per its usual operating procedure, will no doubt eek out some sort of minor compromise that undercuts the rest of the conservative movement and other pro-life groups — a compromise that does very little, but from which NRLC can raise some money. Abortions will get funded by the feds if Obamacare passes. You can bank on it.

Let me be clear to the conservative movement and the organizations participating in the health care debate: the fight over health care is about freedom, not your ridiculous little scorecards.

[…]

A few months ago, I sent Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, a link to a post from Stephen Gordon that explained why conservatives and Republicans need libertarians more than we needed them.

Erick had been holding on to the post for the right moment to post it and used it his endorsement of Nikki Haley for Governor of South Carolina:

[Gordon] has some merit to his argument, but I would say that libertarians and conservatives both need the GOP and need each other. They are not always going to agree. There will be fights over the drug war, marriage, etc. But at the end of the day, both conservatives and libertarians are, or at least must be, committed to smaller government.

RedState editor Erick Erickson is defending the Audit the Fed legislation after watching video of Ben Bernanke misrepresenting it here at UL:

Bernanke’s comments are filled with red herrings. The legislation would not, despite his claims, allow Congress to take over the Fed or cause it to lose independence.

I was not sure I supported the legislation until I heard Bernanke and others say they should not be audited. It always makes me suspicious when bureaucrats think they are above oversight.

To be sure, there are risks along the way. I suspect we will all be troubled by the findings of a Fed audit. Some members of Congress will want to take over the Fed. It’d be disastrous for Congress to start setting interest rates, etc.