Elko Mike of Nevada - Christine O’Donnell’s Surprise Victory

Christine O’Donnell’s come-from-behind, surprise victory over Mike Castle in the Republican primary for Joe Biden’s Senate seat has the GOP Grand Poobahs in a tizzy. Chief among them is Charles Krauthammer. He argues that the conservative voters who flocked to the polls in great numbers made a tactical blunder by choosing O'Donnell, a conservative candidate with several flaws.

Conservative's Goal for an Election
How are we to judge Krauthammer's argument? Well first we need a criteria by which to judge it. Conservatives believe government should do two things:

• Leave the people alone to pursue their own interests
• Provide security for the people and their property

That is it. These two objectives for the government provide conservatives with all the guidance they need to evaluate the results of an election. Will the federal government be smaller and less intrusive as a result of the actions of those we elect? If so the election was a success. If not then it was a failure.

Krauthammer Calculus
To make his case that the primary election of Christine O’Donnell was a blunder Krauthammer applies the Buckley Rule, which is named after one of the men largely responsible for the conservative ascendancy that brought Reagan to power. Voters, according to this rule, should vote for the most electable conservative in the race. According to Krauthammer’s calculus, Castle was a cinch to win the seat while O’Donnell has only a 1 in 10 chance. The Republican primary voters of Delaware failed to select the electable conservative and have thus, in his mind, given a sure Republican seat to the Democrats.

On three key votes in the House Mike Castle voted with conservatives twice and against them once. Mike Castle therefore votes conservative 2/3 of the time, which is better than the Democrat who will never cast a conservative vote. So, argues Krauthammer, with a goal of stopping Obama’s agenda voters should select the primary candidate who will

• vote with you mostly
• and is electable

In summary, Delaware GOP primary voters were advised to hold their nose and vote for yet another jellyfish Republican.

Kruathammer’s Calculus Refuted
With the lame stream media in agreement with him Charles should be wise enough to reassess his position. The MSM pushes the liberal agenda and when they start hand wringing about the elections and the purification of the Republican party one just knows that something good for conservatives is happening. What is it?

Imagine a Senate with 50 Democrats who will never vote for the conservative cause and 50 Krauthammer Republicans who vote conservative 2/3rd of the time. This is the kind of a Congress Krauthammer would find acceptable as electable Republicans are put into power.

Here is the problem. The flip side of voting conservative 2/3 of the time is that such a Republican will vote with the Democrats 1/3 of the time. If there are 50 Krauthammer Republicans in the Senate then 17 of them can be expected to be voting with the Democrats on any particular critical vote. A Senate with 50 Democrats and 50 Krauthammer republicans will have 67 reliable votes (a veto proof majority) for the liberal position. Clearly a Congress composed like this fails the test that conservatives have had a good election.

By rejecting the Krauthammer Republican conservatives voters are rejecting bigger government. If they lose an election or two, it matters not because enough of the Krauthammer Republicans will collude with the liberals to continue the expansion of government. The purification of the party is essential in order to achieve the conservative objective of a return to limited government.

Krauthammer Republicans Need Not Apply
Government will grow with a Senate that is composed of a large number of Krauthammer Republicans, which is contrary to the conservative's objective. Therefore, the voters are right to purge jellyfish Republicans from the ranks of elected leaders. We are a big tent and welcome soft Republicans and right-leaning people in it; we just don’t need them voting on anything important in the Congress.

To those Republicans who seek office and claim to be our friend, while voting for a liberal agenda 1/3 of the time -- Krauthammer Republicans, primary voters are right to tell them that they need not apply.