Pulling the chair out from 2008

Mike Pence (R-IN-06), via the Corner:

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

His point, or one of them, anyway, is that the conservative movement has lost it's way when it comes to spending and the budget. But isn't this a part of the Democratic platform that led to victory? Paygo and spending caps are featured there, and unless the Democrats fall on their heads, these rules should be implemented fairly quickly.

That would leave Conservatives to run on social issues, and despite their ability to gloom and doom (gay marriage is worse than terrorism... and give you cancer!), I like our chances here. Granted 2008 is a ways away, and no one in 2004 saw the events of last night coming. But showing the country once again that Democrats are the actual party of fiscal conservatism would seem like a fine way to keep the GOP on it's heals in 2008.