Two weeks ago today, I cast my GOP primary vote here in Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District for Bob Thomas, who I thought had a real chance to beat the incumbent, Rep. Mark Souder. Ever since moving here, I’ve been hearing Rep. Souder denounced—by conservatives, mind you—as the worst sort of Republican; the only reason he won re-election last time around is that people held their noses and marked his name to beat his pro-card-check Democratic opponent. If Republican voters around here had felt they had the luxury of throwing away a Republican vote in the House, they would have sent him home. Running up to the primary, there was an anti-Souder direct mail campaign going, and anti-Souder TV ads . . . unfortunately, there were also too many challengers, and he took the primary with a plurality. I thought Thomas had a chance to win because he had the money to advertise, but the best he could do was a third of the vote, and that wasn’t good enough; Rep. Souder won.
IN-3 looks pretty stupid for that now.
Eight-term Rep. Mark Souder will announce his resignation Tuesday after it came to light that he was conducting an affair with a female aide who worked in his district office, Fox News has learned.
Multiple senior House sources indicated that the extent of the affair with the 45-year-old staffer would have landed Souder before the House Ethics Committee.
You know, if all the conservative challengers had been willing to get together, unite behind one of their number, and focus on the big picture rather than trying to grab the brass ring for themselves, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If conservatives can’t even put principle ahead of personal gain at this level, how in the name of all that is right and good are we ever going to reform this blasted party?
Man, I hope Chuck DeVore is paying attention . . .