■ “Having pled guilty, I do not believe that I am any different than the vast majority of the members of Congress,” said former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski on his way to prison. Neither do we.
■ Despite an all-out effort on his behalf by the Republican establishment, incumbent Rep. Greg Laughlin, a former Democrat, lost a primary runoff to Ron Paul in Texas’s 14th District. Democrats hope that Laughlin’s defeat will discourage other officeholders from defecting to the GOP (205 have done so since Bill Clinton’s election). But in ex-Congressman Ron Paul, the Libertarian Party candidate for President in 1988, Laughlin faced a tough, well-known, and more conservative opponent. Laughlin is the least conservative congressional Democrat to switch parties so far; he has an anemic 58 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, and his voting record proved more important to voters in this conservative district than his spanking new party label. So Mr. Laughlin’s failure to make a convincing conversion is unlikely to dissuade desirable conservative Democrats from fleeing across the aisle. Democrats might even the score by tempting undesirable liberal Republicans to join their ranks. NR would happily provide the names of Republicans who have shown every sign they’d rather switch than flight.
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