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January 18, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Rep. Shadegg And The 'Blogger Rebellion'
The blogosphere today officially joined the battle over who will be the next House majority leader, and Rep. John Shadegg spurred them to action.
Shadegg, R-Ariz., announced his candidacy for the leadership slot today and quickly won the endorsement of The Club For Growth, which posted the endorsement at its blog. Just hours earlier, the directors of the conservative group blog RedState had given Shadegg an incentive to jump into the race by endorsing him in advance of his decision.
Even more telling, Shadegg's candidacy appears to be the motivation for an online petition organized by a self-proclaimed group of center-right bloggers. Instapundit and The Truth Laid Bear, the two blogs behind the attention-grabbing PorkBusters campaign, are leading the petition effort, and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit branded it as part of the PorkBusters campaign.
Top blogs/bloggers like Captain's Quarters, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin and PoliPundit were among the early backers of the effort, and the support is growing rapidly. Hewitt called the effort a "blogger rebellion" aimed at demanding accountability from the House leadership.
While the petition does not specifically endorse Shadegg, he is the only one of the three majority leader candidates named. And before he entered the race, bloggers had failed to rally around either Roy Blunt of Missouri or John Boehner of Ohio, the other two contestants vying to replace indicted former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
The petition calls for "the end of [lobbyist-]subsidized travel [for lawmakers] and other obvious influence operations." In line with the PorkBusters theme, it also urges "major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in congressional operations and in the appropriations process."
"As for the Republican leadership elections," the petition says, "we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for majority leader. We hope every congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future."
Hotline On Call already is calling Shadegg "the consensus candidate of the conservative intellectual establishment and the bloggers."
Democratic bloggers also took note of Shadegg's entrance into the race, albeit on a less flattering note.
The Plank recalled Shadegg's conflicting votes for and against a 2003 Medicare law reviled by many conservatives. "To recap: There's simply no way John Shadegg would ever have supported that massive drug benefit, which made a complete mockery of small-government conservatism," Michael Crowley wrote. "But he was heroically instrumental to its passage. Leadership, thy name is Shadegg!"
And Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo argued that the push for Shadegg "is part of a curious effort to redefine what's at issue here in intra-Republican politics away from the topic of corruption and toward the idea that the problem with Tom DeLay was insufficient fealty to rightwing dogma."
UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report did not accept an invitation to sign the letter from the center-right blogosphere because it "is silly and meaningless."
Shackleford blasted the bloggers who signed the letter for being naive enough to think that Americans care about the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff and said the scandal should have no bearing on the majority leader's race. It is much more important to find a leader who is determined to fight terrorism and cut federal spending, Shackleford said.
"I will gladly let my congressman get away with just about anything in exchange for protecting me from the bad guys of the world and keeping his grubby paws out of my pockets. Let their paws remain in the pockets of whoever is trying to bribe them. Better theirs than mine."
Posted by | 07:12 AM
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