Republicans

The Republican Party is in deep trouble, and conservatism is to blame. Barack Obama is a promising new president. John McCain should have tapped Tim Pawlenty, rather than Sarah Palin, as his vice presidential running mate.

These are a Republican's talking points?

Indeed they were – expressed by none other than David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist who spoke Wednesday night at the Center of the American Experiment's 2008 Fall Briefing at Minneapolis' Pantages Theater. 

Speaking in his patented humble-guy-with-a-brain vernacular, Brooks kept a crowd of roughly 350 like-minded Republicans engrossed and entertained with a speech sprinkled with data points on everything from neuroscience and sociology to parenting and yuppie culture.

Brooks' recent columns on the death of Reagan-era conservatism and on the selection of Palin have raised the ire of many in conservative circles, but little of that hostility was in evidence Wednesday night, even when Brooks was delivering what, for conservatives, is bad news about the state of their movement.

Before your correspondent slipped out the door and left the Republicans to absorb the ramifications of Election '08, I wandered around to collect the impressions of some of the folks at the GOP's post-election party in Bloomington.

It was a night that KARE-11 political analyst Dave Schultz, just after midnight, suggested might prove, "on balance, not a bad night for the Republicans." And that was the feeling that was detectable on the ballroom floor at the Sheraton Hotel.

Yes, the party's candidate for president went down in a defeat of historic magnitude. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was destined to have a long night ahead of him. He might lose; he might win. (There were even hints that there might be an automatic recount in that race.)

But things were looking up for 3rd District candidate Eric Paulsen, and even better for 6th District incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose lead over El Tinklenberg was widening. (DFLer Tinklenberg finally conceded at 12:33 p.m.) Second District U.S. Rep. John Kline had already won. Bottom line, the Minnesota GOP might not lose any of its House seats.

Not exactly a bullet dodged. But hardly a mortal wound.

A study in contrasts.

Right at 10 p.m. at tonight's Republican Party election celebration at Bloomington's Sheraton Hotel, GOP Chairman Ron Carey and Gov. Tim Pawlenty got a roomful of Republicans rocking.

"We've got a lot to be thankful for tonight," Carey told the crowd, which had already been shaken out of its earlier doldrums by news that U.S. Rep. John Kline had easily retaken his seat. Carey predict other victories would be coming in the next hours.

Carey made the house explode when he told the party faithful that the numbers they were seeing on the big-screen TV sets in the corners of the room, which showed the U.S. Senate race deadlocked between U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman and DFLer Al Franken, were wrong.

"When we look behind the scenes at where the votes are coming from, this is very similar to 2006," Carey said. "Were looking at the counties and the areas that haven't come in yet and we're very encouraged by the fact that we're at where we're at when we have a lot of really strong Republican areas yet to report."

The place really lit up when he announced that Rep. Michele Bachmann was running ahead of Elwyn Tinklenberg with Wright County and Sherburne County showing almost no returns. "There is reason for cautious optimism there, as well."

In an effort to remove the adjective from his name, an attorney for disgraced U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, on Wednesday asked a Minnesota appeals court to throw out his plea of guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct, stemming from his widely publicized "wide stance" incident last year in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Craig himself didn't appear in the Minnesota Judicial Center courtroom on Wednesday. But the press did: Continued interest in the case was evident from the number of media organizations that were represented (and the number of satellite trucks parked outside the Minnesota Judicial Center).