Right On The Right

As I mentioned in my post about the Democrats and their secret earmark plans, I was in on a conference call with House Minority Leader John Boehner. We got to talking about some other issues, some related to spending, others not. Let me recap:

Matt Hurley from Weapons of Mass Discussion talks about picking fights and the right man picking the right fights. We both agree that this is a good battle to pick, and Congressman Boehner is the right man to lead us. He needs to be holding the gavel, soon.

We managed to talk about some other spending issues, including about how the Republicans lost their way on the issue. Congressman Boehner:

"You go back over the last 3 or 4 years prior to January of '06, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that we lost our way. Whether it be spending or whether it be earmarks, there was a lot more interest in how to hold power than in sustaining the principles that we believe in. What I tried to do, over the course of last year as Majority, is to get us back to our roots. Fiscal discipline, our budget held to the President's number. Secondly, if you recall, the House passed a supplemental on the war, and the Senate wanted more, and I came out and said that we're not going to pass a bill with one dollar more than the President asked for."

Parker from VikingSpirit's blog asked the Congressman about a specific Ohio race coming up in 2008 and whether or not he thinks we can hold the seat. From Parker:

I asked Boehner if he thinks Steve Driehaus is a viable candidate in OH-01 against Rep. Steve Chabot. While Boehner believes that Driehaus is the "most recent in a long line of very viable candidates," he is confident that Chabot will win.

Tom Blumer from Bizzyblog got in a question about an outrageous allegation from Newt Gingrich regarding immigration, which if true, would be damning for the administration. Word is out on whether or not Gingrich's assertion is true. When Boehner was asked on the issue, he responded:

"I'd be surprised if that were the case. Two- if there were any suggestions that that were the case, it's outrageous. We're a nation of laws, and enforcing those laws is a requirement of the administration."

Also on the immigration front, we were all a little concerned about President Bush's plan for amnesty, which luckily is temporarily dead in the Senate. When asked whether or not Congressman Boehner and his colleagues in the House were getting phone calls or public outcry about the issue:

"I've got thousands of phone calls, and I don't know that anybody called in favor of it. One of my colleagues said they got 800 or so phone calls, and they said they got 2 they thought were in favor of it, because they spoke in Spanish."

There was a spattering of laughter following that. The House managed to defeat the Amnesty proposals which made their way through the Senate last year, so we'll be looking to the House to be a stalwart defender of law enforcement this time around too. Congressman Boehner was asked whether or not he has made his position on this clear to the President:

"The President knows very well what I think about this whole process. You should also know, and this won't surprise you, that the President feels very strongly about this. He comes from a border state, he was the Governor of Texas, and he feels very strongly about this."

Lincoln Logs has weighed in on the call too, and he picked up on some very focused talk from the Minority Leader regarding his job. From Lincoln Logs:

First, the Republican Leader said that his role in leadership is to follow a path to earn back the majority. That’s a very interesting distinction. The conference (I almost called it a caucus, pardon me) is to follow a path to win back the majority, but the leader’s job is to make that win easier by working diligently on policies that re-commit Republicans to limited, fiscally responsible, accountable government.

The call ended with Congressman Boehner being asked about the ridiculous no confidence vote on Alberto Gonzales Democrats busied the Senate floor with the other day. The vote would've been non-binding even if it did pass. His quote on the entire dabacle:

"They've been overreaching on all of their oversight hearings and investigations, and they're going to continue to do it. I think they're hurting themselves, and I'm a firm believer that when your political opponents are committing suicide, you don't murder them."

The conference call went very well, and if anyone else that was in on the call weighs in with further commentary, I'll go ahead and update the post. I hope to be involved in future calls with the Minority Leader, and other influential Conservatives.

Update: Bearing Drift Ohio now has a post up about the call, and mentions that there is a $392.5 billion hole in the Democrat budget. You think they're going to cut spending or raise taxes?