In the past few election cycles, conservative political action committees, corporations and wealthy individuals claiming to favor liberty and limited government have shoveled money into the pockets of tea party-style candidates running for office at all levels of government. Along the way, these interests helped to elevate an assortment ofideologues, carnival barkers and self-aggrandizing hucksters into positions of real power — people whose influence previously extended only as far as banning a book via their local library board or writing science out of the curriculum at their neighborhood school.
As the just-concluded government shutdown and debt-ceiling standoff vividly demonstrated, the House GOP went on a bender and didn't name a designated driver. The drunkards behind the congressional wheel nearly drove world financial markets into a ditch, draining $24 billion from the U.S. economy in the process. And there's every indication that they'll take the keys andrepeat the process in January, when the debt-ceiling timer goes off again.
It's time for Republicans to sober up and get to work doing the country's business. That means reckoning with the outcome of elections that put Democrats in charge of the Senate and, yes, the White House. That means setting realistic goals and hammering out compromises that advance conservative ideas, however incrementally.
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