“The county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?”

So asked Thomas Paine in Rights of Man, and while I would disagree with the central premise of that work, I believe we all can see the problem with having a legislative body meant to represent the people having such gross inequities in its representative apportionment.

So why, now, do we continue policies that are creating rotten boroughs in our own United States?

Keep reading…

I hope you read Jed Babbin today. He makes the same point I made on Friday.

As Jed puts it

Tomorrows debate gives the best opportunity yet to start taking on the media and doing so can put one of the candidates on the path to a real breakout in the polls. It will defy the advice of a hundred million dollars of campaign consultants advice. And its an opportunity that may not come again soon.

Poke fun at Chris Matthews. If any candidate can do even a little of what Jon Stewart did, thats the only thing anyone will remember from this debate.

Again, I will be sorely disappointed if none of the candidates take on Chris Matthews. This will be Fred Thompson’s first debate. If he wants to shine, here’s his opportunity. Same with the other guys.

Just remember, the man who will be moderating their debate called the President and his administration “criminals” four days ago. For that, he deserves a challenge from our candidates.

Slatecard.com is now live. It is a Republican answer to ActBlue, which allows individuals to select from a full list of all Rs running for national office. You can then title your slate and get a direct link to it. This allows you to pick your favorite challengers and incumbents and solicit small donations for all of them. It empowers the individual rather than a top-down list selected by the site itself as RightRoots did last year (with 20 site selected candidates).

For example, I have created a “Close Senate Race” slate here. If you would like to donate to the close senate races, that link provides you a quick opportunity to do so. I will be changing my signature to direct people there.

I encourages RSers to create their own slates based on whatever issues are most important to them. Then use RS, other blogs, and social networking sites to direct your friends and fellow politicos to your slate of candidates. This is a big step for the online GOP. Congrats to Slatecard for making it happen.

Some Republicans have been in a tizzy because tomorrow nights Republican debate will be hosted by Chris Matthews. But it seems like candidates are taking it in stride adequately preparing themselves for the tough, biased questions they are sure to incur.

Republicans prove themselves a step above Democrats in refusing to complain about this brazenly partisan moderator since the Dems refused to particiate in a Fox News sponsored debate. The Dems were able to cower behind the same generic page of talking points because they collectively decided not to participate. Had any of them had the guts to simply appear on the most watched cable television news station in America, perhaps the rest of them with any chance of a real campaign would have followed.

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With news that she’s got Sandy Berger advising her, I must wonder if she’s taken to hiding her secrets in her pantyhose to make sure they don’t wind up in his socks.

Of course, why would Hillary want to be advised by a man who illegally stole and destroyed national security secrets unless, of course, the secrets he stole were designed to hide her husband’s mistakes? Quite a reward for loyal service.

Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Berger, who was fired from John Kerrys presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clintons campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clintons admirers. It shows poor judgment and a lack of regard for Bergers serious misdeeds, said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, who nonetheless called Clinton by far the most impressive candidate in the Democratic field.

Tom Tancredo rode to an interview with the Associated Press on his Harley and said, basically, that for him to compete in the Presidential nominating sweepstakes, people will have to give him money. If he doesn’t finish in the top three in either Iowa or New Hampshire, he said, his adventure will be “pretty much over with.”

Will he seek reelection to Congress after this Prez thing fizzles? He said that he would tell his constituents “the day after the (Colorado) Rockies play their last game,” which might be as soon as next Tuesday. Then again, if the Rockies stay hot, they’ll take care of Arizona, so we’ll have to wait until after the World Series.

But we digress.

Tancredo said Bush and Republicans in Congress hurt themselves in last year’s election by abandoning their principles by, for example, instituting federal school testing programs that intruded on local control and by promoting trade at the expense of cracking down on illegal immigration.

“You have a Republican Party that hasn’t done a Republican thing,” he said.

Is it possible that Tom Tancredo will run as the candidate of a new, anti-[illegal] immigration party? If this were Meet the Press, Tim Russert would ask, so I’ll retract the question.

As a lot of you know, I live in Macon, Georgia. Prior to our mayor expressing solidarity with Hugo Chavez, he converted to Islam. Now, it seems, with just a few months left in office, the mayor is going to push things just a bit far. He’s going to take over City Council Chambers to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Were it a Christian celebration, I have no doubt the ACLU would be beating on the doors of City Hall with an injunction. But not so with this Islamic celebration.

Letting Mayor Ellis conduct an Islamic religious celebration in City Council Chambers may not be progress that most progressives like, but for an evangelical Christian like myself, I must applaud it. I certainly hope that other religions embrace this new precedent of free access to City Council Chambers for religious celebrations. I eagerly await a public baptism celebration, community communion, and all the other religious celebrations I expect to see under this new precedent.

Now, some people say that City Council is just doing this because it’s Mayor Ellis and we all know how he is (unhinged, to say the least). But I cannot imagine the responsible, upstanding members of Macon’s City Council would not realize that once they’ve opened the doors to one religion’s celebrations in their chambers, they cannot shut it to others without discriminating among religions.

This embrace of religious ceremonies in City Council Chambers at no cost despite progressive platitudes about walls between church and state and constitution platitudes about separation of powers is a bold and courageous step forward for this city of over one hundred churches. I hope each church, synagogue, and temple takes advantage of this new precedent.