From Capitolwire:

Toomey told the Union County Republican Committee dinner that by 2006, “Republican voters, and a surprising number of Democrats and independents, still believed in a less intrusive government, more freedom and lower taxes. But they did not believe the Republican Party in Washington was the best way to achieve those goals.”

Toomey, the president of the Club for Growth, which works to advance fiscal conservatism and Republican primary candidates who will work to achieve it, said: “I am extremely optimistic about the conservative movement and the future of the Republican Party. … It was absolutely not a repudiation of conservative principles. It was a repudiation of a Republican Party that in many ways had abandoned conservative principles.”

Toomey said: “The war in Iraq was very unpopular and presidential popularity was very low.”

But Toomey said: “There were factors entirely in the control of Republican House and Senate members and they can’t point a finger anywhere else. …

“First was corruption,” he said, referring to scandals or charges filed against several House members or House-GOP-tied lobbyists. “Let’s be honest: the litany got too long: [lobbyist Jack] Abramoff, [GOP Rep. Duke] Cunningham, [former House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay, [Rep. Rob] Ney, [Rep. Mark] Foley, [Rep. Don] Sherwood, [Rep. Curt] Weldon. This is a problem, because this is too long a list.

“Democrats offered no vision, and no message except ‘we’re not them,’” Toomey said. “In 2006, that was enough.”

Between the unpopularity of the war and the president, and the various scandals, the Republican-held governorships dropped from 27 to 21. The party also lost the U.S. Senate due to a tough climate for statewide Republican candidates, Toomey said.

All of this is stuff that has been echoed by a lot of us since the slaughtering that took place in November.  I still stand by the fact that I am not the least bit upset about the Republicans losing Congress, as retaining it would have only encouraged further ill behavior on their part.  The party can easily take back Congress by listening to people like Toomey.

Asked if he would run for U.S. Senate or governor in 2010, Toomey said he had plenty of time to think about such decisions and had come to no decision yet.

Told that, one supporter said: “Pat is now in a great position to run for governor: he is well-liked, hard-working, and his job nowadays introduces him to rich people across America who give lots of money to conservatives, and puts him in a position where they will like him. And remember, for governor, they can each give him $1 million. For Congress, they can give him about $5,000. That alone has to make a politician think about running for governor.”

Dinner organizer and Union County GOP committee powerbroker Yvonne Morgan said: “He is a candidate, and we hope he’ll be a candidate for governor.”

This is the other point I want to touch on.  Toomey came within one percentage point of unseating Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Republican Primary of 2004.  It was because of his message of principle and fiscal conservatism that resonated with the voters.  Had he not been fighting against the entrenched establishment along with former Senator Santorum and President Bush, he would have beaten the pants off of Specter in a landslide.

I wholeheartedly hope that Pat will make a run for governor in 2010.  He is the one person that can truly turn this state around and get it back on a positive track.  Pennsylvania is a dying state.  As another young adult who will shortly be another contributing member to the “Brain Drain” by fleeing the state, nothing would please me more than to see someone like Pat step in and salvage the place of my birth and make it a great state to live in once again.

First of all, I think that’s the first blog headline I’ve ever seen with the word “y’all” in it, and I’m happy to supply it.

Second of all, I had yet to notice Jim Gilmore’s campaign site before this morning.  What do y’all think of him?  Could he be a conservative dark-horse candidate?

Sorry for the technical difficulties.

Well I know this isn’t a tech blog, but I just had to write about my new purchase, the Sonos music system. I had been for some time looking for a solutions that would allow my several gigs of music to be played in my living room. I had an iPod stand that plugged into the TV, but that limited me to just the music I could fit on my iPod. So I began looking for other options, and at first fell in love with the Apple TV. Yet, in the process I discovered that the old downfall of Apple (proprietary software) had reared its ugly, ugly head. The Apple TV only works with iTunes and with songs imported into iTunes or purchased from the iTunes store. Moreover it was more designed for streaming movies, which while a cool technology is not practical yet.

Last weekend though I dropped into the local audio-video store and was browsing the TVs and home theater systems, when I happened across a little white box, the Sonos. Basically it allows me to play music throughout my house with two different zones (bedroom and living room). Each Zone can be operated independently with different music or you can link the zones together. You can have as many as 32 zones, but that would get pretty expensive. All of the zones are controlled through a remote which allows you to pause, skip tracks, browse your music collection, etc. All-in-all a great product, which I promptly purchased and installed in my home, only to discover that Apple’s evil nature was two-fold. Apparently, Apple will not release their DRM (Digital Rights Management) codec to people so all of the music I purchased on iTunes can’t be played through my Sonos system. This basically allows Apple to use their leverage in the online music purchase market to extend their brand through hardware, a practice that Apple lovers the world over used to complain about when Micro$oft did it.

I had not noticed a tab in my new Sonos controller, but in playing with it saw that it had something called “Rhapsody” installed. Rhapsody is an online music store like iTunes, except that for a $10/month fee you have access to the entire 2.5 million song catalog. I immediately fired it up and began browsing, and realized that I had basically purchased a 2.5 million song jukebox. The only songs I couldn’t find were Led Zeppelin and the Beatles (because the owner of the rights to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin have chosen not to sell their music online anywhere).
In short, Sonos + Rhapsody has revolutionized my music listening experience. I will never buy another track from iTunes, why would I when I have all I need on Rhapsody.