Our goal as Republicans is to make sensible reductions in this spending and create a better environment for job growth, not to shut down the government. Getting our debt and deficits under control is the first step we can take, and the single most important step Washington can take, to get our economy moving and create the jobs we so badly need.
Full transcript of Senator Portman’s Address:
“I’m Rob Portman. I am proud to represent the people of Ohio as a new United States Senator. What I heard in my travels to every county in Ohio over the past couple of years, and what I continue to hear across our state, is a deep concern over jobs and the future of our economy. There is an understandable frustration with Washington’s failure to address even the most basic problems.
U.S. Senator Rob Portman Delivers Weekly Republican Address”
And so it begins. Now that the 2010 midterms are done and the Tea Party has shown itself to be a real political force, the GOP establishment is making plans to undermine Tea Party power and reassert its own RINO, country club control of the party. It’s happening in New Hampshire, anyway, as it seems as if outgoing NH Republican Party Chairman John Sununu is engaging in a whisper campaign against Tea Party backed Jack Kimball who is vying to become the next GOP chairman for the Granite State.
If nothing else has proven that Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele is not in tune with the GOP today, his recent statements on the Tea Party movement should serve as exhibit number one. 
A party is a party. Sure, in politics there are internal fights, jealousies, and intrigues, but when the final push to election day is upon its members, a party supports the one carrying the party banner. They may be disgruntled because the man they supported didn’t win the primary, but they hold their tongue and pull the lever for the Party candidate. Many even about face and hit the hustings for the party guy even as they worked against that candidate in the primary.
There is little doubt that Al Franken’s namesake is a perfect analogy because he is certainly a Frankenstein of a Senator. When he barely won the Senate seat for the Democrats in Minnesota over incumbent Norm Coleman several years ago it was painfully obvious that major improprieties and problems marred that election. His win was cobbled together from various “dead” sources, if you will. As the RNC says, Franken’s election “serves as a glaring and painful reminder to voters that we can never take any election for granted.”
The extremist, left-wing site Talking Points Memo (better known as TPM) thought it had a