Once the light bulb represented ideas; today, its shoddy, government-mandated replacement, the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), has come to represent everything that is wrong with the GOP leadership in Congress.  It’s time to get rid of the dim bulbs, figuratively and literally.

The problem is not just one more idiotic, nanny state proclamation from a Congress that generates almost as many idiotic, nanny state proclamations as it does creepy texted self-portraits.  The bigger problem is the conservative base’s crisis of confidence in our pseudoconservative Congressional leadership brought on by its utter failure to get the message from the base and act on it as it promised.  And the symbol of this bait-and-switch Republican Congress is the light bulb.

As reported by Michael Patrick Leahy (with a hat tip to the incomparable Instapundit), Congressman Fred Upton really, really wanted to be the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee after the 2010 turnover, but there was a problem.  Upton had been part of the cadre of nimrods who introduced the ban on incandescent light bulbs back in 2007; they are to be completely banned effective January 1, 2012, in favor of CFLs.

Now, for a truly conservative party, this unbelievable misjudgment would disqualify Upton from any position of responsibility above that requiring the operation of a mop and pail.  It demonstrates an arrogant, petty fascist commitment to telling fellow Americans what is best for them.  Strike One.  It demonstrates a belief in the voodoo religion of global warming.  Strike two.  And it’s just plain obnoxious – what kind of half-wit thinks it’s a bright idea to force all Americans to abandon safe, cheap incandescent bulbs in favor of overpriced, toxic mercury-harboring devices whose dank glow brightens nothing but the hearts of hair-shirted enviro-wackos, crony capitalist CFL manufacturers, and gloom-adoring emo kids.  Strike three.

If the Republican Party can’t make a stand at the government telling us what kind of light bulbs to use, what good is it?

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As the Tea Party movement approaches its first “birthday”, the leadership is taking it to new levels.  The metamorphosis, which has been deliciously organic, has seen it go from street protests, to active demonstrations to serious political action.  All along the way, Big Media and Big Political Parties have failed to truly grasp what it is all about.  As Missouri lawmaker, Chris Kelly once famously said to another during Floor debate, “I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you”.

At the end of the month, Richard Viguerie — legendary conservative activist, direct response fundraising pioneer, and currently chairman of ConservativeHQ.com — will deliver the keynote speech at the inaugural Leadership Tea Party training event to be held at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport Westin Hotel.  In addition to Mr. Viguerie’s keynote speech delivered on Friday night January 29, the event will consist of 11 sessions of grassroots leadership training over 14 hours on Saturday and Sunday, January 30-31. Mr. Viguerie’s speech is free and open to both the press and the public, though a limited number of seats are available. (You can request a ticket online here .)

Viguerie, who was hired by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1962 as the director of Young Americans for Freedom, worked for the Goldwater campaign in 1964, pioneered the direct response fund raising techniques that financed the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, and has been a key leader in the movement for limited government for decades.  Tea Party activists of varying levels of political experience, most rigorously eschewing party labels, are hungry to learn the tactics to win on the political battlefield.  Like latter day militia men, the Tea Party activists have seen the whites of the eyes of the red coats reds, and they are trading their microsoft office suite applications for html and eblogger and are training in the dark political arts for the battle that will shape their Country for the sake of their children.

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