Monday, February 23, 2009

GOP Split in Stimulus?

I posed on this below, but GOP unity on the national level, may only be on the national level.

Here's a key chunk of the story:

The Republican governors’ divide reflects their party’s erosion to a mostly regional party that is based in the conservative South, after heavy election losses in the Northeast, Midwest and West. And with the party leaderless after losing control of both the White House and Congress in the past two election cycles, the split is colored by early maneuvering for conservatives’ support among potential aspirants for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.

Several governors, nearly all of them Southerners known to have national ambitions, have been withering in their criticism of Mr. Obama’s stimulus plan, which received only 3 of 219 Republicans’ votes in Congress. The harshest critics include Mr. Sanford and Govs.
Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the national chairman of the party in the 1990s, Rick Perry of Texas, and Sarah Palin of Alaska, the party’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee.