We have spent all year inveighing against flaccid Republicans capitulating to the forces of big government.  Well, as the polls open in Alabama and Mississippi, now is our time to shine.  No – I’m not referring to the presidential election where we have a choice between several ‘evils of three lesser;’ I’m referring to the congressional elections.

As we noted last week, Spencer Bachus (Al-6) and Jo Bonner (Al-1) must go.  State Senator Scott Beason is the best suited to knock off Bachus.  Either Dean Young or Pete Riehm (both good Tea Party folks) are good to go up against Bonner. Remember that we don’t need to win outright; we just need to deny the incumbents a majority to force a runoff.  Unfortunately, the other incumbents don’t have any challengers from the right.  Mo Brooks has a challenger in CD-5 from the left in former Democrat Congressman Parker Griffith.

In Mississippi, all three Republican incumbents are demonstrably too pro-big-government for such a conservative state.  They all have challengers, but none of them have gained much traction.  That doesn’t mean we can’t force a runoff against Alan Nunnelee (CD-1), Steve Palazzo (CD-2), and Greg Harper (CD-3).  They all voted for the FY 2011 CR, the debt ceiling, and the FY 2012 appropriations bill, which completely vitiated the Ryan budget.  It also continued funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, Dodd-Frank, and the EPA regulations that are driving up the cost of gas.

Sadly, two of the members, Alan Nunnelee and Steve Palazzo, are freshmen who campaigned on a platform to limit government, cut spending, and defund Obamacare.  Palazzo, the worst offender in the delegation, smugly declared “they didn’t send me to Washington to shut down government or to default on our national debt.”  Nunnelee offered this oleaginous excuse: “We’ve got to find a way to cut spending, but shutting down the government is not a tool that should be used as a political ploy.”

No, Messrs. Palazzo and Nunnelee; they didn’t send you to Washington to give Obama another $2.1 trillion in debt so he can spend it at a rate of $5 billion per day, leading to the largest monthly deficit this past February.  It is exactly that mentality that will lead us down the inexorable road to perennial deficits.

Note to voters in Alabama and Mississippi: if we continue electing this ilk to Congress, the presidential election won’t matter.  We will continue to grow government anyway.  The time has come when we must vote out incumbents, even when there is no opponent with a million dollar war chest to spoon feed us the message on the airwaves.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project