Poor Judd Gregg.

What was he thinking?

That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Actually, I know exactly what he was thinking. The country is in trouble. Our party played an indispensable role in getting us where we are. Can I be part of the solution?

The old system has broken down--so much so that my party seems wholly disconnected with our traditional principles and original raison d'etre. Does this president from the other side of the aisle see the folly of his caucus--as I see the folly of my own? Can we come together and do the right thing for the country, transcending the old rules and creating a new political paradigm imagined long ago by the framers?

Okay. You guessed it. I am talking about me as much as him.

What was I thinking?

Judd and I were desperate--and desperate people do desperate things.

Why so desperate? After decades of Republican ascendancy, the electorate snatched away the keys as the country lurches toward our most lethal national crisis since the Civil War. Team Pelosi seems absolutely intent on pressing the accelerator to the floor as we approach the on-coming cliff, happily reminding the world that George Bush pointed us in this direction.

What to do? The Republican brand is busted, and it will be decades before Americans begin to forgive and forget the great GOP betrayal. What can we do right now?

Frantic questions in real time: what if this fellow really is something different? What if his plea "to be my president too" is sincere? What if he is smart enough to realize that Nancy Pelosi only wants to drive us off into the abyss? What if I could be one of the courageous statesmen who helps him inaugurate an entirely new American era?

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...


In the end, Judd Gregg and I could not coexist in a coalition in which Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman call the shots. Somebody had to go. Unfortunately, it was us.