It's highly unusual in a presidential debate for two Republican candidates -- the two leading in current national polls -- to heap praise on a liberal Democratic senator. But in the Fox News debate in Sioux City Thursday night both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney had very good words to say for Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.

After the tea party ousted Senator Robert Bennett, it seems obvious that its members are serious about what they say and do not use the same scorecard as Beltway denizens.

The number of appropriators in the GOP leadership is disproportionate to the rest of the Republican caucus and jeopardizes the Party's hopes of retaking Congress by convincing voters that it can restore fiscal discipline.

Uncertainty regarding debates over the debt limit still remains. Endgame negotiations are nothing new in Washington, but the circumstances under which they are being played is different than before.

Congress is losing some of the best legislators, those with an ability and deep desire to work in the legislative process, make laws, build laws, and shape public policy.

The nation is experiencing a popular backlash against the expansion of government and runaway federal spending, and across the country fiscally conservative candidates are taking advantage of this popular groundswell.

I can't remember a more stunning rebuke of a president by a congressional leader than Speaker John Boehner's refusal to agree to Barack Obama's demand that he summon a joint session of Congress to hear the president's latest speech on the economy. It illustrates several of the weaknesses of this presidency.

Many lawmakers are being punished for their support of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but TARP will go down as one of the great heroic acts of our lifetimes, as an act of triage that saved the economy and perhaps the entire global economy.