Culling the Herd

Culling is a word which comes from the Latin colligere, which means collect. The term can be applied broadly to mean sorting a collection into two groups: one that will be kept and one that will be rejected. This is done in order to either reinforce certain desirable characteristics or to remove certain undesirable characteristics from the group. It is most often used in agriculture to obtain, through the breeding of animals, the best genetic characteristics .

Although I was raised in a rural environment, I never heard the term culling used involving livestock. The first time I ever heard the word used was when I heard an old construction superintendent from Texas say " It's way past time for a culling". This meant that we had a surplus of craft workers on site for the work available and a reduction in our work force was necessary. Those workers who were least productive were the first to be released and those with specialized or supervisory skills would be the the last to let go.

There were a couple of major cullings on Capitol hill on Wednesday this week. The first culling occurred when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and 20 some other House Republicans launched their newly formed Tea Party Caucus. The second was when 81 Republican Congressmen and 5 US Senators signed onto a friend of the court brief opposing the federal lawsuit challenging Arizona's new immigration. The brief was filed by the American Center for Law and Justice with U.S. District Court in Arizona.

The Tea Party movement and the new Arizona immigration law are immensely popular with the GOP base and many independents. The GOP establishment has watched the Tea party with the nervousness of a father viewing his teenage daughter leaving the house with a guy on a motorcycle. The father knows the ride will be thrilling for his daughter but he also worries how it will all turn out. The same establishment also worries that Hispanic voters will be turned off by GOP support for the Arizona law thus providing a voting majority for Democrats for generations.

In 2010 all prognostications are pointing to a GOP landslide. Many of these new Congressmen who will be elected are from the Tea party movement. They will join the Tea Party caucus and will fight for conservative causes and will be less likely to compromise. In the 2012 election many establishment GOP Congressmen will be asked why they did not join the caucus or support Arizona. The culling of the herd has started but it still has a long way to go. Somehow I think Ronald Reagan is up in heaven saying " Get along little doggies"

A Voice In the Wilderness