Mr. McGrath, Sir;

argue: To debate, discuss, bring reasons for and against...to persuade by discussion and reasoning...to maintain a position by giving reasons...to reason, dispute keenly.

OK, I'll do my best, thank you for giving me this occasion to politely answer your points.

But surely the point of the Jeffords thing is that here you have a party machine that has scraped into power with a razor thin majority (and a very questionable one at that)

Well, there are several points here:

1. The House has a pretty good (R) majority, the Florida vote counts, including those by the media but excepting the one(s) that counted illegal ballots were all Bush wins.

2 Ashcroft could have challenged his Senate race, but chose to be respectful to his deceased former opponent's wife.

3. There is another iffy Senate race that should have been challenged (I can't remember who it was, I'll find out).

Voter fraud (vote early and often) is very widespread in US cities as can be seen in Milwaukee, Miami, Philadelphia and Chicago etc. and it's our fault for not being more vigilent. We certainly will be during next election cycle especially in FL where the punch card ballots are gone.

This method was used in other high fraud areas and will be suspect if still in use next time around.

this was achieved on the basis of a pledge to act moderately and inclusively.

Actually I'll respectfully challenge this comment:

1. He ran as a "Compassionate Conservative" (not a moderate) which believes in tough love, self reliance and social programs run at the community level.

2. He has been getting the (bipartisan) cooperation of enough democrats to have the tax cut legislation pass by 62 to 38, much to Daschle's chagrin.

3. He coddled the "moderates" (liberal Republicans) way too much and this is where it got him. Jeffords helped reduce the size of the Bush tax cut and helped increase education spending 11 percent (the largest increase in history).

As far as inclusion is concerned: Do we want liberal Republicans?....No.

Do you think the democrats want conservatives in their ranks? I think not. They have a "my way or the highway" management style, promising no committee chairmanships and a primary opponent in the next election if you fail to "go along to get along" and vote as you are told.

That's why we say "there's no democracy in the democrat party".

It then proceeds to act as if it had a landslide majority and a massive mandate

If he can continue to go over the heads of the democrat caucus leadership directly to the voters, he will have a massive mandate. If he continues to get 60% of the Senate to vote his way, he has a "good enough" mandate.

In those circumstances it is hardly fair to criticise someone for sticking to the policies they were elected on, and dumping the political affiliation that is now being used to overturn those policies

How about sticking to the party he was JUST elected by, who provided volunteers and money to put him there as well as preventing a primary opponent from spoiling his chances.

His policies have absolutely nothing to do with the GOP platform and philosophy.

Of course that's the Vermont GOPs fault for backing a liberal Republican.

He didn't leave for your reason as he was certainly appeased by the administration. He was afraid the socialist Bernie Sanders would beat him in the next election.

You should see what Daschle said about Ben Nighthorse Campbell when he became a Republican. (To paraphrase) He should resign and re-run as a GOP candidate. The balance of power in the Senate was not even in question at that time.

Of course the same principle does not apply to Jeffords because Daschle is fickle with his "integrity".

mav out