National Review: Mike Lee for the Right

by RAMESH PONNURU
MAY 18, 2010 4:00 A.M.

This principled constitutionalist from Utah would be a welcome voice in the Senate.

When Sen. Robert Bennett came in third at the Utah Republican Party’s convention, commentators marveled at the irrationality of conservatives who rejected an incumbent who scored so high on conservative voting scorecards. Mike Lee, one of the candidates who beat Bennett, demonstrated the limitations of those scorecards when he dropped by NR’s offices a few days ago.

Utah is one of the most conservative states in the country, and in Lee it would have perhaps the most conservative senator.

Lee wants to repeal Obamacare, and is willing to risk a government shutdown to defund it. When Republicans blinked during the shutdown of 1995–96, he says, it was “the beginning of the end” of the Republican revolution.

“I am deeply disturbed” by the Kagan nomination, he adds. Her position on military recruiting at Harvard “in a time of war . . . is reason enough for me to have a strong inclination to vote her down.” Congress has a legitimate power under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution to remove issues from the federal courts’ jurisdiction and “has prudently exercised that power . . . more often than people think.”

The candidate is nervous about personal accounts as part of Social Security. He would prefer to wind the program down entirely — preserving it for current retirees while telling young people that they will not be getting any benefits. I have literally never heard any major-party candidate for statewide office say anything like this.

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Fabulous article about Mike Lee published in the National Review! You're going to love reading the rest of it.

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