I look at the list of Boehner Plan supporters Quin has posted while we wait.

And it seems to make my point.

Where are the grass roots leaders? Lots and lots and lots of ’em? I understand this was dashed off in haste to quickly update while we wait for the vote… but still. Where are they?

The talk radio hosts… not just Rush and Sean and Mark, who are decidedly not there. There are hundreds across the land… are they here? I see Laura Ingraham there, but again… there are lots of others.

All the Tea Party people…where are they? These are the people who made John Boehner Speaker of the House.

But you get my drift.

The central point again is that the GOP Establishment has been wrong on most major issues of the last 80 years. The massive expansion of government we are staring at came about not just because liberals ran Congress and the White House often enough. It comes because the GOP Establishment in Congress and elsewhere jumped up to say “me too but a few dimes less.”  That’s why we are here in the first place.

Now, as the rubber hits the road, we’re supposed to do it again?

Filled with tons of good people individually, as with any group there is always the danger of the herd mentality. Where amongst them now is the old Reagan suggestion to abolish say, the Department of Education? Or Energy? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the agony at such a thought. That could never pass, they say.

Now, Harry Reid says the Boehner Plan is dead — and has 53 Senators who agree. So will we dismiss the Boehner Plan with the same ease we dismissed Cut, Cap and Balance? After all…it doesn’t have the votes. 

No, candidly. It isn’t being dismissed. Why? Because the Establishment has made the arbitrary decision that it’s OK for one thing to be labeled as not-passable, but not another — even if it also is not-passable. Why to that? Because the Establishment says so.

Nothing more complicated.

Hence Reagan was simplistic, winning the Cold War unrealistic, cutting taxes impossible. Etc. etc. and so on.

Conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom. That’s what is really going on here.

And that’s not why the House GOP majority is the majority in the first place.

But if you need a list of nays to counterbalance the Establishment list, here’s a quick and dirty:

Mike Lee
Jim DeMint
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Ron Johnson
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
Mark Levin
Mark Steyn
Andy McCarthy
Tea Party Patriots
Tea Party Express
FreedomWorks
SCORES OF OTHER TEA PARTIES
Cato Institute
Heritage Foundation
Club for Growth