Pro-choice Republicans stepping up

After the Republicans lost badly on election night, there's a lot of positioning going on within the party. The Republican Majority for Choice is one of the groups involved. They say their views on reproductive rights represent the majority of the party, but that party delegates have had control of the platform on the issue.

Many Republicans are blaming the election results on the centrist wing of the party, because of the number of losses in places like the northeast. That doesn't tell the whole story though. Guys like Sen. Lincoln Chafee didn't lose because they were moderate, they lost because they were tied to a party that has abandoned independent and moderate voters in favor of a right-wing base strategy.

As this Bloomberg article notes, almost 40% of House Republicans in the new Congress will be from the south. What's more eye opening is that Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), who narrowly won re-election, is now the only Republican House member left from New England.