Old Zach's post below on the budget, as well as those of my colleagues at Bearing Drift and Bacon's Rebellion show that something actually quite useful and long missing has been restored to the GOP members of the state Senate:

Principle.

The refusal of Senate Republican budget writers to accept the Democrat's new spending, tax-hiking, rainy day raiding budget is the closest thing to a closing of the Chichester era as we have yet seen. As Jim Bacon noted:

Chastened by conservative unrest during last year's primaries and freed from the Rasputin-like influence of Chichester, Republican senators appear to be taking up the banner of fiscal conservatism.

Yes, without Chichester's whip cracking over their heads, Senate Republicans seem to have discovered that, perhaps, there are alternative ways of looking at the budget. And, miracle of miracles, the House budget seems to take this new found freedom a step further, proposing to actually cut spending (in what is still a bloated budget).

The Democrats aren't happy about this. And well they shouldn't -- because what we may -- just may -- be seeing is the beginning a of return to fiscal restraint on the GOP side. This would not have been possible without the departure of Chichester and his acolyte, Russ Potts (how is that patronage job, Russ?) and the electoral chastening of Walter Stosch. It would not have been possible without the flurry of conservative primary challenges in the last cycle that claimed two incumbents and put the rest of the caucus on notice.

The question, thought, is whether this new found move toward restraint in a time of economic uncertainty will endure. There will be an enormous amount of pressure put on Republicans to accept the Democratic budget. Train wrecks, deadlocks, shutdowns, lions, tigers and bears will all be coming our way very soon.

But for now, it seems as though the lesson taught last November might actually have started to sink in. I'll enjoy it will I can.