Changed GOP gets it 'right' this time

Charles Hurt - Inside Washington

Inside DC

WASHINGTON -- Around the parlor tables and love seats of Washington, gasbag pundits and political hacks are breathlessly speculating about how the upcoming elections might -- clutch your pearls! -- change the leadership of Congress.

Perhaps. But the real story out of next month's elections will be how they will have utterly reshaped the GOP into a far more conservative and principled party than it has been at any time in modern history.

This will no longer be Bob Dole's Republican Party. And it certainly will no longer be John McCain's Republican Party, either.

If McCain found himself a liberal "maverick" in his party before, he will soon find himself even lonelier and somewhere to the left of Al Sharpton.

From Pennsylvania to Florida and Kentucky to Wisconsin and Colorado, staunchly conservative Republicans are poised to win seats in the Senate, replacing either Democrats or other, more moderate Re publicans.

They will become the new face of the GOP in the Senate, which is always the more moderate chamber of Con gress for either party. Over in the House, you can expect Republicans to be even more stringently conservative.

Senate candidates Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida and Ken Buck in Colorado are not your country-club Republicans.

Their conservatism runs deep into their principles. They are strict constitutionalists.

They fervently believe in individual freedom and economic conservatism. And they believe the federal government has grown far beyond its intended boundaries.

These men revere Ronald Reagan. But it is Barry Goldwater who inspires them.

They are individualists and true Washington outsiders who have no stomach for the wheeling and dealing across ideological lines that is the foundation of McCain's political career.

But they do have one thing in common with John McCain: They all love Sarah Palin.

churt@nypost.com