Those scratch marks you see on the threshold of the U.S. Capitol entrance are evidence of senators and congressmen being dragged out kicking and screaming.
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It doesn’t happen very often. They hold onto power like they cling to life itself.

Yet, already this year, it appears three sitting U.S. senators have been shown the door — in primary elections, by their own parties, no less: First came Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Robert Bennett, R-Utah — who actually came in third in his state GOP convention.

Now it appears Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has been upended by conservative upstart Joe Miller.

Headlines have credited — or “blamed” — Sarah Palin and voter “rage” — as if voters are merely throwing tantrums and are being led around by the nose. Some in the media also want to characterize it all as a civil war in the Republican Party.

We think voters are smarter than that. We think voters know precisely what they’re doing.

We think it’s the beginning of an uprising.

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Just when you thought it was safe for incumbents to go back in the polling booth, along come Tuesday’s Republican primaries. GOP Members of Congress who think they can return to business as usual if they regain the majority should pay attention.

The biggest shock came in Alaska, with incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski trailing unheralded challenger Joe Miller by roughly 1,700 votes with as many as 16,000 absentee ballots still to be counted. As a West Point grad, decorated Gulf War veteran and federal magistrate, Mr. Miller is no lightweight. But he was facing one of Alaska’s great family names, part of the GOP establishment that has dominated the state since it joined the union.

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Speaking last Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, President Obama asked, “How do we, over the long term, get control of our deficit?” Good question.

Here’s the answer suggested by last Thursday’s semi-annual budget summary from the Congressional Budget Office: Stop spending so much.

CBO’s mid-year review largely reinforces the bad news we already knew—to wit, that spending has exploded since Democrats took over Congress in 2007, first with the acquiescence of George W. Bush and then into hyperdrive after Mr. Obama entered the White House.

To appreciate the magnitude of this spending blowout, compare CBO’s budget “baseline” estimate in January 2008 with the baseline it released Thursday. The baseline predicts future spending based on the law at the time. As the nearby chart shows, in a mere 31 months Congress has added more than $4.4 trillion to the 10-year spending baseline. The 2008 and 2009 numbers are actual spending, the others are estimates. As recently as 2005, total federal spending was only $2.47 trillion.

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