In the editorial "Toeing the line" (June 15), The Sun asks in the last paragraph where the original ideas of the Republican candidates were. It's funny that there seems to be some prevailing notion that an idea has to be new or original to be good, as though all the ideas that have been tried up to now are bad. I know it's been a while since fiscal responsibility was tried, but it may as well have been a new idea. It certainly wasn't tried under George W. Bush or the present administration.

Pushing through the biggest "stimulus" in history was an original idea, in a way I suppose, and that didn't go too well. Removing the cap on how much debt Fannie and Freddie can pass on to the taxpayers was original, but I hardly think that'll end well. Going into Iraq on a fear of what might happen was an original thought, but I don't think people were too happy about the outcome of that one either.

What I saw in the candidates is a group of people who are promising to spend as little of our money as possible, and that seems like a good start. It's not a new promise, but carrying out the threat might be quite novel. Had one of them spoken eloquently about how they would use our money to make us more money, I'd be leery, but they didn't.

I agree they'll eventually have to differentiate themselves from each other, but it's nice to see them in agreement on some basic things like frugality.

Fred Pasek, Frederick