Florida Republican Debate 1.0

Tonight's debate, hosted by NBC, was the first of two debates before Floridians pull out the canes and the walkers and venture out into the January chill to vote. There were no real highlights.

Out of the gate, Romny went on the attack, throwing every bit of mud he could at Gingrich, hoping that some of it would stick. He came off as angry and shrill. Gingrich refused to take the bait, staying composed. As to how that plays overall, we will have to wait to see the new polls to tell.

That said, I think Romney made a huge mistake by trying to dredge every bit of mud he could find rather than concentrate on just the worst of it all - including that he went a step too far in the attacks. Romney concluded his attack by criticizing Gingrich's support of Medicare Part D while taking money for advising pharmaceutical firms. Gingrich pounced, embracing Medicare and Medicare Part D and that he was shocked (just shocked I say) that Romney would criticize him (or the millions of elderly Floridians on Medicare) for his  support of Medicare Part D. That was not a highlight reel, but I bet it plays with a lot of registered reporters in Florida.

 The slipperiest answer of the night was from Newt, whose full support of the ethanol mandate is unconscionable. Part of the ethanol program includes large supports for Florida sugar cane farmers. Newt gave a long non-answer, bring up beet root sugar and other farm subsidies, concluding that all subsidies should be taken away, but that removing agriculture subsidies is almost in the 'too hard to do' column.

A question was brought up on the Dream Act. Romney, weeks prior to the debate, said that he would veto it.  Many thought this was going to hurt Romney in Florida, with its large latino population.  When Gingrich was asked in the debate whether he too would veto the act, he said no, that he would keep that portion of the Dream Act that would allow illegals who join our military to get citizenship through that route - which is actually a long term policy of the U.S.  Romney quickly jumped in out of turn, obviously realizing the error of his ways, and said that he agreed with Gingrich.

What really struck me, at the end of debate, was the fact that Romney still doesn't have a good narrative as to why he should be President. He was asked, "[This] is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party. What have you done to further the cause of Conservativism as a Republican leader?" Romney response was anything but a cogent and stirring call to arms. He started off by talking about being a father and grandfather. He then tried to play up his private sector experience, but didn't make any of the points he could have as to why that makes him the best Presidential choice.

One of the things that was blatantly obvious during the debate is that Gingrich is courting Ron Paul in domestic policy areas. Indeed, the only thing that didn't happen on the stage was Gingrich passing folded love notes over to Paul, who in fact repeatedly had eyes for Gingrich. It was a bit stomach churning. Truly, if I was Caliska, and given Newt's history, I'd be worried.

Santorum gave good answers to the few questions thrown his way.  Ron Paul sounded sane and sage tonight.  I don't think it will help either too much.

In sum, I don't know whether tonight's debate will stop Gingrich's momentum.  Gingrich may have helped himself a little with his answers on the Dream Act and Medicare.  Let's see the polls.

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GDS Humor

I can't stand the screeching of the GDS (Gingrich Derangement Syndrome) crowd. But I do appreciate their humor when its well done.

(H/T American Digest)

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Lessons From South Carolina

. . . Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. The base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since.

Adding insult to injury, the party and thought leaders now try to foist on the base a milquetoast moderate from Massachusetts. Newt Gingrich can thank Mitt Romney and more for the second look he is getting. Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich. . . .

People are mad as hell they are about to be stuck with another boring, moderate, uninspiring choice that has at best a 50/50 shot at losing to the worst president since Carter. They are flocking to Newt not because they think he’s a great guy, but because right now, he’s the only one fighting for conservatism and GOP voters are looking for a vessel to channel their anger with Obama and their complete disappointment with the GOP establishment which is now embodied perfectly by Romney. They want a conservative fighter because most conservatives look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain and see only the ones taking a conservative path against the Democrats actually winning.

Eric Erickson, Newt Gingrich Wins. What It Means. Red State, 21 Jan. 2012

Newt Gingrich just won the South Carolina primary running away, 40% to Romney's 28%. The exit polls explaining Gingrich's win are a gold mine of data for both Gingrich and Romney going forward.

Gingrich:

The exit polls, shown here and excerpted in relevant part in the post below, show that Newt won virtually every demographic and on virtually every major issue. He won across all income levels, including blue collar and white collar types. The numbers show what are Gingrich's winning messages.

Jobs and the Economy:

This was the big issue from the exit polls - critical to 63% of the voters, and Gingrich beat Romney among those voters by 8 points. I found that surprising. What it says is that the electorate responded to Newt's economic experience while in Congress more so than they trusted Romney to be able to translate his business experience into a successful economic plan.

Given the centrality of this issue and the success Gingrich has had with it, Gingrich needs to make this issue number one going forward, not just on the stump, but in a majority of advertisements. He needs to emphasize, at every opportunity, the fact that government does not create jobs, the private sector does. The mission of government is to create a positive playing field for business - and in that, he can legitimately claim that his incredibly successful experience at the federal level is far more significant than Romney's as governor, and of a different nature all together than Romney's private sector experience.

Budget Deficit:

This issue was central to 22% of the voters, and Gingrich crushed Romney among these voters, 45% to 23%. Obviously the fact that Gingrich actually balanced the federal budget during his Speakership weighed heavily on that issue. That said, Romney has pointed out that he balanced the budget as Governor of Massachusetts. What Romney neglects to say - and that Gingrich should be bringing up - is that Mass. law requires a balanced budget. Romney is taking credit for doing nothing more than complying with the law. Gingrich's achievement while as a Speaker was orders of magnitude tougher - a point Gingrich should emphasize.

On The Morality Issues:

Deeply religious and conservative South Carolina has put to rest any questions about whether Gingrich's past moral failings are going to be a drain on him. They aren't. Gingrich captured the vote of women generally (38% to 29%) and of married individuals (41% to 28%) in SC. Moreover, he captured as much of the evangelical vote (44%) as Gov. Huckabee did when he ran in SC in 2008.

Electability:

On the issue of electability, the 45% of SC voters who voted in light of that issue judged Gingrich more electable versus Obama than Romney by 51% to 37%. It seems clear that their decision was based on the debates and Gingrich's willingness to, one, eloquently and passionately burn the race card while defending conservative values (Juan Williams), and two, to take on the press for their bias (John King).

Listening to Fox News tonight, the talking heads who oppose a Gingrich nomination are taking the position that debate performances will matter very little in the general election. In essence, just because Newt is such an effective communicator and defender of conservative values, it has little to do with electability. That is patently false.

Gingrich needs to address this for two reasons. One, this is his single greatest strength. As Eric Erickson notes in the passage quoted at the top of the page, conservatives more than anything else are hungering for a person who can do what Gingrich does. Two, Newt needs to push back against this meme that his communication skills matter only a little. To the contrary, they matter tremendously.

John McCain lost the 2008 election because he ceded the major issues to the Obama narrative. Outrageously, over half the nation still thinks that the subprime crisis was caused by Wall St. greed. Bush failed to reform Social Security because the left was able to demagogue the issue. The Bush presidency was crippled because of Bush's failure to directly challenge the left's despicable campaign to loose the Iraq war. The base understands this. The ability to communicate may well be the single most important skill for any conservative nominee for President today. As Erickson says, look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain, the only ones who have won have been those that unapologetically and vocally embraced conservativism. Newt needs to emphasize precisely that.

Independents

Self-identified independents broke for Gingrich 31% to 25%. It would seem that he doesn't have anywhere near the problem with independents that his critics would like us to believe. There is no real lesson here other than keep doing what he is doing.

Going Negative On Bain

The majority of voters in S.C., 64%, had a positive view of Romney's experience as a venture capitalist with Bain and, of those people, they broke almost evenly between between Gingrich and Romney. As to the 24% of Republicans that had a negative view of Romney's experience as a 'vulture capitalist,' 50% went for Gingrich, 3% went to Romney. Thus it would seem that Newt's going negative on Bain did make a real difference.

That said, I wonder how much of a backlash there may well be later in the campaign if Gingrich keeps up this attack on Bain and, by extension, capitalism. Gingrich has enough strengths, as mentioned above, that he really should lay off the Bain issue.

What Gingrich Can Expect Going Forward

Gingrich has been the subject of the most concerted internal effort to destroy a Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964. With this huge Gingrich win in SC, expect the floodgates to open, making the left's efforts to demonize and delegitimize Sarah Palin in 2008 look like a measured effort in intellectual honesty. This is going to get real ugly real quick. Let's hope that Newt can withstand the inferno in the kitchen.

There is still at least one area in which Newt has yet to be truly pressed and which he needs to be fully prepared to address - the fact that he lost his speakership to a coup after three years. He needs to be prepared to answer that in the upcoming weeks.

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Mitt Romney

Romney collapsed in South Carolina over two issues. One, his horrid answers when asked about releasing his tax returns. He became not merely defensive, but stuttering and rambling over the issue. Clearly he has some worries over this. But the old adage is true - bad news does not improve with age. He needs to release his tax documents immediately or this is an issue that is just going to haunt him.

Two, Romney's campaign can best be described as defend and coast. He has clearly failed to make the case for his candidacy. Claiming divine right to the nomination based on "electability," he has played a defense to this point - just say the right platitudes and bromides and avoid mistakes. For example, for months Romney refused to appear on television talk shows - at least until it became clear that he would face a real challenge from Gingrich.

In probably the most telling example, both Romney and Gingrich have been presented with what they thought were unfair questions from the press. When Bret Baer asked Romney a question he thought unfair, Romney answered it with a forced smile, then waited for the interview to end before coming back to Baer and expressing his displeasure. When Gingrich was asked an unfair question by John King, in full view of the public, he took out a knife, emasculated King and then nailed his testicles to the podium before asking for the next question. Romney needs to quickly figure out that his acts earned the scorn of the base, while Gingrich's earned him a standing ovation and 40% of the vote in South Carolina.

The Economy & Jobs

Romney has been relying on the bald fact of his experience in business to claim that he could best manage the economy. While that by itself might be a winning message against Obama, it did not work in SC against Gingrich, who was part of one of the biggest expansions of jobs in our nation's history. Romney needs to explain why his experience in business would at least make him the equal of Gingrich. A few anecdotes might do the trick. Regardless, if he can't win on this issue, he has deeply serious problems.

Budget Deficit:

Romney is loosing to Gingrich by 22% on this issue. Romney needs to do a much better job articulating how he will reduce the deficit than he is doing. The program he proposes on his website is far more complicated than what Gingrich has proposed, yet Mitt hasn't made a simple, convincing case as to why his plan is more likely to succeed.

Electability

Romney needs to stop claiming inevitability and electability and start concentrating on all of the issues that undergird such claims. Indeed, any such claims in the wake of South Carolina will just be engender laughter.

Going Negative On Gingrich

The problem with hitting somebody unfairly is that, when they can, they strike back. Gingrich didn't have the funding or time to withstand a multi-million dollar negative assault in Iowa. He did in South Carolina and, though he was outspent by Romney 2 to 1, ran away with the primary. Going negative did not work for Romney in 2008, it likely won't work now with Gingrich having the financial muscle to punch back. Romney is going to have to become much more aggressive in explaining why he would make the best President rather than concentrating on why Gingrich shouldn't be.

Going Forward

This election is still Romney's to lose. He has a superior organization built up over four years, he has the largest war chest, and he is not merely the favorite son of Republican elites, but these same elites suffer full blown Gingrich Derangement Syndrome. The next several contests are in areas favorable to Romney, from Florida to Nevada. Nonetheless, if he continues to play defense and expects the nomination to be handed to him, he could yet pull defeat from the jaws of victory. He needs to start earning the nomination.

As to Ron Paul, he came in last place with 13% of the vote.  He is staying in the race just so he can impact on the plank of the Republican Convention. Santorum, who earned 17% of the vote, is in the race at least through Florida, though another low showing will likely see him exiting the race just because of a lack of funds. That is, he would be forced out unless some of Romney's money men prop him up to keep in the race and draining votes from Gingrich. I would not be overly surprised to see that.

Linked:  Larwyn's Linx

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And The Winner Is . . . Newt Gingrich - Including Among Women, Independents & Those Voting On Electability

The polls are closed in South Carolina and the last kazoo has sounded. Fox projected the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary to be Newt Gingrich as soon as the polls ended. Update: The final tally is Gingrich 41%, Romney 27%, Santorum 17%, Paul 13%.

Just the fact of Gingrich's win puts a huge dent in the aura of inevitability Mitt Romney has attempted to paint since the start of the race. But it is the exit polls that are truly eye opening.

According to conventional wisdom, Romney is best suited to beat Obama, Gingrich is toast among women voters because of his past affairs, and Gingrich can't appeal to independent voters. The exit polls shred the conventional wisdom and, given that Gingrich won in virtually every possible demographic, ought to be giving the Romney camp nightmares.  This from the exit polls:

Women  voters:  Gingrich 38%, Romney 29%

Independents:  Gingrich 31%, Romney 25%

Very Conservative:  Gingrich 47%, Romney 19%

Somewhat Conservative:  Gingrich 41%, Romney 30%

Moderate to Liberal:  Gingrich 31%, Romney 34%

Age 18-29:  Gingrich 27%, Romney 16%

Age 30-44:  Gingrich 37%, Romney 19%

Age 35-64:  Gingrich 40%, Romney 28%

Age 65 and up:  Gingrich 47%, Romney 36%

Evangelicals:  Gingrich 45%, Romney 25%

Tea Party Supporters:  Gingrich 45%, Romney 25%

Income less than $50k:  Gingrich 40%, Romney 24%

Income $50k to $100k:  Gingrich 40%, Romney 24%

Income over $100k:  Gingrich 38%, Romney 34%

With a College Degree:  Gingrich 37%, Romney 31%

Without a College Degree:  Gingrich 42%, Romney 24%

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Issues that mattered most:

Abortion:  Gingrich 27%, Romney 6%

Budget Deficit:  Gingrich 44%, Romney 23%

Economy:  Gingrich 40%, Romney 32%

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Candidate Can Beat Barack Obama: Gingrich 51%, Romney 37%

Candidate is a True Conservative:  Gingrich 37%, Romney 2%

Candidate Has The Right Experience:  Gingrich 49%, Romney 34%

Candidate Has Strong Moral Character:  Gingrich 6%, Romney 19%

It is of note that Romney came into the SC primary with a 16 point lead ten days ago. He also outspent Gingrich by at least two to one on advertising in South Carolina. And yet . . .
 
Check back. I will be updating this post with an analysis of the issues Gingrich's victory raises tonight in the run for the Republican Presidential nomination.

A quick parting thought. How would you like to own the Malox concession near NRO headquarters at the moment. And a parting question, who do you think is drinking more scotch or popping more valium tonight, George Will, John Hinderaker, Jennifer Rubin, Ann Coulter or Kathleen Parker?

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SC Debate 2.0

The two big moments of the debate belonged to Newt Gingrich. For a second time in two debates, Newt got a standing O. Tonight's was in response to the first question of the night, when the CNN moderator John King asked Newt to respond to his ex-wife's allegations that 14 years ago, he asked her to engage in an open marriage. It has got to be a candidate for the ultimate debate smackdown - perhaps now as pithy as "I knew Jack Kennedy, and you, sir, are no Jack Kennedy or as brilliantly humorous as "I will not hold my opponents youth and inexperience against him" - but equally as devastating.



The second big moment for Newt - probably in my eyes but few others' - was proof that he actually may know when to shut up. I don't have the video, but will post it when I can find it. The moderator asked Gingrich in essence to justify the charges in a recent mailing regarding Romney's weak kneed history on abortion. Gingrich did so, pointing out things that Romney had done that favored abortion after Romney's Paul of Tarsus moment on the issue. Romney responded in a huff, at which point the moderator went back to Gingrich for a counter rebuttal. Gingrich's response: "I cede my time to Governor Santorum." Heh. It was a pitch perfect moment, allowing Santorum to do all of the dirty work of really attacking Romney on the issue.

The candidates traded barbs all night, none of which I thought were too devestating. That said, the low point of the evening was yet another self inflicted wound by Romney, when he was heckled for trying to tap dance around why he didn't release his tax records in advance of the SC primary vote.



From Hot Air: "Exit quotation from Jonah Goldberg: “Romney can’t answer questions about his tax returns at all… He’s terrible at it and he needs to get better, quickly.”

The general feeling of the few sites I looked at was that Gingrich won the debate (here, here, here). We will see if SC agrees on Saturday.

I will say in conclusion that Newt was just ever so slightly off his game tonight, at least after the first question. In particular, he missed some real opportunities to make his case more forcefully. The one that struck me most was when Santorum accused Newt of grandiosity, implying that Newt would be too impractical to be President. Gingrich fended it off, but what he should have pointed out are that the problems facing the U.S. are themselves grand in stature today. Our regulatory bureaucracy - built up over 100 years - has become an anti-democratic nightmare that threatens the whole economy.  It needs to be reformed completely.  Our debt is about to choke us and the welfare state is going to bankrupt our country in the foreseeable future. Obamacare, Obama's war on energy, and the fact that the left has the keys to the courthouse on all environmental issues threaten the very foundation of our nation. The Arab Spring is turning into a nightmare throughout the Middle East, and there is Iran, playing the role of Germany circa 1937. Small solutions that move the bar just a bit are not going to solve these problems. But alas, Gingrich only alluded to that. It was one of several missed opportunities.

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Another Poor Debate Compliments Of ABC

I said it the last time ABC hosted the Republican debate, and I'll say it again - the Republican candidates should never agree to a debate hosted by George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer.  Last night's debate was another mini-travesty with the moderators asking utterly inane questions seemingly right out of the Democratic playbook.  The worst of the bunch was whether states have a right to ban contraception.  As Romney pointed out ten times to Stephanopoulos, that is not an issue any state has raised.  Then there was another 15 minutes spent on gay marriage - an issue in which the candidates have not an inch of space between their positions.  The only reason to dwell on it in a Republican debate was to prime the left wing pump for the general election.

Romney got through the debate without being seriously challenged by any of the candidates.  Newt hinted at a challenge, but could have been much more aggressive in comparing and contrasting his economic plan with Romney's, as well as his experience in creating the conditions for job growth.  At this point though, it might all be academic.  Michael Barone is calling it for Romney.  I will hold my breath until South Carolina.

As always in the debates, the best lines of the night came from Gingrich.  Chief among those was his response on the gay marriage issue - refusing to take the Stephanopoulos bait:

       

Even two of the most despicable pundits on the right, Coulter and Rubin, applauded Newt for that answer on twitter.  I can only guess that they feel Newt's candidacy is already mortally wounded, and thus it is safe now to show a bit of magnanimity.  If Newt was leading, I would expect the two of them to be banging the drum on how Newt's performance was dismal and how Romney shined.  They are a disgraceful pair.

Ron Paul was Ron Paul, taking shots at Santorum and Gingrich, though surprisingly not really taking any shots at Romney.  If you were not for Paul before the debate, nothing he said is likely to change your mind.

Santorum got asked a lot of questions and didn't fumble any of them.  My sense was that he neither helped nor hurt himself tonight.

As an aside, let me point out that I do not support Santorum for the nomination.  Indeed, I rank him just above Ron Paul.  My problems with Santorum are two fold.  One, he lacks charisma and seems humorless.  Two, my sense is that he is committed to social conservatism the way the far left is committed to progressivism.  He would push to ensconce his views into law without respect to federalism or majority views, as the far left has done with their own ideology over the past fifty years.  While I am a social conservative, I am a Constitutionalist first.  I do not think that Santorum is.  

Huntsman and Perry did not get asked many questions.  I can't see them staying in the race beyond South Carolina.

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The Virginia Republican Massacre - The Plot Thickens

I blogged here on the decision of the Virginia State Board of Elections to certify Ron Paul and Mitt Romney for the ballot in the Va. Republican Primary, but to exclude Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich on the grounds that their submissions, both of which were in excess of 11,000 raw signatures, did not meet the requirement of 10,000 valid signatures. Neither Ron Paul's submissions nor Mitt Romney's, both over 15,000, were subject to any review. Funny that. We learn more on this today from Moe Lane.

Prior to November, 2012, any Republican turning in over 10,000 raw signatures was considered to have met the Virginia state requirements for inclusion on the ballot. At some point in November, the State Board of Elections made a change to their internal rules. The minimum number of required signatures was kept at 10,000 but the Board decided that the cut-off for automatic qualification would be changed to 15,000. Ostensibly, this was done in response to a law suit against the Election Board that is unrelated to the Republican primary. Moe Lane adds:

As for the implications… well, I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent thepractical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign. The VA GOP still retains ultimate control over who gets on the ballot, of course. But then, they always have – and under the current system they could in fact brazen it out and certify Gingrich and Perry anyway. Of course, that would probably mean another lawsuit anyway; but then, there really isn’t a path out of here that doesn’t involve lawsuits.

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The Virginia Republican Massacre

Just what the hell is going on in Virgina? As it stands now, the ONLY people on the Republican ballots for the Super Tuesday primary will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been disqualified from the Virginia primary ballot. This is the death of democracy by bureaucratic chainsaw massacre. "Virginia’s 49 delegates, handed out proportionally based on election results, make up more than 10 percent of the 475 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday." The ultimate effect of this could be to give Romney, who was not leading in Virginia polls, a huge and unfair boost towards winning the Republican nomination. This stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich provided signed petitions of over 10,000 people in order to be included on the Virginia ballot. I will assume for this post that they complied with the additional specification that at least 400 of the petitions came from each of Virginia's 11 Congressional districts. Yet in the past 12 hours, the three member Virginia Board of Elections, chaired by Charles Judd, with Kimberly Bowers as Vice Chair and Don Palmer as Secretary, has ruled that neither Perry nor Gingrich presented enough valid petitions to qualify for the ballot. They have not announced any of the specifics underlying their decision.

None of the other third tier candidates, Huntsman, Bachman or Santorum, bothered to turn in petitions before the deadline. Thus their failure to be on the ballot is not at issue. But in the space of a few hours, reviewing the combined 23,000 plus petitions of Perry and Gingrich, both get the axe? This stinks to high heaven. It is time for some enterprising reporters to give a full rectal exam to Mssrs. Judd, Bowers and Palmer as well as taking an electron microscope to the reasoning behind the axing of both Perry and Gingrich. I want to see the hanging chads.

Update: So indeed it does appear that there is much more to this story. Moe Lane has the story here. Prior to November, any candidate who turned in 10,000 signatures on a petition was deemed to have met the requirements without further checking. An internal change to the rules in November kept the 10,000 signature requirement, but made the cut-off for checking the signatures for validity 15,000. Indeed, neither the Romney nor the Paul campaign were subject to any review of their signatures, nor have they requested such a review. As Moe comments:

I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent the practical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign.

I say again, this stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

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The War On Religion: Mark Steyn, Ron Paul & Congress

Mark Steyn weighs in on modern Christmas traditions, the fear of even religious institutions to proclaim their faith out of fear of litigation, and what it all means:

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions:

The sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular "holiday" tree.

The ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman.

The familiar strains of every hack columnist's "war on Christmas" column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing "Winter Wonderland" ...

This year has been a choice year. A crucified skeleton Santa Claus was erected as part of the "holiday" display outside the Loudoun County courthouse in Virginia — because, let's face it, nothing cheers the hearts of moppets in the Old Dominion like telling them, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus — and he's hanging lifeless in the town square."

Alas, a week ago, some local burghers failed to get into the ecumenical spirit and decapitated him. Who are these killjoys? Christians intolerant of the First Amendment (as some have suggested)? Or perhaps a passing Saudi? . . . .

Across the fruitcaked plain in California, the city of Santa Monica allocated permits for "holiday" displays at Palisades Park by means of lottery. Eighteen of the 21 slots went to atheists — for example, the slogan "37 million Americans know a myth when they see one" over portraits of Jesus, Santa, and Satan.

. . . Perhaps Santa Monica should adopt a less theocratic moniker and change its name to Satan Monica, as its interpretation of the separation of church and state seems to have evolved into expressions of public contempt for large numbers of the citizenry augmented by the traumatizing of their children.

Boy, I can't wait to see what those courageous atheists come up with for Ramadan. Or does that set their hearts a-flutter quite as much?

One sympathizes, up to a point. As America degenerates from a land of laws to a land of legalisms, much of life is devoted to forestalling litigation. What's less understandable is the faintheartedness of explicitly Christian institutions. . . .

When an explicitly Catholic institution thinks the meaning of Christmas is "tenderness for the past, vapid generalities for the present, evasive abstractions for the future," it's pretty much over. Suffering no such urge to self-abasement, Muslim students at the Catholic University of America in Washington recently filed a complaint over the lack of Islamic prayer rooms on the campus. They find it offensive to have to pray surrounded by Christian symbols such as crucifixes and paintings of distinguished theologians.

True, this thought might have occurred to them before they applied to an institution called "Catholic University." On the other hand, it's surely not unreasonable for them to have expected Catholic University to muster no more than the nominal rump Christianity of that Catholic college in New England. Why wouldn't you demand Muslim prayer rooms?

As much as belligerent atheists, belligerent Muslims reckon that a decade or so hence "Catholic colleges" will be Catholic mainly in the sense that Istanbul's Hagia Sophia is still a cathedral: that's to say, it's a museum, a heritage site for where once was a believing church. And who could object to the embalming of our inheritance?

Christmas is all about "tenderness for the past," right? When Christian college administrators are sending out cards saying "We believe in nothing", why wouldn't you take them at their word?

Which brings us back in this season of joy to the Republican presidential debates, the European debt crisis and all the other fun stuff. The crisis afflicting the West is not primarily one of unsustainable debt and spending. These are mere symptoms of a deeper identity crisis.

It is not necessary to be a believing Christian to be unnerved by the ease and speed with which we have cast off our inheritance and trampled it into the dust. When American municipalities are proudly displaying the execution of skeleton Santas and giant Satans on public property, it may just be a heartening exercise of the First Amendment, it may be a trivial example of the narcissism of moral frivolity.

Or it could be a sign that eventually societies become too stupid to survive. The fellows building the post-western world figure they know which it is.

And then there is this worthy essay on the topic from Ron Paul in 2003.

As we celebrate another Yuletide season, it's hard not to notice that Christmas in America simply doesn't feel the same anymore. Although an overwhelming majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, and those who don't celebrate it overwhelmingly accept and respect our nation's Christmas traditions, a certain shared public sentiment slowly has disappeared. The Christmas spirit, marked by a wonderful feeling of goodwill among men, is in danger of being lost in the ongoing war against religion.

Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view. The justification is always that someone, somewhere, might possibly be offended or feel uncomfortable living in the midst of a largely Christian society, so all must yield to the fragile sensibilities of the few. The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

This growing bias explains why many of our wonderful Christmas traditions have been lost. Christmas pageants and plays, including Handel's Messiah, have been banned from schools and community halls. Nativity scenes have been ordered removed from town squares, and even criticized as offensive when placed on private church lawns. Office Christmas parties have become taboo, replaced by colorless seasonal parties to ensure no employees feel threatened by a “hostile environment.” Even wholly non-religious decorations featuring Santa Claus, snowmen, and the like have been called into question as Christmas symbols that might cause discomfort. Earlier this month, firemen near Chicago reluctantly removed Christmas decorations from their firehouse after a complaint by some embittered busybody.

Most noticeably, however, the once commonplace refrain of “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by the vague, ubiquitous “Happy Holidays.” But what holiday? Is Christmas some kind of secret, a word that cannot be uttered in public? Why have we allowed the secularists to intimidate us into downplaying our most cherished and meaningful Christian celebration?

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation's history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people's allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation's Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

The war on religion is perhaps best captured this year by the fact that our elected Representatives in Congress have been advised by the Congressional Franking Comission that they cannot send out greeting cards to constituents on the Congressional dime that say "Merry Christmas."

The Supreme Court has so moved us from the true meaning of the First Amendment's anti-establishment clause that every one of the Founders - even the deist Thomas Jefferson - would be horrified at what has become of Christianity in the public sphere today. It is a travesty that is having a profound and lasting effect on our nation - and none of it is good. For a much more in depth explanation, please see the speech of James Buckley here.

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Fox Iowa Debate Recap

Overall -

This was a good debate, though Fox should take note of the format used by CNN.  We learn much more from the candidates when they have more than a minute to make their point.  There was no clear winner.  Romey and Perry both had very good performances.  Gingrich had highs and a low.  Bachman was throwing bombs and did poorly.  Ron Paul's answers should disqualify him with all but the remaining Ron Paul zealots.  Santorum and Huntsman gave good answers, but not enough to make big moves in the polls.

Gingrich -

He had the biggest applause lines of the night when talking about the UN, the Keystone Pipeline, and liberal judges altering the Constitution.  His weakest moment of the night came when Michelle Bachman kept harping on his work for Freddie Mac, characterizing his work as lobbying simply because he took a paycheck from Freddie.  Newt's answer was not strong.  Overall, I don't know if he helped or hurt himself - or a little of both with different constituencies.

Romney -

He had a very good debate, with his strongest answer coming when asked to defend his record at Bain capital, where he bankrupted several companies and laid off workers.  Romney responded that he did nothing more or less than what Obama did when he took over the running of GM.  He had no major weak moments, but the claim that he has "always been a conservative," holding the same opinions, was risible.  Fortunately for him, only Santorum attacked him for that.  Overall, he helped himself.

Bachman -

I dislike this woman more each time I see her.  She is not dumb, but she is one of those who, it seems to me, adopts the "conservative" view on every issue without having thought through the issue.  That and she is a bomb thrower who plays fast and loose with facts, willingly contorting facts to make her points.  She may have done herself some good tonight, but if so, I didn't see it.  She really is the Nancy Pelosi of the Republican side, and her voice is starting to effect me like fingernails scraped across a chalkboard..

Paul -

Fox nicely offered Paul a chance to push the self-destruct button.  Paul began hitting that button like it owed him money.  Paul's answers on Iran and his charge that America was responsible over 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths should put a stake in his campaign for all but the most zealous of the Pauline zealots.  

Perry -

He had another good debate, with his best moment coming when he compared his evolution of his debating skills with the evolution of Tim Tebow.  He also had another "Gingrich" moment when he came to Gingrich's defense over the question of whether Gingrich had "lobbied" for Freddie Mac.  Perry helped himself, but I think it is just too late for him to make a comeback.

Santorum -

He had good answers, as always, but he always seems a bit angry and lacks the buoyancy of Gingrich or, for that matter, Romney or Paul.  It is why I think his campaign never caught on.

Huntsman -

 Like Santorum, he had good answers, but nothing outstanding.  His decision to position himself from the start of his campaign as the moderate in the middle has left him as an asterisk in the primary.  Nothing that he did in the debate is likely to move him in the polls.

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ABC's Hosts A Circular Firing Squad - Only Romey Hit

The ABC Republican Debate, billed as a debate on domestic and foreign policy, was turned by the moderators George Stephenopolous and Diane Sawyer into a circular firing squad with Gingrich in the middle. The evening resembled an ambush more than a debate, with most of the questions explicitly designed to require the candidates to take shots at Gingrich. That said, the consensus of 20,000 plus viewers responding to the debate from Yahoo as well as the analysts of the ABC News crew was that Gingrich had done well to the point of solidifying a position as the presumptive nominee, Bachman helped herself to a degree, and Romney hurt himself, perhaps badly. I concur, though I would add that Ron Paul gave some very good answers, as did Rick Perry.

The Debate Overview:

As surprisingly good as CNN's debate was several weeks ago, ABC's debate was that surprisingly horrendous. This was not a debate where the candidates were asked to explain policy and make a positive case for why they should be nominated. Two of the questions asked give a flavor for the degree to which this was an ambush aimed largely at Gingrich. On the issue of Faith, the sole question asked was:

Should voters consider marital fidelity when making their choices for President?"

Ready, Aim for the Newt, Fire!!! Almost as bad, on the issue of "foreign policy," the only question asked was:

Speaker Gingrich managed to cause something of a stir overnight in the Middle East with comments he made in an interview on a Jewish channel in which he called the Palestinians an "invented people." And I just wondered, Congressman Paul, if I can start with you, do you agree with that characterization . . .?

The Debate Highlights:

Every candidate had some good moments during the evening, despite the way in which the "debate" was conducted by ABC. The three best were (in my humble opinion):

1. Ron Paul: While discussing the healthcare mandate, stated "Once government uses force to mold behavior or mold the economy, they've overstepped the bounds and violated the whole concept of our revolution and our Constitution." That drew much applause.

2. Rick Perry: When asked to pile on about how bad Newt was for saying that the Palestinians were an invented people, went Gingrich on the moderators, saying that "this is a minor issue that the media has blown out of proportion." He then went on to discuss the foreign policy missteps of the Obama administration, concluding that "this President is the problem, not something Newt Gingrich said."

3. Newt Gingrich: After being called out by Romney for being a career politician, Gingrich responded to Romney, "[l]et's be candid the only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994."

The Debate Lowlights (mostly, the Romney reel):

1. The worst answer of the night came from Romney in response to the "foreign policy" question, asking the candidates to criticize Gingrich for calling the Palestinians an "invented people." To begin with, Gingrich's statement was accurate (see here and here), and when finally asked by the moderators, Gingrich defended his statement on the need to be honest about what is going on in the Muslim world (see video at the bottom of this post). Romney took the position that, as a matter of policy, we shouldn't be saying anything to make the Muslims angry, whether its true or not. He added the caveat that we could speak the truth on such issues only if we cleared it with Israel first.

The problem is much bigger than Palestine and Israel - that is just a proxy for the larger struggle. Gingrich fully understands that. Whitewashing the problems of the Muslim world, even as Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood ascend to power, is the precise opposite of what our President needs to be doing. To the contrary, our next President needs to be shining a Xenon searchlight on reality, otherwise Salafism will continue to metastasise throughout the world and the cost to America in blood and gold to fight this scourge will rise exponentially. Romney's answer was profoundly weak and it is clear that he has neither any real understanding of the problem, nor the fortitude to address it openly and honestly.

2. On the issue of "faith," Rick Perry opined that any person who would commit adultery could never be trusted. It was a pretty unseemly display of naked ambition, particularly coming from a man running in large measure on being deeply pious. Apparently, all that Christian dogma about forgiving the sins of the repentant has been suspended by the Perry camp until the conclusion of the Republican primary.

3. Romney had his Pawlenty moment responding to the question, "what (positive) things have you learned from your challengers?" Romney didn't answer the question directly, but rather waxed poetically - and transparetnly - about how important leadership was, and that each candidate has a different leadership style. He stopped there. Anyone who is paying attention knows that Romney is having every one of his surrogates attack Gingrich with the meme that Gingrich has poor leadership. Fair enough, but then Romney stops short of coming out with that himself. Wow. Did this joker have his cajones snipped or what?

4. At one point during the debate, Perry repeated for the umpteenth time the canard that Romney embraced the individual mandate in his first book as a national plan. Romney turned to him, said that Perry was wrong, and then offered to bet him "$10,000" on it. My sympathies lie with Romney on that one, but apparently the many people interacting through Yahoo saw it as a huge negative. This from Yahoo:

When we asked viewers, "Did you like seeing Mitt Romney ask Rick Perry to accept a $10,000 wager?," just 33 percent of the first 1,200 people who responded people answered "yes." By the time the question closed at 11 p.m. with just over 25,000 votes, 70 percent of Yahoo! watchers said "no," they did not like the wager.

NPR politics editor Neal Carruth commented on Twitter: "Suspect the $10,000 bet will remind people of this photo." The picture, from the Romney's days at Bain Capital, shows the candidate and his colleagues gleefully posing with money. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of the National Review, tweeted, "Memo to Romney: Please don't now say that proceeds from $10,000 bet would have gone to charity."

 The Debate Oddities:

1. There was a heap of pandering going on in Iowa. Gingrich made a point of calling the Iowa governor a role model, Bachman reminded us several times that she was born in Iowa, and Rick Santorum tried to work in the names of all of the 99 counties he's visited.

2. Michelle Bachman is trying to pick up the Cain supporters, repeatedly stating that she had renamed her economic plan "win win win" in honor of the Hermanator. I do like her, but she is just a little off center. She is sort of the conservative version of Nancy Pelosi, only a lot less psychotic.

Parting Thoughts:

1. Gingrich was under constant attack, but he responded to each attack effectively with deft answers and equanimity. Anyone who hoped to see Gingrich implode at some point between now and the elections must be disheartened indeed. The ABC news team thought that Newt Gingrich came out of the debate as the "inevitable nominee." I concur.

2. No Republican nominee should consider doing a debate in the general election hosted by ABC News. Their performance was horrid and designed to hurt the Republicans.

Update: Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection posts his comments on the debate here. The Prof. also has a separate post with several videos, two of which I have included below.

This first video is Newt defending his comment that Palestinians are an "invented people" (replaced with the full video on this question)



This second video is of Perry "going Newt" on the moderators for asking the question whether the other nominees agreed with Newt's characterization of the Palestinians as an "invented people."



Do visit Legal Insurrection for the rest of the videos and some interesting tweet captures.

The Coffee Shop is the first blog to have the full debate video posted. You'll find it here.

Other Debate Commentary:

Politico: Republican Debate In Iowa; Newt Gingrich Unbloodied, Unbowed

Real Clear Politics: Free-for-All Iowa Debate Highlights Fluid Race

LAT: Mitt Romney's $10,000 Bet Could Come Back To Haunt Him

WaPo: Iowa Republican Debate: Winners and Losers

Dave Weigel at Slate has written a column, The Iowa Debate: Newt Wins The Dress Rehearsal. In it, he identifies the "foreign policy" question as the moment Newt won the debate. I concur. This from Weigel:

[Gingrich's] last full-on grapple with Romney came when the former governor attacked him, in a sort of more-in-sorrow-than-anger way, for saying that the Palestinians were an "invented people." That, said Romney, was complicating things for Israelis.

"The Israelis are getting rocketed every day," snorted Gingrich. "We're not making life more difficult. The Obama administration is making life more difficult." Plus, he was right on the facts. "Palestinian did not become a common term until after 1977." That's the sort of knowledge-bomb that Republicans dream of dropping on Obama—they feel like this is right, but here's a candidate who can say so.

And then Gingrich closed the loop.

"I'm a Reaganite," he said. "I'm proud to be a Reaganite. Even at the point of causing some confusion with the timid."

Who was "the timid?" Whoever viewers thought it should be. Obama. Romney. The media. All of them, as far as they're concerned, would lose in a showdown with Newt Gingrich. And this is how he won the debate.

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Handicapping The Race

Looking at the Republican potential / declared candidates for President in 2012, here is how I see their chances:

3 to 1 - Paul Ryan: The economy is the single most important issue facing our nation going into 2012. Ryan understands the economics of our government the way few do - and he can explain the economics, albeit a bit woodenly. Most importantly, he has had the intellectual honesty and huevos grande to go where few politicians dare tread, proposing specific reforms to our entitlement boondoggles. Negatives - he says he won't run.
Ability to beat Obama: 54 to 46.

5 to 1 - Chris Christie: His winning wars with the unions and the democratic legislature in NJ have been the stuff of youtube gold. He is articulate and doesn't back down an inch. His ability to communicate is the best of any politician on either side of the aisle.
Negatives - He says he won't run. He wants to keep NJ pensions as defined benefit plans. Lastly, he seems to have RINO tendencies on issues such as gun control, as well as zero understanding of the threat we face from political Islam.
Ability to beat Obama: 53 to 47.

6 to 1 - Mitch Daniels: Daniels too understands economics, having served as Director of OMB. As a two-term Gov. of Indiana, Daniels has taken Indiana from a significant deficit to fiscal sanity. His first day as Gov., Daniels decertified all government employee unions by executive order and did away with the requirement that State employees pay mandatory union dues. In 2008, he passed laws creating a statewide school voucher program and merit pay for teachers. He also oversaw passage of laws penalizing companies who employed illegal aliens as well as denying illegal aliens in-state tuition.
Negatives: His earlier call for a truce on social issues has left SoCon's leery. Moreover, one of his first acts as Gov. was to submit a fiscal plan that called for tax increases. Lastly, he is still playing coy, promising to decide on whether to enter the race "soon."
Ability to beat Obama: 53 to 47.


8 to 1 - Mitt Romney: He is a well known quantity from the 2008 election. He was a very successful businessman and a former governor of bluest of blue Mass. He will likely be able to raise a huge warchest. And lastly, he is the "next man in line," which seems to be the way Republicans choose their nominees.
Negatives: Romneycare, Romneycare, Romneycare. Did I mention Romneycare.
Ability to beat Obama: 51 to 49.

10 - 1 Michelle Bachman: She is still a bit of a mystery to me. She has embraced the tea party and taken strong positions on social issues, leading others more knowledgeable about her than I to say that she has the SoCon vote largely sewn up. I have not heard her debate anyone yet. I do know that she has very strong money raising potential.
Negatives: She has already gotten a bit of the Sarah Palin treatment from the media, claiming that she is an intellectual light weight. If she does well in debates, she could easily move up the ladder.
Ability to beat Obama: 50 to 50.

10 - 1 Herman Cain: An extremely successful businessman and an arch-conservative talk show host. He is likable, well spoken and has the best business bona fides of anyone in the race. He is able to think quickly on his feet and is very knowledgeable about all of the major political issues.
Negatives: No experience in government. His health is also a concern.
Ability to beat Obama: 50 to 50.

15 - 1 - Sarah Palin: She is the most well known of all the potential candidates. She is intelligent, articulate and beautiful. But having been the subject of the most relentless leftwing media jihad in our nations history, she is a wild card. If she enters the race, and she might, I could easily see her placing second, if not first.
Negatives - She has already been successfully labled by the left as an intellectual lightweight. She would have to overcome that label and overcome questions regarding her decision to resign from the governorship of Alaska.
Ability to beat Obama: 49 to 51.

15 - 1 - Jeb Bush: He is the Bush that his family thought would be President. By all accounts, he did an excellent job as Gov. of Florida, making positive changes in the areas of education, medical malpractice and Medicare.
Negatives: He has indicated that he will likely not run. And of course, his last name is Bush - a liability for probably the next 4 to 6 years.
Ability to beat Obama: 49 to 51.

100 - 1 - Jon Huntsman: One of the key issues facing us is the left's insane push to treat carbon as a pollutant, with all the ramifications that has for our economy. A few days ago, Huntsman said he believes in man-made global warming. Moreover, while he was Gov. of Utah, he embraced the stimulus.
Negatives: I don't see much positive about Huntsman at this point.
Ability to beat Obama: 47 to 53.

999 to 1 - Ron Paul: From an uber-isolationist foreign policy to his embrace of the gold standard, Ron Paul is the Republican's crazy uncle.
Ability to beat Obama: 30 to 70.

1,000,000 to 1 - Chuck Schumer: I list Schumer simply to put the chances of Newt Gingrich in perspective.
Ability to beat Obama: 0.

1,000,001 to 1 - Newt Gingrich: Having gone on the Sunday talk shows and played Russian roulette with all chambers filled, Gingrich has destroyed any possible chance of winning the nomination for Republican candidate for the Presidency. But all is not lost. He could still mount a primary challenge to Obama.
Ability to beat Obama: 0

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A Tale Of Two Conservative Parties: Part 2 - The US

As I wrote in a companion post below:

At a time when the left has swung the pendulum hard to the left in both the UK and the US, at a time when the electorate of both US and UK appears poised for a massive move to the right, the "conservative" parties - the Tories in the UK, the Republicans in the U.S. - seem far from up to the task. When we need Churchill and Reagan, we instead have leaders in the mold of Clement Attlee and Herbert Hoover. The problem is particularly acute in the UK.

In the post below, I address the problems of the UK and its "conservative party." By comparison, our problems in the U.S. are not as dire as those of Britain's, largely because our democracy is much more representative than is their's. Yet in some ways, our problems are not dissimilar. In both countries, the left has pushed our nation's so far to the left that the economies and the very fabric of our societies are threatened. Further, today, neither in the UK nor in the U.S. is there a sufficiently strong leader on the right to stem the tide. For the UK, four weeks from their next election, that fact is disastrous. For we in the U.S., it is not yet at that point given that we are about two years out from having to decide who will be the Republican nominee. Yet the problems that they will face will be every bit as daunting as those faced in the UK:

- Between massive deficit spending and out of control entitlement programs, our economy is approaching a potentially existential crisis:

The U.S. government has $12.5 trillion of funded debt, almost 90% of last year’s GDP. That is a critical level according to Reinhart and Rogoff based on their 800-year study of sovereign bankruptcies. Serious, funded debt is not the major problem. Unfunded entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) are. These are estimated to be $106 trillion.

And still Obama continues a world record spending spree.

- the left wars on business (non-union businesses, at least) and the profit motive. Given the Obama plan to let many of the Bush era tax cuts expire and given the murmurings about a VAT tax, it appears that Obama's next grand act will be an attempt to tax us into prosperity.

- the war on business has resulted in persistent and staggering unemployment in America. "The U-6 unemployment number . . . is at 17.5%, within 0.5% of its all-time high. This figure includes discouraged workers who've stopped looking, marginally attached workers, and workers that are forced to work part-time because full-time jobs are not available."

- the enactment of Obamacare portends to only worsen our fiscal crisis while doing nothing to alleviate the severe crises posed by are already existing entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare, Medicade and S-CHIP to name but a few.

- Public sector unions, only allowed in America since the days of JFK, are a toxin in America. They have perverse incentives to push for bigger government and higher taxes and they operate unchecked by market forces. They degrade performance in every aspect of the government where they exist and are a particular problem in education. The average public sector union worker now makes significantly more than their private sector counterparts - and they are destroying state and local economies with massive unfunded pension liabilities.

- Regulatory burdens, particularly in the area of environmentalism where the left has handed the keys to the courthouse to the radical greens, with untold costs to our economy. Moreover, in a move that bypasses Congressional refusal to enact cap and trade, the EPA recently announced that they will begin regulating carbon - in what portends to be a significant cost to our economy.

- Proposed regulatory changes to our financial structure that will place significantly greater racially charged lending standards on our financial institutions, despite the fact that this same degradation of lending standards led in large part to our current financial meltdown.

- The removing of any caps on the liability that will be underwritten by the U.S. government from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

- The left continues to feed the race baiting industry beyond long after we passed any rational justification. It is time to bring an end to affirmative action as well as any and all use of the disparate impact theory to punish entities for racism despite no evidence of any act of racism. It should be noted that Obama wants to expand the disparate impact theory as part of the new financial regulations.

- our Courts are regularly legislating from the bench, reinterpreting Constitutional provisions in a manner far outside of the original intent of the drafters to bypass the ballot box on contentious social issues, ripping at the fabric of our nation. We could really use a Constitutional Amendment on this issue to provide some guidance to the Courts on how to execute their Article III duties.

All of the above are simply domestic problems - and the last two our my own issues that are not as pressing as the rest, but that do need to be addressed as part of a radical reorientation of our domestic polity. None of this even begins to touch upon the problems Obama and the left are causing in foreign policy.

Whoever is to tackle all of these problems in a decisive manner will have to be highly intelligent, articulate, and sufficiently driven by internalized conservative idealism to withstand the type of massive assault in the left wing MSM that will come with applying conservative solutions to the above problems - many of which will of necessity mean reorienting America away from the left wing path it has been on since at least FDR. Moreover, we are going to need a reorientation that has as its absolute focus the growth of businesses of all size - we are in a hole where the only answer to both our deficit and our undemployment problem is to grow ourselves out of both. Do we have a leader that strong on the horizon to accomplish all of these things?

Perhaps we do. I think New Gingrich fits that bill. I would also watch closely Paul Ryan and Chris Christie. I think all others are a level below these three in intellect, if not also in the intestinal fortitude needed to lead the type of radical reorientation our nation needs to survive, let alone to remain as first among equals.

Newt Gingrich - He is an absolutely brilliant man and a highly articulate speaker. Compliments of the MSM smear machine in the 1990's, many in the left and center have negative views of Gingrich, though it is doubtful those general views are today sufficiently strongly held to disqualify him from making a run. Of all the potential candidates, I would think him most qualified and the most likely to be able to address the many problems of our country itemized above.

Paul Ryan - I do not know enough about him yet to put a gold star next to his name, but his performance during the televised dog and pony shows with Obama have shown him to be articulate and in possession of a first class intellect. It is also notable that he is the only one, of all the Republicans in Congress, to actually publish an alternative to Obamacare. He is one to further evaluate.

Chris Christie - This man impresses ever more on a daily basis. He faces many of the problems in governing New Jersey that our nation faces on a grander scale. He is demonstrating daily a strong intellect and an even more impressive hard as nails approach to the problems of New Jersey. If he succeeds in turning around New Jersey in any cognizant fashion, he will definitely be a person to watch - if not in the 2012 election, then in 2016 and beyond. He has already demonstrated the combativeness and cajones necessary to push through the radical reorientation our country needs and he, unlike George Bush and much of the Republican Party, has also shown a willingness to push back hard against the smears of the left.

Then there are the lessers and the long shots:

Sarah Palin - as much as I like her, I don't see her as sufficiently rounded to make a run for the Presidency. I think her decision to give up her governership not even half way through her term was fatal to a bid for 2012. Perhaps in 2016 she might have a chance.

Mitt Romney - His claim to fame was his economic smarts. But the simple fact is that he designed Obamacare for Massachusetts. Either his economic smarts are vastly over-rated or this man is an incredibly cynical political opportunist. Regardless which, we can afford neither in office beyond 2012, and thus I won't be pulling a lever for him under any circumstances.

Mike Huckabee - his foreign policy views were what turned me against him during the last primary and nothing since has occurred since that would lead me to believe that he has gained strength in that area. That said, I do like his Fox shows.

Ron Paul - I would vote for Obama before I would vote for Paul. He really is a few McNuggets short of a Happy Meal.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty - I do not know enough about him at this point to make a decision on Pawlenty. I have heard him speak a few times and have not walked away with either a positive or negative impression. Perhaps that itself says all that needs to be said.

We will see who rises to the top over the next year. The other critical issue will be gaining conservatives in sufficient numbers in Congress. At any point in my lifetime, I would not have thought that possible. But today, given the path to the far left Obama is pushing us and the strength of the Tea Party movement - I now think it very possible.

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CPAC's Folly

This year's attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) voted in their straw poll as to whom they would like to see elected President. The winner this year - libertarian (not conservative) Ron Paul. My assessment of Mr. Paul is that he is off the deep end on a majority of issues - living in every bit as much a fantasy world as those on the far left. The fact that he won the straw poll may not be that meaningful, but by the same token, I am now looking at everything coming out of CPAC with a much more critical eye than in the past. CPAC has definately come down several notches in my estimation. And if a significant number of conservatives do in fact embrace the folly and fantasy of Ron Paul, that bodes very poorly indeed both for the upcoming elections and, more importantly, any chance to right our rapidly sinking ship of state.

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Fred On Fire

Fred Thompson just gave the most commanding performance of any candidate in any debate in the '08 campaign. I liked Thompson for president early on, but thought he took himself out of the running when he did not join the fray on July 4 as originally planned. His campaign looked muddled through September and he never seemed to find his voice.

Until this evening.

He found his voice this evening. He was aggressive, intelligent, and didn't show "fire in the belly" as much as an inferno.

Mike Huckabee was ground zero for a nuclear Fred this eve. Wow. Was that fun to watch. And deserved.

Will Fred get a bounce out of this? I don't know, but I do hope so.

What was not fun to watch was Ron Paul. Somebody put this guy out of my misery. I am waiting for him to conclude with "B'dee, b'dee, b'dee . . . that's all folks." What a looney tune.

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The Huckster & Obama Take Iowa

With 65% of the precincts reporting, Fox News has called Iowa for the Mike Huckabee with 31% of the caucus vote. Romney, who spent a large part of his budget for advertisements in Iowa, is well behind Huckabee in a second place at 23%. Thompson and McCain are in a near tie in third place at about 13% each.

On the Democratic side, its appearing that Obama has taken Iowa with 37%. Clinton and Edwards stand tied at 31%.

I do not see a Huckabee nomination in the cards. Our President's most important job will be foreign policy and, in that arena, Huckabee seems, to put it charitably, naive. Further, his personal ethics are very much in doubt after the incredibly transparent trick of a few days ago, holding a press conference to show attack ads that he then said he would not show. If he ever tried such sophmoric tricks as President, he would absolutely be eaten alive, and rightly so.
Huckabee's defining characteristic among Iowa voters seems to have been that Huckabee is a Christian conservative. Outside the realm of identity politics, Huckabee has nothing of substance to offer.

As to what this means for the Democrats, the aura of inevitabiity has been shattered for Hillary. For far too long, Hillary refused to answer any questions of substance and tried to straddle the fence on all issues, with the apex of these acts comining during a debate when, in answer to a question about NY Gov. Spitzer's driver's licenses for illegals, she made statements that contradicted themselves. She has been too clever by half. Whether she can overcome the storm of losing Iowa is now very much an open question.

In one way at least, I welcome Obama's victory in a largely white, rural state. Perhaps now we can start to bury the race card as a viable part of American politics.

Update: Arianna Huffington is ecstatic.

Update: With 98% of the caucusus reporting, it appears Edwards has taken scond place, with 30%. Clinton is in third place with 29%.

Update: Joe Biden has dropped out of the race.

Update: Ron Paul came in with 10% of the vote.

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Interesting News from Around the Web - 31 Dec. 07

The WSJ is reporting that Ron Paul might win the New Hampshire primary. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the primary system is broken. New Hampshire is not representative of Republicans generally nor sanity apparently.

"Asked for his views on an alternative to the EU, Alan Sked, the founder of UKIP, famously noted that the alternative to suicide was simply not to commit suicide." Brits horrified at their country’s goose step march into that grand experiment in undemocratic socialism, the EU, are looking at an "anglosphere" alternative. Sounds about right to me.

And speaking of Britain, the country which gave us the model for our Second Amendment right of an individual to keep and bear arms with its Declaration of Rights of 1689 (which to my knowledge Britain has never repealed) does not even trust its constabulary to be armed. A female police officer was shot while investigating an armed robbery this morning in Lancashire and one of her assailants escaped.

And the Tories are as bad as the socialist Labour Party in the UK. They are still not making an unequivocal statement that they will allow the people of the UK a referendum on Treaty of Lisbon that establishes the EU as a state and Britain as a province. Labour’s Gordon Brown is refusing to allow a referendum. The Tory’s David Cameron is trying to hint that he will if elected without promising it. What a travesty.

Expected on January 1 in the binge drinking capital of the world - a lot of partying. Expected post January 1, a record number of abortions and STD’s.

"The Roman Catholic Church has vowed to "fight the Devil head-on" by training hundreds of priests as exorcists. Father Gabriele Amorth, 82, the Vatican's Exorcist in Chief, announced the initiative amid the Church's concerns about growing worldwide interest in Satanism and the occult."

Watch German multiculturalism in action. "A top member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives has said Germany has too many criminal young foreigners and that immigrants must stick to the rules of Germany's "Christian-Occidental" culture . . ." Both seem reasonable. But not to Der Speigel and the rest of Germany’s left.

Iran’s greatest fear appears to be from internal dissent. That is not surprising. The IRGC is addressing this by taking better control of the theocracy’s thugs, the Basij, and expanding the force.

Fatah’s armed wing calls for the assassination of Fatah’s Prime Minister Salaam Fayad for "collaboration" with Israel and the US. Someone remind me why we are giving a dollar in aid to Fatah? It certainly has brought no stability.

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