Winning with social conservatism?
[Posted by Karl]
Best-known as a supply-sider who worked for Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, Jeffrey Bell is building buzz for his upcoming book, The Case for Polarized Politics, in an interview with the WSJ’s James Taranto:
“Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964,” he observes. “The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. . . . When social issues came into the mix—I would date it from the 1968 election . . . the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections.”
The Democrats who won, including even Barack Obama in 2008, did not play up social liberalism in their campaigns. In 1992 Bill Clinton was a death-penalty advocate who promised to “end welfare as we know it” and make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” Social issues have come to the fore on the GOP side in two of the past six presidential elections—in 1988 (prison furloughs, the Pledge of Allegiance, the ACLU) and 2004 (same-sex marriage). “Those are the only two elections since Reagan where the Republican Party has won a popular majority,” Mr. Bell says. “It isn’t coincidental.”
It was probably inevitable that some would apply these observations to the current GOP primary campaign. Matt Lewis goes so far as to suggest “Republicans may be better off if the election is about values instead of money,” implying that Rick Santorum is preferable to Mitt Romney.
As much as moderate Republicans and cosmopolitan conservatives might lament the resurrection of the culture wars (which were foisted upon us, and appear to have been rekindled once again by liberal overreach), they were electorally fruitful for the GOP.
***
The trouble for Republican presidential hopefuls trying to make hay of a struggling economy is that, when times are hard, liberals can always out-promise and out-class-warfare their adversaries. Thus, national elections that focus instead on foreign policy or cultural issues have tended to skew more favorably to the GOP.
One could argue that times have changed — that postmodern Americans are no longer interested in preserving traditional American values — that we’re all too sophisticated or too civilized to care. I would say two things: First, prove it. Second, while today’s voters may be too sophisticated to fall for cheap “family values” pandering, I do not for one minute believe the vast majority of Americans have suddenly turned up their noses at sincere efforts to preserve a just and moral society.
I will reserve judgment on Bell’s book until I read it. Moreover, the world is not a controlled experiment, thus “proving” the issue either way is not truly possible. However, there are a number of potential problems with the narrative of social conservatism suggested by these pieces.
Bell’s thesis seems based on the standard “Southern Strategy” narrative. However, Sean Trende makes a fairly convincing argument in his new book, The Lost Majority, that the history of the Reagan coalition may be the history of the Eisenhower coalition, as Moe Lane summarizes in his review:
The traditional liberal narrative of the ‘Southern Strategy’ is that LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act in 1964, and then racist Southern Democrats switched over to the Republican party en masse. Only… they didn’t. As the author noted: voting patterns in the South began to shift a decade earlier under Eisenhower; continued with organization on the local level in the Sixties that started before the VRA’s passage; and then generally chugged along until enough older Southerners (who largely remained stubbornly Democratic) died of old age, while the younger ones largely declined to vote for a party that had been calling them racist hicks for forty years (I am paraphrasing, obviously). But it’s easier to go with the existing narrative, in much the same way that it’s easier to go with the narrative that the House was under firm Democratic control for forty years… instead of the more complicated and ideologically-hostile one that Congress was divided up between Republicans, Democrats, and conservative Democrats who felt free to vote with Republicans on key issues.
Bell’s suggestion that social issues did not exist before 1968 will come as a surprise to anyone who has heard about racial segregation, school prayer, pushback against censorship (whether from the Hollywood Ten, Hugh Hefner, Allen Ginsberg, etc.), the marketing of the Pill, passage of the Equal Pay Act, or the movements created after the publication of books like The Feminine Mystique, Silent Spring and Unsafe At Any Speed. It is fair to say that most of these issues did not become politically potent at the presidential level until the 1968 election. However, it is also fair to say that as the Democrats became captured by the New Left in the period from 1968-72, that party was pushed out of the mainstream not only on social issues, but also on economic and national security policy. Thus, it is difficult to conclude anything more than the Dems’ social liberalism was one factor pushing voters into the GOP column at the presidential level; the same center-right coalition kept Democrats in control of the House for decades after 1968.
As for the GOP’s last popular vote majorities for president occurring in 1988 and 2004, note that the first occurred prior to the end of the Cold War, while the second was our first post-9/11 election. Lewis seems to have noticed, as he slips national security issues into his analysis of various elections. Another chunk of Trende’s book suggests that after the Cold War, Bill Clinton managed to assemble a coalition that his successors (particularly Barack Obama) tended to squander, which included mushy-middle suburbanites who are turned off by overly religious politics (although Trende does not stress the latter point in his book). Neither Bell nor Lewis mentions it, but I will note that by 1992, the Cold War was winding down, Bush 41 had broken his tax pledge, the deficit had become a bigger issue under GOP administrations and the GOP played up cultural issues at the 1992 convention. Similarly, by 2006, the mushy middle saw the Bush 43 GOP as big-spending, reckless on foreign policy, and conservative primarily on social issues. This was a losing formula.
I am not suggesting that Bell and Lewis recommend that formula. I presume Bell and Lewis are making the more modest claim that adding social conservatives to fiscal conservatives and national security conservatives was the ingredient that put the GOP over the top in presidential elections. Similarly, I am not arguing against social conservatism as part of the GOP platform, but noting the difficulty of maintaining an Eisenhower-Reagan style coalition in the post-Cold War era. (For another intriguing variation on the fragility of modern coalition politics, I would recommend Michael Barone’s piece on “open field politics.”) As Bell himself notes, Democrats who won post-1968 did so in part by tacking right — if only rhetorically — on social issues (although the mushy middle also likely remembers Clinton well today — even if wrongly — for having presided over economic growth and projected budget surpluses). This suggests that part of the Eisenhower-Reagan coalition can be picked off by the Democrats if they do little more than moderate their tone on social issues, particularly in years where the economics or foreign policy are not strongly advantaging the GOP.
As for Matt’s suggestion that a struggling economy would not significantly boost the GOP this year, one need only to look at a scatterplot to refudiate it. I agree that the GOP field needs to be ready to discuss issues beyond the economy. However, it is less clear to me that Santorum’s eagerness to aggressively champion social positions that will be just as eagerly mischaracterized and caricatured by the Democrat/media axis is the way to win the 7-10% of casual voters who at the moment are the swing vote in this cycle.
As Matthew Continetti puts it in his review of Bell’s book:
Would there have been an Age of Reagan without this great migration of the faithful? I doubt it. But I doubt, too, that Republicans would have had such success had they not also appealed beyond their base to tens of millions of American independents and suburban moderates who may not be socially conservative and who may be too busy with work and family and community to worry about Du Contrat Social. The conditions in which elections take place—the state of the economy, the conduct of wars, the public’s attitude toward the future—matter a great deal more than polarization. So do the personalities and qualities of individual candidates.
The challenge for Republican politicians, most of them social conservatives, is to find a way to stand for the values of the American Founding without coming across to the public as overly sectarian or extreme.
Anyone reading this as a brief for Mitt Romney may want to review some of my prior writings (here and here, for example). I agree with Matt Lewis that nominating Romney will turn the election into an exercise in class warfare. This is why Obama has two playbooks. But one of those playbooks has Obama trying to win the West against a candidate viewed as too conservative for mushy middle voters, following the examples of Colorado and Nevada in 2010. The most recent Fox News poll of swing states has Romney and Santorum running about the same in the Rust Belt (IA, OH, PA and WI), with Mitt doing better than Rick against Obama in Ohio. The same poll has Romney outperforming Santorum in the Dixie tier (FL, NC and VA) and especially the Rocky Mountain tier (CO, NV and NM). Even assuming (as I do) that social conservatives remain a key part of the GOP coalition, Santorum has not proven his particular style of social conservatism is the more winning variant this year just yet.
–Karl
Ding!
Karl (6f7ecd) — 2/20/2012 @ 8:07 amMy existentialist side makes me to want to agree. People need a reason for which to live as well as the means by which to live. But first fill their bellies, then teach them virtue. The economy and social issues.
nk (5a9989) — 2/20/2012 @ 8:41 amThe reality is that fiscal issues and social issues are intertwined. A society in which more than half of inner-city pregnancies are terminated and something like two-thirds of births are to unwed mothers is a society that is going to face dismal economic prospects. Not to go all Mark Steyn on everyone, but a society where a huge chunk of adults opt out of procreating altogether is a society that will have to bring in poor, uneducated immigrants from the third world in order to have any shot at funding the lavish entitlement programs we have voted ourselves.
The idea is to point out to everyone that Obama has tried to transition us into a European-style social democracy right at the moment when it became apparent that there is no bright future for those societies. That’s an economic argument, obviously, but it’s also a social argument. We can’t simply vote ourselves the good life — a 32 hour work week (France), six weeks of vacation for everybody (Spain), and full retirement at age 57 (Greece) — if there won’t be anybody around to pay for it.
JVW (4d72aa) — 2/20/2012 @ 8:55 amBut socially conservative and fiscally liberal? We can win with a strong social conservative, but not one who is also fiscally liberal. Not during 10% unemployment.
Santorum is playing right into their hands, making this about contraception (yes, I know Obama made it about contraceptives, but he still played into their hands). Yes, let’s not focus on the economy, let’s talk about the pill. Make sure as the country is falling apart and descending into chaos that our morals are in order.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:03 am#3
Is Obama somehow in favor of unwed pregnancies? He’s for contraception, and Santorum’s against it!
No that’s not a social argument it’s an economic argument, although probably an ineffective one. The mushy middle focuses on what the economy is like right now. Like soaring oil prices for example.
Gerald A (cc0aaa) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:12 amwhat we should do is nominate Santorum so we can all see just how overwhelmingly transcendent social issues are
people want a national discussion about contraception, they need one, and by God Team R is gonna give it to them
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:16 amRonald Reagan wasn’t much of a social conservative — he signed California’s groundbreaking pre-Roe abortion law legalizing the procedure. Given they way folks go after Romney and Gingrich for past missteps, one wonders how Reagan ever got nominated.
Oh, wait, do you suppose it was primarily because of his support for free-markets and his distaste for big government? I mean, Jimmy Carter was the moralizing Christian not Reagan.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:19 amThe evidence of a social moderate succeeding is rather doubtful, Ford, Dole, McCain, From Nixon on,
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:21 amwith ‘law and order’ derided by the usual suspects.
It’s remarkable in that light, that they ran such a far left candidate, they used to hide behind the camouflage of a Carter or a Clinton,
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:25 amThe problem wasn’t that Dole, McCain and Ford were socially moderate, it was that they were economically liberal as well. Not one president after Reagan has had his belief in free markets, D or R, with the possible exception of Clinton. No president since Reagan has bloated the federal bureaucracy or raised their pay as much as dear old W.
The Tea Party is as much a reaction to W’s spendthrift ways as it is to Obama’s excesses. Santorum’s credentials here are unimpressive at best.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:33 amI already told you so in advance about Santorum. Good luck with that. The prenatal testing remarks mean not just Obama victory at an inopportune time, but a landslide. He could have made a principled argument about federal funding or forcing ANY medical test or procedure – but not. He made it all about about the worth and use and impropriety of women having information about factors affecting her risk – and even treatable risks and problems as if women – and even their doctors- can’t be trusted to have full information.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:36 amit’s a new golden age of social conservative leadership
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:37 amWell it is, but the muddle doesn’t know that, Reagan had a positive optimistic confidence, in the power of free markets and free men, now if we only
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:40 amhad someone who was unapologetic about that.
The problem is that “social conservatism” isn’t, at least as commonly presented.
There are people that conservative in social values – following the general Judeo-Christian model with a few outliers here and there regarding reproductive issues, homosexuality, and lesser intoxicants. Many tend to be more conservative in their preferences than their permissiveness.
Then there are people who are controlling in social values – looking to direct and command the issues through government intervention. These are found among both fiscal conservatives, thus allowing them to claim to be social conservatives, and among fiscal Marxists.
It must be remembered that Marxist governments are excessively “conservative” in social values – they oppose sexual license particularly homosexuality, execute drug users, and seek absolute control over reproduction from permission to reproduce to attempts to modify the offspring.
Yes, it is true that some Marxists will use libertine social values in an attempt to disrupt and destroy existing value systems, and it is true that Marxists have no use for faith and family structures as they are rivals for loyalty, but ultimately they are more socially “conservative” than most social conservatives.
As for people reacting to them, American culture generally respects those who are conservative socially, demonstrating restraint in their private lives and bringing that to their public appearances. They will accept advice, and even minor lectures, on social matters from such people. That’s why so many tolerated Reagan, and why so few can tolerate Carter.
What Americans do not like is external control on social matters, and they do not care what sort it is. Demands for monastic discipline are as rejected as commands for “tolerance”. That is the problem here.
Obama has trespassed on the issue of religious conscience. Even though most Americans want reproductive choice, they do not want government imposing it at the expense of religious choice. (And of course that ignores that from a Marxist viewpoint, taking control of access like this is merely a first step to eliminating all choice.)
Against that people like Santorum look to be threatening reproductive choice through government imposition.
When it comes time to choose, more of the swing voters are going to go with the existing freedom of choice they believe in over the freedom of conscience they likely only believe in on a theoretical level. (And that is why things like Prop 8 pass in California – government tries to force a change, and the people take the existing freedom of conscience over the theoretical freedom of equality.)
Someone who is conservative socially, or at least appears to be, will constantly win over someone who is not.
Sam (e8bed7) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:46 amSomeone who pushes government imposed social values, conservative, libertine, or liberal, will constantly lose. When two push it, people will almost always go with whichever changes the status quo the least.
and yet precisely none of the OECD countries with central government debt of less than 40% of GDP are Santorum-style theocracies
Curious.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:55 amObama and the Left generally look down and despise religion. A better approach would be a respect for religion and fiscal conservatism.$5 gas and $15+ trillion deficits are moral issues. No responsible government does that to it’s children.
Bugg (34ad0e) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:56 am1) I think we should pick candidates on how well they are doing, people that are winning, not by predicting who is most likely to lose.
2) I often think there is too much “politically framed election punditry” for the candidate’s own good. Yes, one has to be aware of how “perspective is reality”, but once voters (conservative voters, anyway) get the notion that a candidate is campaigning to poll results, hence will likely govern to poll results, sorry, we’re electing a leader, not a beauty pageant winner.
3) Whoever the candidate is, they will be slimed, lied about, message distorted, etc. What is needed more than little baggage (because it will be invented), is someone who can “foil” the gotcha questions with a nice “parry and riposte'”. Yes, to date Santorum has not shown a good ability to do this I’m not sure if Romney is better, or if he hasn’t been challenged as much.
4) Who controls the framing of the debate is who wins, which give the advantage to the Dems.
Americans are much more sympathetic to Santorum’s attempt to get Sen. Boxer to commit to at what time in childbirth is a baby an independent person than they are of Obama’s “make sure the baby is dead if the mother wants it dead”. The challenge is to get the public to think about that, rather than the idea that Obama plays the “I’m just a human who am I to say when life begins” and Santorum will “outlaw contraceptives”.
5) I think Americans like the idea of the Reaganesque “tear down this wall”, “trust but verify”, etc. which holds that a strong America is good for America and the world; rather than having an apologizer-in-chief.
People, especially young people (which I once was, as in voting for Jimmy Carter’s re-election) know that America is not perfect. What many don’t know is just how worse it can be elsewhere, so the idealism looking for perfection outweighs the wisdom of realizing you ain’t gonna get perfection, so before you scrap the good make sure you are exchanging it for something better.
Show Muslim states not voting after overthrows in Egypt, Libya in territories governed by warring factions like Somalia, then people in Afghanistan and Iraq voting with purple fingers, and then Iranians and Syrians asking, “Where is America, why aren’t they helping us?”
Americans do not like the idea of gays being beaten or discriminated against for being gay, but I think the majority also do not like being told they must pretend to believe homosexuality is no different then heterosexuality if they think it is. At the time in 2004 it sure seemed that ballot initiatives protecting the definition of marriage was a big reason for people coming out to vote and voting for Bush, you even had groups like “Amish for Bush” of people who never voted before in their life because marriage being marriage was a basic enough concept they figured they had to take a stand there.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:57 amThat’s a good point. Also worth noting was Reagan’s record on amnesty both prior and during his administration.
Something has changed in the GOP since then.
On the one hand, I’m glad some are demanding more. Frankly, another retread of Bob Dole or John Mccain is even less acceptable now than it was then. The need for a productive reformer is very urgent.
On the other, a lot of the criticism is not constructive enough.
Santorum and Romney are neither small government people. They had their chance to show they were, and they aren’t. Santorum isn’t awful or anything… but he isn’t hiding his views on the matter. I just read him offer a Social Security plan based on how there are 60,000 millionaires on social security. If that’s meant to lead to a serious dent in the problem, he’s lost me.
However, I don’t think Santorum’s social conservatism hurts him in the general. It makes him look honest and strong, and I think more people agree with him than the internet might indicate.
But this election will be about the economy. I worry that Santorum doesn’t have enough executive experience to even stabilize our country. Frankly, Romney lost so many fights to the left (And led the way on several issues) that I have zero confidence in him either.
Newt is who I’ll vote for, but it’s not looking good for conservatism this year.
The GOP is showing us just how effective it can be with this primary. A long list of irresponsible pundits saw their moment to unite and build a movement a few months ago, and for petty reasons they failed, and no candidate was strong enough to make this happen on his or her own.
It would be unwise to rely on the GOP for putting this country on the right track, but that leaves us with some tough decisions.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:58 amThe social issue in 1968 was crime and maybe forced busing but crime was number 1. Lumping them in with abortion, contraception etc. is logically fallacious. I don’t believe social issues were not a major theme of Nixon’s in 1972 at all.
Gerald A (cc0aaa) — 2/20/2012 @ 9:58 amI mean I don’t believe social issues were
Gerald A (cc0aaa) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:00 amnota major theme of Nixon’sAlso, as I read about the 1988 and 2004 wins in this post, I realize Iran will probably play a heavy role in this election.
And while Obama’s foreign policy has left a great deal to be desired, he has been much better than anticipated and frankly the way he handles Iran could even help him if he was cynical enough.
I realize this is unfair and many here recall that Iran has been a looming issue Obama has neglected at best (his public campaign to Israel not to strike Iran are counterproductive). But if Obama were to have a potent air campaign against Iran at the right time, what are our candidates… none of whom have foreign policy credentials, to do?
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:04 amThe left uses any breach to tear down social institutions, and then they attack those right of center, for dealing with the debris, look at the
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:05 ammirage that they used in Griswold, and then they built upon with Roe, if they had to ‘massage the
facts’ to get it into court, look at the Levick Grps undermining a hundred years of precedents, with a few astroturfed anecdotes, or the fairy
tale that forced us to give up our light bulbs,
the Giant star goat of AGW,
Nixon had a long-term gay affair with Bebe Rebozo is my understanding
I read it on the internet
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:06 amI think a reprise of “Who lied?” would be good. Show all of the protesters saying we were going to bomb the people of Iraq into the stone age and steal their oil, then show what we really did. Then ask if you really want to trust “them“. If you say we can’t do that, it won’t work, people will not understand, then that is our problem. If you can’t point out 2+2=4 and have people agree, that is the problem.
If Santorum cannot do that, then that is the problem with his candidacy. If Romney can’t do that either, he will be little better.
Maybe Reagan did not have a history on “social conservatism” like some define it today, but he did campaign and govern on the basis of “right and wrong” in a way that captured the majority of Americans.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:08 amTo understand the “Southern strategy”, one must understand that 1876-1966 configuration of US politics was… artificial, unnatural.
The absolute monopoly of Democrats in the Deep South was unnatural. The Democrats in this period were an alliance between reactionary Southerners, most of them anti-Catholic, and liberal urban northerners, most of them Catholic immigrants.
The “Solid South” actually started to crack in the early 1900s. Republicans won the governorship of Tennessee three times (the only Republican governors in the South in 1876-1966; though Tennessee always had a significant Republican Party); there was a Republican Representative from Texas for 12 years; Republican Presidential candidates carried Tennessee in 1920, and Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in 1928.
The Depression put the lid back on. The traditionally Republican areas in the South were impoverished mountain areas where New Deal benefits were especially popular, and the overwhelming national dominance of the Democrats discouraged switching.
The cracks reappeared in the 1950s. Eisenhower carried Florida and Texas twice, and Republicans won House seats in both states in 1954. In 1961, John Tower won LBJ’s old Senate seat – and kept it.
The Goldwater freak of 1964 caused some further cracks in Georgia and Alabama, but the real breakthrough started in 1966. And it was not a mass defection of Dixiecrats to the GOP: other than Strom Thurmond, no Southern Senator or Representative switched parties until much later. It was Republicans becoming competitive in the South.
The national Democrats no longer carried water for the South on race issues. Neither did Republicans – but that meant that only inertia kept Southerners voting Democrat. When other issues became significant, they divided.
What were those other issues? The Democrats in 1972 became identified with left policy on foreign affairs and social issues: “Acid, amnesty, and abortion.”
Incidentally, I disagree with the claim that “social issues” bumped Republicans to a majority after 1968. Republicans were massively dominant outside the South before 1932. The Depression blew that away, but even in the 1940s the GOP recovered. 1948 was a freak result (something held turnout down by 15%), but then GOP dominance resumed.
From 1948 to 2004, Republicans won 9 of 15 elections, including 7 of 9 decided by a majority. The Democrats broke 51% only once. In the 5 elections before 1968, there were two decisive Republican wins, one big Democrat win, and two narrow Democrat wins. In the five elections after 1968, there were four decisive Republican wins and one narrow Democrat win. If there’s a shift, it’s not obvious.
Rich Rostrom (8edfee) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:08 amBut if Obama were to have a potent air campaign against Iran at the right time, what are our candidates… none of whom have foreign policy credentials, to do?
Comment by Dustin — 2/20/2012
When that happens, Dustin, I will either start jumping and yelling “Hallelujah” or go catatonic until I absorbed the information…
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:10 amLOL
Yeah, I don’t blame the skepticism and I’ll have the same joyous reaction if Obama actually accomplishes something with Iran.
Seems like a common sense political calculation to me, but then, I totally called this election wrong. Rick Santorum is a much more effective politician than I ever gave him credit for being, for example.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:16 amIran’s already implemented Santorum-style abortion laws as well as pro-natalist family policies
They’re a natural ally.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:16 amI’d like to vote for Romney, and I will in the primary. I’m not sure I’ll vote for Santorum in the General. He’s too socially conservative for me. Not saying I’ll vote for Obama, but I might pick a 3rd party candidate if it came down to it, my minds not made up but that’s where I’m at now.
time123 (03e182) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:25 amAs one who voted for Poirot in 92, allowing Clinton to be elected with less than 50% of the vote…
I understand protest votes, but votes for a third party will not help dethrone Obama. Santorum isn’t going to give executive orders to prevent abortions in the US, or to demand that all private health insures not cover them or contraceptives.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:31 amYep. Obama’s gotta go.
And MD’s right that these so con issues are meant to trick us into rejecting Santorum. We’re being conned again.
Santorum’s campaign site lists plenty of issues that show he’s much better than Obama. This isn’t even a tough call.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:35 amI think Jeb Bush is preferable to Romany.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:38 amAgreed, Gary.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:40 amSantorum isn’t going to give executive orders to prevent abortions in the US…
not executive orders maybe but Santorum very badly wants laws and constitutional amendments… you can tell cause he signed the surprisingly wacky and charmingly fascist Personhood Pledge…
That’s a huge agenda.
Me I’d really would rather our next president focus on jobs jobs jobs instead of “personhood” cause if fetuses’ parents don’t have jobs than they’re just gonna grow up to be miserable food stamp whores with severe entitlement issues.
It’s a true fact.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:43 amNo Social Issues prior to 1964…
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:44 amI would refer people to George Will’s colume this past weekend on Ike, and his emphasis on implementing the desegregation of the Armed Forces that Truman promulgated, but that had largely been ignored; and,
Ike’s sending of the Army to Little Rock to desegregate Central HS.
Those are just off the top of my head; but then, Ike was someone who believed in accomplishing an objective, not just grandstanding about it.
*then* they’re just gonna grow up to be miserable food stamp whores with severe entitlement issues I mean
maybe Santorum should pledge to do something about promiscuous homonyms while he’s at it
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:45 am“…I will work to advance state and federal laws and amendments that recognize the unalienable right to life of all human beings as persons at every stage of development…”
And how is this different from Bill Clinton’s campaign pledge in 1992 that “…abortions should be safe, legal, but rare…”?
Plus, isn’t the intentional killing of innocent life a “Crime Against Humanity” as understood in the aftermath of Nuremburg?
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:48 amMD,
Santorum is a big government guy. He’s not fiscally conservative. He doesn’t believe in personal liberty, and has said so more than once.
If social issues are what you’re planning to win on when we have real unemployment around 20%, gas prices around $4-5 a gallon, inflation rearing it’s ugly head, and personal freedoms being erased, we all lose.
We need fiscal sanity.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:49 amit’s that word “prohibited” Mr. AD what makes it different
it means “prohibited”
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:50 amNuremburg killed the radio star
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:50 amYou’re right, if they had only not run anti brown people lifeydoodle for Governor in California, Brown wouldn’t be in office, oh wait that’s not what happened at all.
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:53 amOh get real. Santorum makes it ABOUT his notions of virtue instead of keeping the government away from individuals.
He cannot win now. He keeps tipping his hand.
He is utterly unconcerned with keeping government in check, unless it has something to do with assisting his personal and rather absolute moral imperatives.
He’s already lost the argument if he makes funding this or subsidizing that about SPECIfic and (for that matter, widely accepted as standard medical practice) test, procedures, pharmaceuticals, or devices. The ONLY point to make is that the federal government should not be determining what is and isn’t good care.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 2/20/2012 @ 10:53 amAs one who voted for Poirot in 92
Hercule Poirot?
Gerald A (cc0aaa) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:01 amMeg Whitman a lot prefigured Romney I think Mr. narciso
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:01 amYes, Santorum does seem to be fumbling the ball, but we’re talking of the general proposition,
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:01 amWell, it seems that Santorum and Romney are various sides of the Big Government cube, as it is alleged that Newt is also.
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:02 amSo, where does that leave Small Government, TEA Party types?
Ron Paul?
That is not an alternative.
Say, just a thought, didn’t one Ronald Wilson Reagan support a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion?
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:03 amI don’t do Reagan hagiography but I bet you lunch Mr. Reagan wouldn’t have been yammering about abortion amendments if he had ran at a time when our pathetic little country’s finances were so obscenely indecent and her economy as federally raped as our poor little one
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:08 amYou, feets, obviously weren’t around during the Carter Malaise Years, and the Stagflation of the Late 70’s, or you would never make such a statement.
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:13 amPerhaps you should go back and read what Mr. Reagan actually said in his run-up to the election of 1980?
It’s not like it is a big secret.
Mr. AD the malaise and staglation of the 70s are the problems our little country wished she faced today
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:14 amLooks like TX postponed to May over redistricting fight.
Gives Neuter another chance.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:15 amYou have no ….ing idea.
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:15 amOut!
I’ve seen graphs Mr. AD
graphs and also charts
many of which were made in Powerpoint and also Excel
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:17 amhere for example is one
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:18 amThe only yokels left in the small business jobs universe are Ronaldus Paoulus and maybe Neuter.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:21 amDidn’t know that. It’s interesting how people get redefined decades later.
It’s frustrating to me that this is apparently the conservative option that is most viable, as I don’t think it’s very conservative.
I think Newt still has a shot, but it’s not likely. I also think Santorum is more electable than you realize. Remember that Obama too was electable despite having some odd stuff in his background. The masses care about the economy. They don’t care if the next guy will fix it, as much as they care that the current guy hasn’t.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:22 amhere is another fun chart about how much better life was under Carter
memories
lighttehcornersofmymind
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:23 amI agree with nk and JVW.
IMO voters want candidates to address both economic and social issues and while we don’t expect candidates to be in lockstep with all our beliefs, we want to know what they consistently believe. I think Santorum is surging because he comes across as the candidate with the most consistent values.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:26 amholding consistent values plus maybe an aspirin between your knees goes a long way in a Republican primary
but not so much after I don’t think
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:41 amfeets’ charts are a real tonic. One that requires gin.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:43 amthat last peak on the chart at #57 needs a prophylactic device I think Mr. carlitos
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:44 amAs Cpl Hudson would say ‘Game over, man’ and supposedly sober people want more of this,
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:49 amI work with a gaggle of low information voters. If you think anything other than “Republicans want to ban contraception” was their takeaway from Santorum’s comments, you have better co-workers than I.
sybilll (181691) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:53 amhappyfeet,
There’s no hope for the traditional Republican Party if you’re right. If you’re right, Libertarians and Democrats will be the only winners in America. Maybe you are seeing our future, but you could be seeing California’s future and mistaking it for all of America’s.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:53 amsybilll,
You’ve made that point clearly. Tell me how many of your co-workers voted for Obama and how many have ever voted for a Republican?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:54 amAnd MD’s right that these so con issues are meant to trick us into rejecting Santorum.
No, they are correctly meant to warn us that Santorum won’t attract anyone in the middle AND will repel some Republicans as much as Ron Paul will. If not more.
There may be those that think you either want to ban abortion, contraceptives and pre-natal testing or you’re just a RINO, but then I have a few names for them, too.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:54 amI think Jeb Bush is preferable to Romany.
And your point? You cannot set up and run a modern campaign starting NOW, let alone starting in September. Anyone who thinks that there is any possibility of winning with a pick-up candidate after the convention is smoking crack.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:58 ambut Santorum is far far far to the rightward extreme of “social conservatism” … he’s an outlier, and there’s simply no mainstreaming this wackjob… social con stuff is fine in moderation, but there’s an extent to which it becomes unpalatable in America like when you pour too much sriracha on your panang curry
unpalatable and cartoony
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:00 pmIf you think anything other than “Republicans want to ban contraception” was their takeaway from Santorum’s comments, you have better co-workers than I.
Was their takeaway directly from Santorum’s comments that he made, or rather from pundits spinning his comments? I’ve heard/read several commentators presenting *their* unique take on Santorum’s comments that left me scratching my head.
Dana (4eca6e) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:01 pmwell you can always add more rice I guess
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:03 pmThis election is easily winnable on a competence and economics platform. But we seem to have a rump in the party that cannot stop fighting a sexual revolution that was lost long ago.
It seems quite likely that a Santorum nomination will cause a party split, with the sane part of the party deciding to start a new one.
You say “well that will just elect Obama” and I say “Santorum’s nomination ensured that, so we need to make sure this never happens again.”
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:07 pmI disagree. It’s 2012. You can accomplish things quickly if you want. There are a lot of conservatives are are yearning for a decent candidate to pop up and inspire some kind of real movement.
The current primary campaigns are stuffed with talented people.
I would probably not want any of the Romney staff, who have managed to spend enormous amounts of money on tent burning ads with poor results, but Santorum’s campaign appears to be extremely talented and efficient. Some of Perry’s ads (just some) were excellent, too.
I think one could cherry pick quite a good campaign from these folks, who are already doing this stuff.
In fact, I think you’ve got it backwards, and a GOP candidate coming from off the Democrat attack radar would have a considerable advantage. They need time to prepare their memes. Occupy Wallstreet… George Steph.’s question on contraception… they are groundwork laying for a presidential campaign for Obama that must be 90% negative because he has no record.
Why not throw them a curve ball?
This is literally accurate, but doesn’t mean what you think. Ron Paul polls better against Obama than Romney does. So does Santorum.
Because this kind of stuff doesn’t upset the squishies as much as you might think. They actually like the idea of a man taking a stand, even on something they don’t agree with. We need a clear real leader in a time of economic crisis, not some politician who doesn’t know what he thinks about anything.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:10 pmWe heard a lot of that in 2008 as well. Ann Coulter was promising to vote for Hillary if we don’t nominate Romney. I frankly do not buy it.
Anyone willing to tolerate Romney is willing to tolerate anything with an (R) on it. They would vote for Meghan Mccain for President. They would vote for Murkowski. Some would vote for Obama if he were a Republican.
How? How does it teach a lesson to the GOP? Have you been paying attention during the primary? This party doesn’t handle even basic stuff rationally. They would never learn the lesson you’re trying to teach them. It’s as pointless as carping about nominating Mccain, as we can see.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:13 pmThey actually like the idea of a man taking a stand, even on something they don’t agree with.
then they should deeply heart obama
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:14 pmDRJ, I would venture a guess that at least several of my co-workers voted for Obama, despite being conservative in nature. I overhear things like “Obama is paying part of my husbands Cobra” all the time. The soundbites are all that register with some people.
sybilll (181691) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:15 pmThe more I think about it, the more this concept captures why I’m just more comfortable with Santorum than I am with other folks I disagree with.
There is something in Rick Santorum that compels him to tell us the truth about his views, and has for a long time. Personal character would guide him in a way that polls would guide lesser leaders.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:17 pmObama promised tax cuts for 98% of americans and paygo and to cut the deficit in half. He promised to fix our war problem lickety split.
The problem is that he made these stands dishonestly.
He did not actually take these stands bravely. He was telling voters exactly what they want to hear, which is something Newt has done too, frankly, though I strongly prefer Newt.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:19 pmDon’t forget “Obama said I could refinance my underwater mortgage.” Mrs. carlito (more conservative than me) takes 2 calls a day where people say this. I should give her one of those squeezy stress balls.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:19 pm… to post bills for 5 days on the White House website for public review. Hahahahahahahahahaha! See if you can find all ten jillion pages of Dodd-Frank on there somewhere.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:21 pmThere is something in Rick Santorum that compels him to tell us the truth about his views, and has for a long time.
and yet his fanclubbers are nevertheless always assuring us that he doesn’t mean what he says
about his contempt for personal freedom
about his contempt for the Tea Party
about his contempt for contraception
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:21 pmObama promised to fundamentally transform America Mr. Dustin.
He kept his promise.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:22 pmthen they should deeply heart obama
Comment by happyfeet
Voting present is not representative of a man making an actual stand – and even worse when that present is cast about a literal life and death issue.
Dana (4eca6e) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:24 pmThis is the fundamental problem, it Brechtian terms
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:24 pmthey have been able to ‘dissolve a plurality of the vote, and elect another’
Consider the latest brouhaha, it was awkward phrasing, but fundamentally right;
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/02/20/media-cherry-pick-41-minute-santorum-speech-misrepresent-obamas-phony
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:26 pmPerhaps the are. I admit I’m not exposed to these people, but it seems most politicians have their hacks and shills.
I know that Santorum has been pretty frank about how disappointed a Goldwater fan like me will be in his decisions.
I can actually understand his contempt for contraception, happyfeet. I disagree with him, but this is the man’s religion and it’s not a hateful view if you understand it. I think his stand is that the government can’t fix this problem. If I’m mistaken, fine, but if not, then why not appreciate someone owning their controversial views instead of hiding them?
Even if you can’t vote for him, it would be nice if all politicians were this honest.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:28 pmwhat’s creepy and weird Mr. narciso is that Santorum has such a sick sick compulsion to couch his policies in theological terms
It’s not normal.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:28 pmSeriously. Even uncontroversial transparency promises were abandoned.
Much like the public funding promise. Obama will stand on fake principle and accept all the applause and then shamelessly abandon the principle because he knows a lot of people will cover his ass.
Rick Santorum lacks a lot that I want, but I’m not surprised to see someone get support for being honest.
frankly, if Romney were much more consistent I think he’d have already sealed the deal… in fact he’d probably be fighting for his second term.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:31 pmWell California has sacrificed itself on the altar
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:37 pmof the mutant star goat, even under Douglas Hauser’s
governorship, I mean Arnold, even though we told
he was the only hope unlike that scary fellow
McClintock
Ron Paul polls better against Obama than Romney does. So does Santorum.
Until you hear them talk for a while. Then Ron goes into his Golden Rule of International Relations, or about the gold standard, and Rick starts talking about how government needs to subsidize chastity belts for teenage women.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:44 pmI think Santorum is surging because he comes across as the candidate with the most consistent values.
Then Stalin would be a shoo-in. Or do the positions taken matter?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:46 pmArnold utterly destroyed the two-party system in California Mr. narciso
it’s not a state what reveres democracy
And there are consequences.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:46 pmhappyfeet:
That’s my point: Most of them did vote for Obama, and they will vote for him again if they believe he is more consistent and dependable than the GOP nominee.
Voters that aren’t partisan or single-issue voters (especially the so-called mushy middle) will often vote for the nominee they trust and believe, even if he doesn’t exactly espouse their views. In addition, some nominally partisan voters are willing to take a chance on the other Party’s nominee if he seems consistent and dependable. Obama seemed to be both in 2008 but I’d bet many voters are beginning to doubt that in 2012.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:47 pmAfter all, happyfeet, the definition of a mushy middle voter is they are mushy. IOW they are willing to be flexible on principles and policies as long as the person they vote for seems like someone they can trust.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:50 pm“…Voters that aren’t partisan or single-issue voters (especially the so-called mushy middle) will often vote for the nominee they trust and believe, even if he doesn’t exactly espouse their views…”
Exactly what surveys of Reagan Dems stated as to why they were confident in voting for Reagan.
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:51 pmI think Obama is talking more about the economy than contraception-obsessed Team R is, DRJ.
Even before this latest obsession Team R’s debates were at their most passionate on the subjects of immigrants and gardasils and abortions.
The low point I think was when we all watched mortified as poor blinkered Rick Perry pissed in the faces of gay soldiers in front of the whole country.
And now just weeks later Team R is on the verge of nomination someone whose highest most urgent priority is the reinstatement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
That’s so not America that Obama could rape a million more jobs and still be electable.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:54 pmverge of *nominating* I mean
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 12:58 pmYes, the positions matter. If you think Santorum’s views are similar in extremism to Stalin’s, then it makes sense to conclude he is unelectable. It appears that a lot of people think Santorum’s views are at least tolerable.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:01 pm67, 71. The GOP Beltway leadership is getting the clue they’ve totally hosed this election. Sure they will blame it on the footies, but everyone knows better.
If they actually got off the schneid and rolled the dice, e.g., with Jebbie, I might give them the least measure of respect.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:02 pmhappyfeet:
That’s how you see him but that doesn’t mean everyone will. Would you describe yourself as a mushy middle or nominally partisan voter? Or are there specific issues that make you the equivalent of a single-issue voter?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:06 pmMr. Dustin Rick Santorum has gotten a huge huge pass so far from the media.
They could’ve knocked his little boat out of the water just by going all macaca post on his “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better” quip.
They’ve kept the gloves on for some reason.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:07 pmI’m a Laura Bush conservative DRJ except she’s all 1% and I’m just a little pikachu trying to get a nut.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:07 pmLaura Bush is a Democrat, happyfeet, and always has been.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:08 pm100. Well, if you mean to support Sleazer McBain, you’re going feel pretty stupid mouthing corpulent Karl’s talking points.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:11 pmI don’t get that feel DRJ I think Laura Bush has a very profound appreciation for how small a role politics should play in people’s lives.
Social cons are so obsessed with politics their political views become inseparable from their religious views.
I think Laura Bush and Laura Bush Republicans finds that distasteful, and you can tell cause of how she raised her kids to make lives for themselves outside the political realm, and I think she’s justly very proud of that.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:18 pmRomney’s on his own Mr. Gary I think mostly he’s just a prettier Meg Whitman
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:19 pmbut I also think he’s the only viable candidate going forward if the goal is to beat Obama
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:19 pm*find* that distasteful
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:20 pm106. As the Domenech article at Ricochet points out Romany has bled 20 points with Indies following FL. No debates, no PAC attacks, no defection of endorsers, just on his own.
It is over for McBain, he can cheat his way to nomination but will certainly lose the general.
Make another choice.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:27 pmLaura Bush was raised a Democrat in a Republican town, and she remained a “secret” Democrat during her marriage (including in the White House), although “it really wasn’t much of a secret.”
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 1:27 pmWhat worse than a train wreck is watching desperate people try to convince themselves it isn’t REALLY a train wreck.
Santorum, once his social views become widely known is unelectable. He wore out his welcome in Pennsylvania, home of Quakers, Mennonites and Amish; lost by 16 points to a non-entity. THe press will simply pillory him and Obama won’t believe his good luck.
Less than 20% of the voters believe abortion should be illegal. A damn sight fewer believe that contraception should be illegal or that prenatal screening is against God’s Will. And these are not even his most objectionable themes.
It will all come out now, and those poll numbers will collapse just like Perry’s, Michelle’s, Cain’s and Newt’s did. The fact that Santorum is last to rise should tell you something — he was everyone’s last choice for notRomney.
And that’s among Republicans, who are frantically trying to get their minds right, convinced if they just squint hard enough they’ll find the path to victory with Rick.
Feh.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:24 pmThen we’re agreed, time to forget POTUS and focus on Congress.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:31 pmThis is an all-of-the-above year for me, gary gulrud.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:32 pmI don’t think he lost in PA because of his social views.
He won reelection multiple times, too. I wasn’t a matter of him slipping in under the radar and then being discovered.
Santorum has pledged not to make contraception illegal, nor abortion. You say these are among his objectionable themes, but that’s just what the MSM is trying to tell you he’s campaigning for.
He is campaigning on stuff like entitlement reform and the Keystone pipeline.
haha. That’s clever and it’s true.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:39 pmAs said before, he was beat in PA by a Pro-Life Dem. Think “Compassionate Conservative” from the Dem side of the aisle. He was beat by the ghost of Bob Casey, Sr. Anybody who wants to talk about Santorum’s loss needs to include that, or I don’t think they are seriously looking at the issue.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:43 pmSantorum has pledged not to make contraception illegal, nor abortion.
I am not a witch
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:45 pmThis is exactly right!
I almost used that exact expression. It’s not even possible for this guy to ban contraception or abortion. It’s a fantasy. This is a witchhunt. We should exercise more give and take in this primary. None of the remaining options are that great.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:49 pmthat’s not exactly what I meant really but I see where you’re going with it
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:50 pmfeets and others,
though I agree with Santorum on more things than most here, I was not and am not thrilled with his running or prospect of getting elected
That said, I’d like to see a whole lot more discussion on why Romney is better, not why Santorum is worse. If you can’t show why your guy is better without denouncing Santorum, then find another candidate.
#2 son will never vote for Romney, he thinks he’s a politician who changes what he says based on what he thinks people will hear. He’s not going to vote for Santorum either, but I thought it’s interesting that why he will not vote for him is the same thing that makes many Repubs lukewarm about him.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:55 pmI need to go prove my neanderthal neoconism now by cooking dinner, later.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:56 pmI know, but seriously. The democrats think they can make this election about whether or not Santorum will ban condoms.
They can’t.
It looks stupid. The economy sucks. Santorum actually has some solutions that would help, btw.
He’s wrong on some stuff, but he’s also a guy people will realize is honest, so when he says he isn’t going to take away your condoms, you can take that to the bank my friend.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:56 pmUnfortunately the bank needs a bailout.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 2:56 pmRomney saved the Olympics, which is supposed to impress people but I think is a lot less impressive than Santorum’s welfare reform work or being a highly ranked Senator… including during the time the GOP was fairly successful.
Romney was a governor, which even if I don’t like the direction he took MA, is much more of a job than throwing a field and track party for NBC. That kind of executive experience builds a circle of inner advisers and skills that I don’t want the president to have to be learning on the job.
It’s a very hard call between Santorum and Romney because Santorum lacks the kind of experience I think is so important. He’s also not even that conservative on the limited role of government (in my opinion).
Newt is a better choice, both because he has more considerable leadership experience, more conservative success, and more innate ability (opinion).
But I think most of us honestly realize this field is too weak. We should hope our nominee is none of the above.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:01 pmRomney’s values being successful more than he values being right Mr. MD. America could do with a bit of that.
Besides, replacing a rabid ideologue with a rabid ideologue is gauche.
We’re better than that.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:06 pmoops
*Romney values* is what that should say
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:06 pmNewt needs to go after the media again. That was entertaining and satisfying. Being a bitter prick, I need more media bashing. Pick their carcass clean, Newt.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:14 pm110. KevinM:
It is exceedingly painful.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:38 pmNewt needs to forget the attack ads and go for issues, because he sucks at attack and excels at issues. Newt’s argument about Romney’s relentless assaults casing him to go negative reminds me of Anya’s line on Buffy: “I was being patient, but it took too long!”
He gets one more shot, Wednesday.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:38 pmever notice how Democrats get positively giddy about throwing people out of work?
It’s a thing.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:39 pmoops wrong thread is what that is
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:40 pmThis is a train wreck.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/20/2012 @ 3:55 pmNewt is a sarcastic know it all. And I dig it. Throw in Col. West and we have a team.
Newt needs to forget the attack ads and go for issues, because he sucks at attack and excels at issues.
This is absolutely true and the numbers reflect that. As soon as he changed his focus from the MSM and/or Obama, and started attacking Romney, his numbers plummeting.
He is not able to attack with finesse and without anger, mostly without anger. As soon as he launches a personal attack, his anger and arrogance takes hold of his better angels, and he indulges it. This is such a glaring weakness of his. It is palpable and most unattractive, and obviously voters are turned off by this.
However, when he attacks the MSM or Obama’s destructive policies, his numbers go up because voters understand and know the same frustration. This is the common ground for R’s. He should understand that or someone should enlighten him. Attack the Obama policies that are harming our country, hit the economy hard, the MSM too if he has time, but do not go personal. How does he not see this?
Dana (4eca6e) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:00 pm“But somewhere along the way, the debate about religious freedom started shifting into one about the merits of birth control. It’s a debate social conservatives can’t win, since they already lost it about four decades ago – which is exactly why Democrats are so eager to rehash it.
How did the GOP lose control of the narrative so badly?
First, blame the media, which is always willing to do the Democrats’ heavy lifting on social issues (case in point: Darrell Issa’s hearing on religious freedom and the birth control mandate last week snowballed into a fake “scandal”about the lack of women on his first panel).
But Rick Santorum’s long-time opposition to birth control, and his newfound prominence in the primary race, has also helped Democrats take hold of the narrative, by presenting them with the perfect “anti-contraception” boogeyman.
It’s not Santorum’s fault. He’s gamely trying to stick to the real issue – religious freedom for Catholic employers – while pointing out that he has no intention of banning birth control. But he also responded to questions about his own personal views on contraceptives last week. And his comments don’t just put him at odds with most Americans, they’re also helping fuel the Democrat-and-media-manufactured dispute about the merits of birth control access.
Democrats are winning the debate by changing it to one that Republicans never even wanted to have and have no chance of winning. If the GOP wants to get back to the real debate about religious freedom, they’ll have to stop taking the bait on the contraception question. It’s a losing issue.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/20/republicans-losing-control-of-contraception-debate/#more-784448
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:01 pmThe price of gasoline will hit $5 a gallon soon and help to further tank the economy and we’re wasting precious time and resources taking the bait and talking about contraception?
Moronic.
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:03 pmPerhaps Neutron can make the rubble bounce:
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/02/20/enthusiasm-gap-narrowing-between-gop-and-democratic-voters/
With all the Democrats lying their butts off on all sides the base still has a chance to decide the contest.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:15 pmYou wonder why we are in this situation in part,
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/20/who-was-behind-the-money-to-stop-keystone-xl/
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:25 pmShould this thread be retitled to
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:30 pm“Whining about Social Conservatism”?
Brokered? Absurd…
http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/0fa99ca1-04d1-46fb-ac91-9815c0ac983c
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:31 pmAs a matter of fact, I have noticed this. But yes, wrong thread.
I like your comments… you have a lot of common sense. I hope you’re wrong this time. If it’s true that this guy is just totally unelectable vs Obama, this country is done. Not just because it’s more likely we’ll nominate Santorum than not.
If it’s any consolation, it appears the attack machine vs the new Not Romney is at full speed. It’s shameless how they switch from constant shrieking about one not romney to the next. They might as well be coordinating with the campaign (I guess they may very well be).
Personally, I think the attempt to make this election about contraception is a circus grade stunt. We’re a whacky country, but we’re not that bad. We want to see our friends get jobs. We want to see our families eat and have a good home. I don’t think America will fall for it.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:34 pmHow about “stand bravely, bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye”, AD?
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:36 pmPlainly, Obama cannot be beaten without flyover Amerikkka. Better make them happy ’cause the Left Coasts aren’t going to matter.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:36 pmWell it’s a bug, Dustin, as I pointed out before, with the prologue in the ‘State that dare not speak
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 4:40 pmit’s name,’ and events a year and a half earlier.
Perhaps the day has come where the Republican Party needs to choose whether to be a small government, fiscally conservative federalist party that has a big tent regarding social issues, or a religious, socially conservative party with a big tent on fiscal issues, which is what the last administration tended toward, and what Santorum offers going forward.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:02 pmPlainly, Obama cannot be beaten without flyover Amerikkka. Better make them happy ’cause the Left Coasts aren’t going to matter.
There are two Left Coasts? Hawaii?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:04 pmExcept the left creates the social issue, Kevin, abortion in ’73, gay marriage in ’03, mostly by judicial fiat, the latter after a decade of Republican governance in Massachussetts, which couldn’t stop the influence of Anthony Lewis’s better half. Which is the next hill to give up?
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:08 pm142. ” small government, fiscally conservative federalist party ”
The Republicans? Where did that come from?
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:17 pmPROSPERITY! and a plan to bring it back to America.
That’s the winning ticket!
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:17 pm___________________________________________
Laura Bush was raised a Democrat in a Republican town, and she remained a “secret” Democrat during her marriage (including in the White House)
I know she was a big pushover about the idea of same-sex marriage, so her being a closeted liberal isn’t too surprising. Then again, Patterico doesn’t mind the idea of couples consisting of two husbands or two wives, and he at least isn’t full of the squishiness that lurks in the mind of Bush’s wife.
BTW, the famous singer who probably (emphasizing the word “probably”) committed suicide last week is sort of a paradigm of America’s culture in the 21st century. A person torn apart by various abuses and dysfunctions, who was both secular and religious, apparently similar to the various younger female entertainers who’ve publicly said they’re bisexual, rattling around in a society where very little nowadays is shocking or controversial.
Hardly surprising, therefore, that Santorum’s ethos of “God Bless America” will raise some eyebrows and disquiet while Obama’s “Goddamn America” is accommodated and then shrugged off.
Mark (31bbb6) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:18 pmfeets-
Maybe Romney preferring success over being right is why people don’t like him.
Once upon a time it was said that “right makes might”, and I assume might leads to success.
Many Americans aren’t looking for “just” success, they’re looking for someone who will listen to the people, read the bill before it’s passed, and tell the American people the truth. It’s really not that hard, but a good percentage of republican voters don’t think Romney can do it.
Keep on keeping on as to why Santorum is the problem and see how much support that will get Romney.
And with all respect to Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Rove, if they and others want to keep telling people what they ought to think and do instead of listening, then they’ll get the same treatment that once Sen. Specter got, and they’re no better than a bunch of elitist Dems who think they know better than the rest of us. They better hope for a brokered convention. Even if Romney gets the nomination, it should be clear, as was said, that he inspires many to apathy. I’m not sure someone can win with an apathetic base.
Just remember, the default position is that sucking out the brains of babies half-born and killing babies that had the gall to survive an abortion is the position that is “closer to main stream America”. If that is what you want to cater to, be my guest.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:18 pmKevin M,
Re: social issues, I think it would be a mistake for the GOP to intentionally alienate its socially conservative supporters by making it clear their views aren’t wanted. Re: fiscal conservatives, the past records of all three major GOP candidates suggest they have weak areas when it comes to fiscal policy and limiting the size of government.
I think it will take continued pressure from conservatives to rein in any Republican who is elected President. I prefer Gingrich and Santorum to Romney because I think they will be easier for conservatives to pressure than Romney.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:23 pm“President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union that the US needs an economy “built to last”. Unfortunately, in his populist rhetoric, Mr Obama missed an opportunity to tee up the conversation the US must have during this election season: How do we restart dynamism in our economy, delivering productivity growth and raising living standards?”
– Glenn Hubbard http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a161c6e-5701-11e1-be5e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mwJPgcer
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:29 pmThat’s the problem with tents.
You’re irritated at one side, which is no-doubt irritated at the other side. All I ask for is a balanced budget.
Which is not part of the GOP platform and I doubt ever will be in the future, so I have to settle for replacing Obama with a liberal.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:29 pmoh think Romney will be a wholly forgettable president, but the next president just needs to dutifully pick the low-hanging fruit born of Obama’s rapey wretchedness
that’s all
he doesn’t need to define American greatness
he just needs to be be slightly less of a whore than his predecessor
And I think Romney has it in him.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:53 pmoh *I* think I mean
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 5:53 pmSantorum with the rhuemy-eyed one…
http://youtu.be/p8ulcbKrJFY
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:07 pmhappyfeet, I have genuine concern that Romney will push America to the left much as he did in MA.
By collaborating with liberals, some Republicans find short term political advantages. “accomplishments” which I don’t even agree with. And of course, the liberals take this as a sign the entire spectrum has shifted to the left, and then they get a little more and a little more and a little more.
The GOP being led by a liberal is a recipe for long term catastrophe like the corn subsidy and COLA adjustments to entitlements. LBJ made the great society. Nixon made it worse.
Romney would be less liberal than Obama, of course, but he could very well leave America much worse off than he found it. I don’t see how that’s even unlikely.
This difference is why I’m with most Republicans in opposing Romney for “electability” that isn’t even reflected in reality. Even with massive advantages, Santorum is running circles around him lately and outpolls him quite powerfully. And Romney is the third most electable even though he is easily the least conservative. I thought it worked the other way?
Romney is not without merit. In this very limited field his executive experience is not to be dismissed. But I think Santorum could be a better president.
DRJ is right that he’s much more likely to worry about the Tea Party and the right than Romney is. Hell, Romney doesn’t even seem to worry about us when he’s running in the GOP Primary.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:17 pmSpeaking of electability, I remember when a lot of the ‘experts’ were telling me that Perry had no chance of beating Obama because he’s too much like Bush 43.
They were fools.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:19 pmComment by Dustin — 2/20/2012 @ 4:34 pm
Santorum keeps tipping his hand, it’s more than that now, and that was enough, and it will get worse.
SarahW (b0e533) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:34 pmAs Dick Morris just pointed out, after kneecapping the Keystone Pipeline, Barack Hussein Obama effectively owns high gasoline prices.
Don’t let him get away with framing this election as anything but the economy, high price of gas, unemployment, F and F and the politicization of the DOJ, etc.
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:35 pmI’ll grant one thing: Santorum doesn’t have much interest in backing off just because it’s politically unpopular. He is basically the exact opposite of Romney.
And like Romney, this is a mixed back. On the one hand, flip flopping can be savvy politics. On the other, stubborn standing on principle shows character.
Let’s just hope the GOP somehow gives us a better nominee.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:39 pmHe basically had the right point, Obama’s economic policy is like alchemy or phrenology, not a real science, geared to Soros and other interests, including foreign powers,
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:47 pmI have genuine concern that Romney will push America to the left much as he did in MA.
It’s for sure Obama what will push America to the left plus there would also be penetration involved.
Santorum won’t push America to the left cause of he’s unelectable.
Romney on the other hand might could get elected. He wouldn’t push America to the left but he *might* follow a path of least resistance in that direction.
But he’s not a rapist, and in these waning days of America, having a non-rapist in our little white house is called WINNING.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/20/2012 @ 6:57 pmWill the republicans ever get a playbook like the dems?
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:01 pmThe fact the libs have people lined up to stop projects such as the pipeline. At the same time, the republicans do nothing to show their disgust. Maybe the joke is on conservatives.
“I have genuine concern that Romney will push America to the left much as he did in MA.”
This is neither genuine nor is it honest.
And it most certainly is not a comment or contention made in good faith.
Colonel Haiku (9dd30a) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:03 pmSantorum is a statist. Go to his website and look at his issues page. Where does the economy rank? Not before the evils of pr0n and teh gheys, that’s for sure.
What’s that? A free election victory? No thanks, I’ll just keep shooting myself in the foot.
I get it that everyone thinks Ron Paul is crazy, but dammit, not one other republican candidate can shed his love of big government statism and stand with the constitution instead of on it? Why the hell is there no other viable candidate? How come none of these other clowns can Galt up and say, “I’m running for president so I can leave you the eff alone”?
Ghost (6f9de7) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:04 pmWalker wins recall vote in Wisconsin causing L to go apoplectic, is called out by delegates at convention. He’s already been slimed, threatened, lied about, family put through the ringer- just the kind of experience a Republican presidential candidate needs. Now that the battle of Wisconsin has been won, free to go to DC.
Go down the Mississippi (dodging jumping Asian catfish) and team up with Bobby Jindahl who I believe has experience in health care policy., along with first hand experience as to how Obama’s crisis management and environmental policy “works” for America. Let Paul Ryan answer all questions and make all speeches about the economy, no one gets under Obama’s (thin) skin like Ryan.
Democrats can have the west coast and NE, repubs get the rest…
Please, please, please… and protect Andrew Breibart and the video, may it make the truth perfectly clear.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:17 pmMD in Philly-
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:25 pmYes.
It’s not even the leftward push that bothers me about Obama. It’s the fact he’s grabbing power he doesn’t constitutionally have, and I think he’d be even worse post reelection. So ideology won’t matter to me. I would vote for a liberal over Obama. I would vote for something more liberal than Obama, over Obama, if they didn’t have a record of abusing the office.
But that’s not the only thing going on. I would like to replace Obama and get a balanced budget, but if I can’t get that I want to avoid someone who has a record of increasing the intrusions and burden of government like Romney has.
I don’t get it either. It seems like such a candidate should have an easy time winning the primary, but a lot of pundits and leaders truly failed their country when the moment was right to selflessly build a movement around any of the conservatives.
MD, Walker would be so much better than the options we have now.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:38 pmAll I ask for is a balanced budget.
The last time I voted for a clear balance-the-budget platform was 1992. I voted for Perot. Clinton won, with 43% of the vote, but the budget got balanced. The 1994 midterm cannot be understood without understanding why a clown like Perot got 19% of the popular vote.
The really odd thing, looking back, is that Clinton was probably the only free-market president since Reagan. Not only did he balance the budget (with Gingrich holding his feet to the fire) but he also passed NAFTA and other free-trade agreements and managed to eliminate all farm subsidies.
Of course his social policies were statist and liberal, he was a big fan of government, he lied when the truth would serve him better and his Court appointments were terrible. But he was a fiscal conservative.
Which is why I need more than just that and why Clinton isn’t a Tea Party darling.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:48 pmBTW, I am not a fan of a balanced budget amendment. California has one and it doesn’t mean much. They just lie about expected income.
What I would prefer is a hard spending cap Amendment. Something like: “Unless 3/4ths of the members of each House concur, total federal spending during any fiscal year may not exceed 20% of the average GDP of the 3 fiscal years immediately prior.”
This allows government to grow with GDP, penalizes government for inflation, and provides a trailing spending boost in bad times and a trailing spending cut as recessions end. Whether the budget is balanced is another matter, but it always is. The 3/4th thing is there for war or other clear emergency.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 7:57 pmMight as well not even have a constitution if you’re going to rely on the ‘could Californians dishonestly interpret it out of existence’ rule.
Not that I have a problem with your spending cap amendment either.
The fact is that every single reform has some problem come up, so we never get any reform. Term limits, balanced budget amendment, a fair tax… these aren’t perfect solutions and they wouldn’t work fully.
The truth is, spending is a bigger problem than the other problems you mentioned. It’s a bona fide threat to the continued existence of the country. I’m not going to worry about other issues right now. we need to put them aside as a party. Of course, Santorum is not doing that and his remaining viable competitor campaigns for preserving entitlements.
so when I say ‘all I ask for is a balanced budget’, what I’m saying is that the GOP is useless to me.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/20/2012 @ 8:37 pmBill Clinton sowed many of the problems of this era, from the CRA revisions and the Justice and HUD policies on mortgages, to defense and intelligence
narciso (87e966) — 2/20/2012 @ 8:43 pmcutbacks, in the era of AQ’s rise, to the demagoguery that hangs over any real budgetary reform, he even managed to mess up the line item
veto, that the Congress gave him, that’s long before we get to his personal peccadillos
I think it would be a mistake for the GOP to intentionally alienate its socially conservative supporters by making it clear their views aren’t wanted
I didn’t say that, I said have a big tent there. It is, in fact, the SoCons that are trying to drive others out, calling them RINOs and such. Should a person be disqualified for a Republican nomination for having “pro-choice” views? You would think that from some of the criticisms of Romney (NOT my 1st choice). OTOH, a candidate who is gleefully open about liking subsidies is called a “conservative” because he thinks condoms are sinful.
If we have to be close minded someplace, I suggest we’d be a bigger, happier and more successful party if we insisted on small government and fiscal sanity and let the personal stuff remain at home and church.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/20/2012 @ 11:56 pmMight as well not even have a constitution if you’re going to rely on the ‘could Californians dishonestly interpret it out of existence’ rule.
Dustin, I’d have less of a problem with a BBA if I trusted politicians, but I don’t. If you try to control spending with numbers from the FUTURE, they will just make them up. But it is substantially harder to make up numbers from the PAST, so that makes for a clearer cap. You have to have something real to measure against.
I also want a cap on the amount they can spend, balanced or not. If Barry managed to cover his 25% of GDP it would still be bad.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/21/2012 @ 12:02 am173. Agreed, BBA is more smoke and mirrors like pay as you go. We need the curve bent in a southward direction.
No hope for that with our current political class.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:42 amThat’s a good point.
I hear similar complaints about every reform idea. We have to unify and back imperfect reforms, but instead split off into fifty groups with our own imperfect reforms.
All I ask for is a balanced budget. They don’t need an amendment to get there (but I think Texas is the example that works the best, which is why I would try to make DC like Texas in certain ways such as cutting down the sessions and a balanced budget amendment with teeth).
This is true. We actually need to start paying down the credit card instead of just keeping the balance where it is right now.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:14 amhttp://www.therightscoop.com/sarah-palin-happy-presidents-day/
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:46 amComment by AD-RtR/OS! — 2/20/2012 @ 10:48 am
“…I will work to advance state and federal laws and amendments that recognize the unalienable right to life of all human beings as persons at every stage of development…”
And how is this different from Bill Clinton’s campaign pledge in 1992 that “…abortions should be safe, legal, but rare…”?
The word legal. Rare of course, he didn’t mean, but there’d be no way to really prove that easily. Safe was a red herring (but implied the alternative was coat-hanger or an incompetent, (= uncertified) practitioner.
William McGurn writes in the Wall Street Journal today that the difference between Barack Obama declaring in 2008 that marriage is between a man and a woman, and Rick Santorum saying essentially the same thing is that everybody understands that Barack Obama was not telling the truth but Santorum means what he says. It’s also actually that the ball has been advanced a little since that time.
Plus, isn’t the intentional killing of innocent life a “Crime Against Humanity” as understood in the aftermath of Nuremburg?
It depends on how you define human. I don’t think even the most stanch Roman Catholic wants to treat a late term abortion exactly the same as infanticide and hat’s probably mostly true of people who come at this from another position.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:22 amThat’s right. The argument is that there is a human cost to criminalizing Abortion. I agree it’s somewhat a red herring as there’s a human cost to all kinds of things we criminalize, if someone attempts to do them under the table.
Yes. That would be a defining theme of a general election between the two (which seems to be the most likely outcome of this primary). Obama will have a hard time attacking Rick on experience, since Rick has vastly more than Obama did in 2008.
Rick will be talking about the economy, and Obama will be talking about contraception (largely through intermediaries). I think this is a truly desperate gambit that looks out of touch with America.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:29 am151 Dustin:
All I ask for is a balanced budget.
All you ask for?
Then you ought to be for Mitt Romney, because that’s probably about the only thing he cares about – and he doesn’t care how the budget gets balanced, either. And actually he’s not so much for a balanced budget, as for as balanced a budget as he can get political agreement on. And he would rely on experts, or a consensus, to tell him what leads to more balance and what does not. He thinks it’s just a matter of being able to properly do math and plan.
Romneycare was an effort to make it easier for Massachusetts to balance its budget. It didn’t do that but that’s probably why he was for it. The last candidate he was really enthusiastic about was Paul Tsongas in 1992, who campaigned on balancing the budget.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:33 amOh. Good news.
Oh. Bad news.
Oh. Good.
Well shoot. (BTW, no kidding it didn’t do that… it’s losing billions and the treasurer says it’s bankrupting the state). Romneycare predictably causes costs to skyrocket with the taxpayers on the hook.
To be more serious, Sammy, Mitt Romney is a serial flip flopper and it would be very stupid to take any promises he makes as more than sheer politics. He is not at all serious about balancing the budget and has not laid out any kind of actual leadership on cuts. When it’s time to talk about reforming the ponzi scheme, or ending ethanol subsidies, he is critical at worst of the truth, and at best he’s just a squish.
So did Rick Perry.
The thing is, it takes leadership to actually call out things that need to be cut. That’s why Perry noted a lot of things that need to be cut, even when it wasn’t popular. Even when Romney’s reply was “rick perry wants to kill social security.
We still have Newt, who has a much more impressive record on fighting for a balanced budget than Romney. We still have Santorum, who was also part of the successful fight, though not neither of these two are perfect on that score.
I don’t think so. I think he is pandering and not even that much to conservatives.
He’s repeatedly gone out of his way to show he wants to preserve entitlements. He uses the word “preserve”. His demagoguery about how calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme is wrong because “Social Security works” is simply not something I can agree with.
Romney’s signed into law a lot of tax increase, such as 350 million in “closing the loopholes” and about as much in more fees, and then tells conservatives he’s never raised taxes.
He has a very consistent liberal record. Sure, the democrats wanted to go farther left, so when the GOP governor went ten paces left, they wanted eleven (and got ten and a half).
I think folks like me who want a balanced budget need to look for one trait in particular over all others, and that’s the ability to win fights against democrats when the going gets tough. The idea I’m going to see Romney lead the way to a balanced budget doesn’t seem very realistic, no disrespect intended.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:51 amI recall that Romney’s proposal for the 2007 budget in MA was a ten percent increase in spending. That’s what Romney asked for, not what the democrats asked for.
This is in the context of MA slipping badly into debt… one of most indebted states in the union.
To be fair to Romney, he was trying to collaborate with democrats to do what Sammy calls “as balanced a budget as he can get political agreement on.”
The problem is that the most balanced a budget you can get political agreement on, when you LEAD with a 10% increase, is a massive increase in spending. The democrats in DC are not playing around here. You have to be willing to stand on principles, even if the media portrays you as a friend to the rich (something Romney seems very defensive about) or otherwise makes doing the right thing unpopular.
I think we have no choice but government shut downs in our near future along the hard path to a balanced budget. Rick and Mitt are both big government Republicans and I don’t think those who prefer Mitt are being all that ridiculous since Mitt has executive experience. But because what I want most is a balanced budget, I cannot support weak panderer right now.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:01 amComment by Dustin — 2/21/2012 @ 6:29 am
SF: Safe was a red herring (but implied the alternative was coat-hanger or an incompetent, (= uncertified) practitioner.
That’s right. The argument is that there is a human cost to criminalizing Abortion. I agree it’s somewhat a red herring as there’s a human cost to all kinds of things we criminalize, if someone attempts to do them under the table.
It’s also a red herring because what happened then would not happen now, now that we have pills that do the same job and many people with training and experience doing this. And of course you really don’t her this about other laws. To be consistent this argument should be raised every place it applies.
SF: everybody understands that Barack Obama was not telling the truth but Santorum means what he says.
Yes. That would be a defining theme of a general election between the two (which seems to be the most likely outcome of this primary).
Although Rick Santorum does have a very good idea of what the constitutional powers of a president and Congress are and cites it and cites his record too, some people seem worried. The only thing Rick Santorum would do is make speeches here and there. He really does want to do that. I don’t think it matters. You’d hear more of it, by the way after he was no longer president.
William McGurn writes that what Samtorum should do, is fold this into the narrative of a free society. But he not only wants to talk about public questions, but to defend the 1968 papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae” he needs to be disciplined, he says, and let pass a great deal he might want to comment on. He’s being dragged out of public questions into the weeds of theological debate.
John Podhoretz writes in the New York Post that the real problem with Ric Santorum is that he says things like: I don’t think God will continue to bless America if we continue to kill 1.2 million children a year. (I guess he thinks Iran is better on that issue.) This might make him a bit more defeatist, but he’d always hope that God would forgive America – maybe he’d reason that at least the fact of the president speaking out would protect America. (He’d be one of the righteous men in whose merit the rest would be saved – something that didn’t happen with Sodom)
This is actually an echo of what Abraham Lincoln said in his second Inaugural address (where Lincoln relied on a mistranslation of Psalm 19:10 where “judgments” is not really the correct translation. It’s not case decisions, but the rules themselves that is meant, as in Exodus 21:1. The 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation, which largely follows the King James version, has “ordinances” here.)
Rich Lowry generally has praise for him but thinks Santorum needs to curb his enthusiasms, which can play into a negative image of him. But he implies that attempting a Socratic dialogue on hot button issues may be better than repeating sound minds.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:05 am<blockquoteIt’s also a red herring because what happened then would not happen now, now that we have pills that do the same job and many people with training and experience doing this. And of course you really don’t her this about other laws. To be consistent this argument should be raised every place it applies.
That is a very good argument. I hadn’t even considered that. There wouldn’t be the ghastly back alley stuff.
I can’t honestly say I’m not worried too. He and I have very different ideas of the role of government. I respect the man’s integrity and I like much of his agenda (and believe it’s his true agenda rather than a pander). But I am not exactly confident.
That’s too bad, if you’re right. I think it’s great that he intends to fight from the bully pulpit, but sometimes he does seem to be railing for the sake of railing and it’s annoying.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:08 amKevin M.
FWIW, I think the “RINO” designation is not limited to “so con” issues, but other issues as well, at least that is how I use it, though maybe others use it more for social con issues. Even if some one was Pro-Life, I would think that a pro-Global warming agende, for example, is a “RINO” position.
I like you idea of capping spending to a % of GNP unless time of emergency and Congressional override. from what little I know about economic issues, the evidence is that once taxes are around 20%, attempts to tax more than that has negative impact on the economy and you start beating a tired horse. Cooking the numbers for GNP is probably harder than cooking other numbers.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:11 ambtw, Sammy, my comments are intended to be light hearted snark rather than combative. Hopefully that comes across as intended.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:11 amObama will have a hard time attacking Rick on experience, since Rick has vastly more than Obama did in 2008.
No, I think he wouldn’t have such a hard time.
First, because in 2012, Obama now has experience.
Also because I think, for most people, the issue isn’t experience but competence, as exhibited by knowledge of and familiarity with the issues.
In 2008, Obama came across as more competent than John McCain on the economic crisis. This wasn’t so much because of anything Obama said or did but what McCain said or did. McCain interrupted the entire campaign and seemed to treat this as a much bigger crisis than most people thought it was.
Obama can come across as incompetent, on economic issues – also on foreign policy, or some areas of foreign policy if he sticks to some ideas he seems to rely on – but only if the opposing candidate understands things very thoroughly, at least as well as some of the better media columnists do. Otherwise the opposing candidate will himself come across as uninformed. Talking points that poll well are no way to go. Newt Gingrich is probably better on this. Santorum may have a good critique on Obamacarem but he needs to be able to do this on a whole range of things
Rick will be talking about the economy,
Yes, I think he actually intends to. The election won’t be won on the social issues. I think he figures that either most people agree with him or don’t care what he thinks, but a great deal do not care, so he will emphasize the other stuff, although his campaign started out focusing on this sort of thing.
William McGurn writes the most glaring double standard in American life today is that “candidate with social views that are fairly conventional among ordinary Americans…find themselves depicted as extreme.”
His social views, by the way do affect economic policy. That’s why he is so much in favor of manufacturing. He thinks those jobs lend dignity to undereducated males and makes them capable of supporting families like they once did.. the truth s manufacturing is not the only kind of job that can exist and also the manufacturing process now uses a lo less labor than it once did, and there’s no more reason to encourage manufacturing work than there was once to encourage farming work. But this is a minor flaw.
Now there is another argument or two for maintaining manufacturing capacity in the United States, or nearby. One is the possibility that trade might be interrupted with China and the other is maintaining competition.
and Obama will be talking about contraception (largely through intermediaries). I think this is a truly desperate gambit that looks out of touch with America.
Actually I don’t think Obama will be talking much about it. This is more used in a high level to stop Santorum from talking about it. It can help turnout a bit in certain places. If this filters down to much to the general public it raises the profile of the issue and then you get the answer that Santorum doesn’t want to do anything about this except get it out of mandatory insurance policies. And it is also very clear this comes out of idealism and in general idealism is good.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:29 amYes, but he can’t really run on his record or his experience. For much the same reason some reject Romney’s experience in MA because it’s not the direction they want to see America head in, I think a lot of people will see Obama’s four years so far as experience screwing up.
And while Obama will surely attack any of his competitors as inexperienced (as Palin was attacked in 2008 despite having the most executive experience of the four on the tickets), I think it really will be tricky for Obama to attack Santorum for being unprepared for office after a decade+ as Senator when Obama ran for President before completing a single term.
I tend to lump a campaign in under the candidate, to be clear. Whatever Obama does run on, I doubt it’s his record on the economy, so I think it’ll come off as out of touch. I think this social issues thing indeed is pretty weak. Perhaps they see that too?
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 7:44 am“I recall that Romney’s proposal for the 2007 budget in MA was a ten percent increase in spending. That’s what Romney asked for, not what the democrats asked for.”
Dustin – Like so many things about Romney, you recall, flat out wrong, but you have a hard time admitting you are wrong.
2006 Budget recommendation: http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2006h1/06budrec/govarea/
2007 Budget Recommendation: http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2007h1/2007budrec/govarea/
Just like Perry, Romney “cut” government spending in office when you apply that same math you do for Perry, even though actual spending rose.
The horror, the horror.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:08 amAt the very least, Sammy, I appreciate that you’re at least trying to make a Romney argument on the grounds of spending discipline rather than electability or simply attack after attack on his competitors.
The positive case for folks like me to support Romney is crowded out by the negative case (often that stuff seems contemptuous of the actual virtues of Newt, Santorum, former candidates, which is amazingly short sighted politics).
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:12 am58. 90.
Comment by DRJ — 2/20/2012 @ 11:26 am
I think Santorum is surging because he comes across as the candidate with the most consistent values.
Comment by Kevin M — 2/20/2012 @ 12:46 p
Then Stalin would be a shoo-in.
Stalin as a matter of fact, was not consistent.
What he did was first take a “rightist” position in the 1920s against world revolution and then a “leftist” position for collectivization of farms and intensified persecution of religion. What he was probably really trying to do was shake off any kind of support (by support I mean carrying out orders, and participation in government) by people who happened to support what he was doing. He only wanted complete, and brutal, cynics who did not have any aspirations of their own as to government policy, and who would do anything.
In 1948, he discovered there were some people who turned out to have independent values in spite of everything they had done in the years before – they had been Zionists before becoming Communists and it was getting revived a bit, after having lain dormant in their heads for 30 years, and against orders they were letting Jews leave Communist territory outside 1939 Russia – and started purging Jews from his government.
And he was hardly consistent on who was in and who was out, and who was a good guy and who was a bad guy (except that good guys kept turning into bad guys – he was consistent on that actually, repeating in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s what he had done in Russia in the mid 1930s) on Bolsehevik history, and on participation in coalitions in democratic countries, and on what to do about Nazi Germany – first strong verbal opposition, then a non-aggression treaty, and then patriotic war. His party line, which his followers were required to repeat and endorse like religious dogma, kept constantly changing.
Or do the positions taken matter?
The position do matter, but some sorts of positions matter less than others, and most of the social positions Rick Santorum has don’t really matter too much – the president is hardly the only voice, or the final voice, or even any voice at all, on most of them.
It only affects thing at the margins. and you’re never or hardly ever, going to get your perfect or near-perfect for you president.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:41 am“Unless 3/4ths of the members of each House concur, total federal spending during any fiscal year may not exceed 20% of the average GDP of the 3 fiscal years immediately prior.”
The loophole there would be keeping things out of the federal budget. Mandating state and private spending would be OK. Tax incentives would also be OK, and some things could be structured as a tax expenditure.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:45 amWith all due respect for residents of CA, MA, NY, NJ, & IL. You are entitled to an opinion but your votes don’t matter.
You can have your nominee, deliver with toe tag.
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:50 amI like Kevin’s proposal, but that’s a good point. That’s exactly how Obamacare works. It is a huge government program, but the government simply mandates the spending while pretending this isn’t basically a huge tax increase. The ind. mandate is a huge tax and spending increase in disguise.
I don’t know that it’s possible to write a reform that handles every single case, though.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:51 amDustin:
Romney saved the Olympics, which is supposed to impress people
Romney doesn’t like to talk about it too much, so I suspect it can’t stand close examination.
Because what Romney might have done, is help cover up some corruption, while ensuring that no more of it took place.
What other reason really was there to get someone in with a lot of close Utah ties? Why not somebody really independent? Because people didn’t want a real investigation.
but I think is a lot less impressive than Santorum’s welfare reform work or being a highly ranked Senator… including during the time the GOP was fairly successful.
Santorum talks about how he was able to get legislation through the House even when he Republican Party was in a minority.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:52 amI think it really will be tricky for Obama to attack Santorum for being unprepared for office after a decade+ as Senator when Obama ran for President before completing a single term.
He would attack him not for not having experience, but for not having sufficient knowledge. He doesn’t know this. He made a mistake about that. This thing he said is obviously wrong. Obama says plenty wrong himself but you have to be able to call him on it, correctly.
One thing Obama would seek is an admission of error. While he will never acknowledge any error of fact.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 8:56 amI agree. In fact, I’ll go so far as to concede this is the kind of back and forth that rewards a slicker political player than Santorum even wants to be.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:00 amComment by MD in Philly — 2/20/2012 @ 7:17 pm
Please, please, please… and protect Andrew Breibart and the video, may it make the truth perfectly clear.
At most that would show, if people understood the issue, that Obama was, at best, a fool, in 1983, at the age of 22 or so. That isn’t his position now, although apparently he does have the Pentagon studying what is the lowest number of nuclear warheads we could have that would be considered safe, and the answer they came up with is 300, and that’s being toyed with as a possible negotiating proposal for negotiations with Russia. Now since that time Obama has become extremely aware of and concerned about countries other than Russia and China having nuclear weapons. I guess they might figure 300 is enough to deter Iran and other small fry.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:02 amMD in Philly. I know Scott Walker. He lives directly across the street from my best friends childhood home. One of my best friends sons shares a locker with one of Gov Walkers sons’ at my old high school. Scott Walker has extremely good character, and his Dad is a Minister. I told “Scott” about 10 years ago, that he would be Governor before he turned 50. He was elected on his 42nd birthday. He’s a very good man.
Gus (36e9a7) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:25 amHe is still a fool as his adherence to the Iowa Peace Pledge in 2008 would suggest,
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:27 am180. SF: Romneycare was an effort to make it easier for Massachusetts to balance its budget.
Oh. Good.
SF: It didn’t do that
Well shoot. (BTW, no kidding it didn’t do that… it’s losing billions and the treasurer says it’s bankrupting the state). Romneycare predictably causes costs to skyrocket with the taxpayers on the hook.
I can’t find exact proof that that was his motive, but maybe that’s because I don’t have anything that goes into enough detail. It seems to have been an independent issue but it was also a budget problem.
Romney talked more about insuring everyone and about hospital costs and maybe about preventing bankruptcies and he could have been looking to make a name for himself too and/or to avoid having a ballot proposal on the November 2006 ballot.
There’s a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform
This article does, I think, attempt to describe exactly what it did.
The Wikipedia article also does I think, allude to a Massachusetts budget question.
The state was receiving $385 million in federal funds to reimburse hospitals for services provided to the uninsured. Massachusetts had a
approximately $700 million Uncompensated Care Pool (also known as a “free care pool”), used to partially reimburse hospitals and health centers for expenses under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986,
which required hospitals and ambulance services to provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. A classic unfunded mandate. It was funded by an annual assessment on insurance providers and hospitals, plus state and federal contributions. Now in the meantime the state had a waiver that allowed the state to operate an expanded Medicaid program and still get federal money and that was worth $385 million that year.
But the free care pool had to be restructured so that individuals, rather than institutions, received the funding. So then:
MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber predicted that the amount of money in the “free care pool” would be sufficient to pay for reform legislation without requiring additional funding or taxes.[13] In fact, the increased cost of subsidized insurance offset the reduction in “free care”, while insurance premiums increased faster than the national average and became the highest in the country.[14]
So you can say this was supposed to solve budget problems beautifully. Mainly by cutting emergency room visits, which didn’t actually happen.
Here also is the New York Times article when Romneycare was signed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/us/05mass.html?sq=romney%20massachusetts%20budget%20insurance&st=nyt&scp=1&pagewanted=all
It says:
The Massachusetts bill was hammered out with proposals and input from state Democratic legislators; Mr. Romney, a Republican; Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Democrat; insurers; academics; businesses; hospitals; and advocates for the poor, including religious leaders.
They were motivated in part by a threat by the federal government to eliminate $385 million in federal Medicaid money unless the state reduced the number of uninsured people. The state was supposed to have the bill completed by January, but state officials said they were confident that the federal government would approve of Tuesday’s bill.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:35 amWhat MA needed was leadership instead of a grab for federal money. What they needed was to tell the citizens they need to take care of themselves and be responsible for themselves.
Plenty of states have a safety net that works, while requiring citizens to take care of themselves.
Instead we saw Romneycare attempt to control the economic decisions in a predictably unsustainable way. Costs skyrocketed. Billions were lost. They are talking about rationing care.
At the time, many were somehow immune to logic and thought this might work. Now we see it doesn’t work, but some, like Romney, think the ind. mandate is conservative and good, even today.
While Romney claims he only means this on a state level, I don’t think he has the fight in him to repeal Obamacare. Yes, I am explicitly denying one of his campaign promises.
Frankly, Romney talks about a lot of things. It’s not difficult to put together Romney comments that totally contradict eachother.
But they replaced the free care pool with massive subsidized health insurance at the cost of tremendous freedom and fines (which many opt for). I disagree with this.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:50 amThis is very poorly phrased. What I mean is many states let people deal with their own affairs however they want, while having a basic safety net that is indeed a liability the taxpayers pay for, but is more reasonable in cost.
Some say ‘but but but… then someone isn’t doing what I want them to do’, and I don’t care. It’s none of your business whether someone is insured or not.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:53 amComment by Dustin — 2/21/2012 @ 6:51 am
To be more serious, Sammy, Mitt Romney is a serial flip flopper and it would be very stupid to take any promises he makes as more than sheer politics.
Oh yes. I’m certainly not basing that on anything he says. I am attempting to read his mind, something necessary in the case of somebody like Mitt Romney. I don’t think I can do quite as good a job as I can with Barack Obama. There’s less for me to go on.
He is not at all serious about balancing the budget and has not laid out any kind of actual leadership on cuts.
What I am saying is that the only political principle he seems to have is balanced, or closer to balanced, budgets. There are some grounds for suspecting that might be a principle with him.
He says a lot of things that can’t be taken at all seriously but I think he’s probably for it the way he’s probably for Iran not having an atomic bomb.
When it’s time to talk about reforming the ponzi scheme,
If Social security is a Ponzi scheme, it’s a very slow-motion Ponzi scheme. It does of course, depend for its soundness on a constantly increasing population, as well as increasing per capita income. It may be slow enough to be sustainable. If not benefits will need to be cut, but not anywhere near in half even, either with extended notice or not, or the deficiency made up some other way.
If Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, so are most pensions. In that case, the pensions of General Motors were a Ponzi scheme that collapsed when the business, and the number of employees, started shrinking. If a city starts losing population, it’s in big trouble. Ponzi scheme?
You can avoid all that either by defined contributions or by pre-funding although with pre-funding you have he problem of estimating investment income over a long period of time.
or ending ethanol subsidies, he is critical at worst of the truth, and at best he’s just a squish.
I don’t think hes honest at all and he makes ridiculous promises he can’t possibly believe in.
With Mitt Romney you have to read his mind. People shouldn’t have to do that. Not only as to what he thinks but what he would do and whose judgment he would rely on.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:55 amComment by Dustin — 2/21/2012 @ 7:11 am
btw, Sammy, my comments are intended to be light hearted snark rather than combative. Hopefully that comes across as intended.
I didn’t notice the slightest thing antagonistic. Don’t worry.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 9:59 amGreat points. And perhaps the answer is yes. The devil is in the details, but sometimes I think the answer is yes.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 10:02 amComment by Dustin — 2/21/2012 @ 9:50 am
At the time, many were somehow immune to logic and thought this might work. Now we see it doesn’t work, but some, like Romney, think the ind. mandate is conservative and good, even today.
I have no idea what Romney thinks. You can only go by what Romney claims. Back in 2006, he said in an interview with the New York Times:
“..this proves at this stage that we can get health insurance for all our citizens without raising taxes and without a government takeover. The old single-payer canard is gone.”
No thought at all that there is economic problem with 100% insurance. There’s no mechanism to set prices. Well, the insurance companies do maybe, but that’s not very good.
conservative and good
Romney does talk like he thinks conservative = good, or that he must treat it that way in the Republican primary race, but it was pointed out that he described himself as having been “severely conservative” the other day, but severe is not an adjective you use with regard to any quality you consider good!!
Mitt Romney garbles his talking points. That’s how little he understands them actually. They all come straight from his political consultants.
While Romney claims he only means this on a state level, I don’t think he has the fight in him to repeal Obamacare. Yes, I am explicitly denying one of his campaign promises.
The state level business is more a legal issue and a method to distinguish what he did from Obamacare than anything else. He never elaborates on what was different about Massachusetts.
I don’t think he’s really interested in repeal, and already has his escape clauses worked out.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 10:21 amGus,
Thanks for the first hand confirmation. If you have an opportunity, tell him there are Badger Walker fans in Philly who want to take him to dinner where george, ben and the boys would meet to discuss politics (but they aren’t rich, so it will not be a fundraiser…).
Sammy,
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/21/2012 @ 10:28 amWe could get an angry hostile Obama talking about infiltrating the govt. ala alinsky and making all of those ^*&%&%*%*T get what’s coming to them, like his mentor (father?) Davis has been saying, with Bill Ayers cheering with fist in the air “Viva la Revoluccion’!!!!”
That would prove he was lying about not knowing Ayers and show that even Glenn Beck’s worst conspiracy theories are consistent with known fact.
DRJ, I think you’re right that the Republican party shouldn’t intentionally alienate its socially conservative supporters.
HOWEVER, it needs to also not alienate its socially liberal/moderate supporters. Otherwise, it will end up nationally in a state similar to where it is in California today.
——
Kevin M, Dustin: a balanced budget amendment is a guaranteed path to the budget being decided by the Supreme Court, every year. Do you really want that?
aphrael (5d993c) — 2/21/2012 @ 10:46 amOf interest:
Website with texts of many Obama speeches from the 2008 campaign. The last speech (and the one on the home page) is his Inaugural address:
http://obamaspeeches.com
Here’s the one where he says: “…this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…”
http://obamaspeeches.com/E09-Barack-Obama-Final-Primary-Night-Presumptive-Democratic-Nominee-Speech-St-Paul-Minnesota-June-3-2008.htm
I heard that one live over the radio. It was amazing. He sounded like King Canute. Of course, I understood the (bad) reasoning behind it.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 10:59 amA fuller quote is:
….generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 11:02 amWe’ve had this debate before, of course.
There are plenty of reforms that wind up being insufficient. Term limits is a great example.
But we need some wholesale changes and I don’t see a balanced budget amendment leading to a situation that is as bad as we have presently.
I would hope it can be drafted well enough that it can’t be circumvented so easily. Kevin’s proposal is a decent alternative, but it’s important we have some kind of reform here. I do not trust DC to stay on the right path if we do manage to get a balanced budget. That shouldn’t be the extreme… it should be the law.
One example of a reform that might work is greatly limiting how much money the federal government can print or borrow except specifically to fund national defense under x,y,z conditions.
Anyway, yes, I do tend to want the Supreme Court to rule on what the law is, and if the congress were unlawfully (post reform) passing truly unbalanced budgets, yes, they would need to be ruled unconstitutional.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 11:27 am208. “HOWEVER, it needs to also not alienate its socially liberal/moderate supporters. Otherwise, it will end up nationally in a state similar to where it is in California today.”
I’m sure there’s a reasoning that will make this sensical. The asylum will overrun the nation?
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/21/2012 @ 11:43 amGary, I don’t speak for Aphrael, but I think one way you might reason out his view is to hope a majority of Americans want some sanity on spending (all spending, to include entitlements) and are mature enough to accept real reforms to get there. But we don’t all agree on DADT, gay marriage, abortion, or all kinds of other things.
If only we could just have a balanced budget caucus, that spanned both parties, or a balanced budget party set up with an explicit truce on all issues but fixing the budget…
The problem is getting a tent that both prioritizes what I want and is large enough to win.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 11:49 amI think far worse than anything was Rick Santorum comparing illegal immigrants who work to shoplifters saying that it shouldn’t be tolerated more than that?
Does he not realize that in so doing he’s comparing the Republican Party candidates, and himself, to Inspector Javert in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo?
Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1) — 2/21/2012 @ 12:06 pmI once came upon a liberal web site with that quote from Obama about the oceans, etc. They were united in dismissing it and saying Obama opponents were being dishonest in calling it into question. They said it “clearly” was a reference to what the American people could do together and there was no need to project arrogance or megalomania into it…
“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…” Rhymin’ Simon
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/21/2012 @ 12:52 pmHiroshima.
Nagasaki.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 2/21/2012 @ 12:58 pmSeems we get a choice between politicians who say things they don’t mean or politicians who say what they mean but in such a way that it comes out bad…
I imagine what Santorum was trying to say was that for whatever economic benefit illegal aliens as a whole bring to the US, the cost in services they use in education, health care, corrections system,etc. is more, so that they are a net drain on the system, “just like” someone shopping and buying something but also shoplifting, the store has a net loss. I don’t know if that is true, but I imagine it is, especially in some regions. But yes, it was a terrible way to describe the issue.
Santorum makes sense if he was talking to an individual of good will who wants to understand what he thinks. Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time with people who would like to destroy him.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:03 pmComment by MD in Philly — 2/21/2012 @ 1:03 pm
I imagine what Santorum was trying to say was that for whatever economic benefit illegal aliens as a whole bring to the US, the cost in services they use in education, health care, corrections system,etc. is more, so that they are a net drain on the system, “just like” someone shopping and buying something but also shoplifting, the store has a net loss.
No, no, no, no no. He was talking literally.
Last South Carolina CNN Republican deabte Jan. 19, 2012 transcript
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2012/01/south_carolina_gop_cnn_debate_.html
…And if you want to be an American, the first thing you should do is respect our laws and obey our laws. And — (cheers, applause) — and the idea that someone, whether it’s — whether it’s either of these two gentlemen, whether the idea that someone who came here and lived here 25 years has only broken one law, if they’ve worked for 25 years they’ve been breaking the law for 25 years. (Applause.)
If they’ve been working they have probably stolen someone’s Social Security number and they’ve committed Social Security fraud. They’ve — this — this is not just a single occurrence. It’s an ongoing issue. And if we treat people like that differently than we do with a mother who out of a desperate situation goes out and — and shoplifts or does something and gets thrown in jail, what are we saying — that we’re going to treat people in this country who do things for their family differently than those who are here illegally? I don’t think so. (Cheers, applause.)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:30 pmI am sure his grandfather was a complete teetotaler during Prohibition.
It would be very hard to check, now, unless there’s some record one way or another, so this is just rhetorical.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:32 pmThis can’t do Santorum’s candidacy any good:
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (a18ddc) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:34 pmSantorum Will Have to Answer on Satan
February 21, 2012
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I mentioned earlier in the program that Santorum, people have dug deep and they found a speech that he gave back in 2008 in Ave Maria, Florida, at Ave Maria University. Drudge has this plastered up. The Democrats have found it. It’s all over the place. Think Progress and whatever leftist think tanks have dug this up, and it’s part of the predictable attempt to impugn Santorum as an absolute religious nut and wacko. But he did say these things and he’ll to have an answer for these things when queried. Let’s play these sound bites. We have three of them. This is where Santorum has said that Satan as set his sights on America. Again, this is at Ave Maria University, August of 2008, in Ave Maria, Florida …
Sammy, thank you for correcting my erroneous assumption. I still think that in one way he is making a valid point on the problem with differential law enforcement, and he still is making a mess of discussing it.
I am surprised they haven’t pulled out the bestiality quotes yet.
As I’ve said before, I’m not confident about Santorum being a good candidate, I just don’t want people to blame him for there being no one better. Not his fault if no one can beat him.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:44 pmsatan satan bo batan banana fana fo fatan
Satan!
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:48 pmhttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/02/21/carney_obama_didnt_turn_down_the_keystone_pipeline.html
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:49 pmIt’s possible that Santorum thinks we actually crack down hard on mothers who shoplift. Actually, we do not.
Which may mean he’s really out of touch with the way the world (or U.S. law enforcement) works.
Maybe that did happen one time in Pennsylvania.
The real problem is that defense attorneys do not care about the truth and don’t preserve the right to sue for false arrest. Innocent and guilty are both treated the same and the cases all dismissed without prejudice.
I know a grandmother who could have sued Rite Aid in 2004 for false arrest. Not to mention stealing money from her. (She re-entered the store after buying something, I think for baby food, then she was accused of stealing, and the Rite Aid employees actually lied to the police and it would have been provan to be a lie. I mean it involved a hospital visit that I can be sure never took place!)
I checked later: Rite Aid security had a lot of problems with making false accusations. It’s online.
Had legal aid been interested in something other than getting her off without penalty maybe something could have happened. In the end, after one or two court appearances, there was an order of protection issued to her to stay away from that store for six months, and the store employee to stay away from her, if I remember right. She wasn’t going to go into taht store again anyway.
I think Rite Aid management knew the story didn’t check out. The police didn’t know that though. I think they discovered that they had a potential BIG problem.
They later on closed that store. Coney Island Avenue and Avenue J in Brooklyn. I wonder if that’s the reason. (The better to really cover it up.)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:49 pmRite Aid has tasty ice creams
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:53 pmComment by MD in Philly — 2/21/2012 @ 1:44 pm
As I’ve said before, I’m not confident about Santorum being a good candidate, I just don’t want people to blame him for there being no one better. Not his fault if no one can beat him.
The problem with the way the Presidential primary campaigns are structured is that nobody can enter late. They ought to be structured so that’s easy.
There would be good reason for that. In fact, I’d have some states vote two or three times, apportioning some delagates each time.
As it is, we had almost an equivalent of that because previously obscure and ignored candidates – like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum got paid attention to. But there aren’t any more in the pipeline.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:55 pmAnonymous Republican Senator comes out in favor of jeb Bush:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/top-gop-senator-says-if-romney-loses-michigan-we-need-a-new-candidate
Mike DeWine meanwhile retracted his endorsement of Romney and switchewd to Santorum.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 2/21/2012 @ 1:56 pmThat’s the problem with bandwagons — there’s always another one right around the corner.
Icy (730756) — 2/21/2012 @ 2:00 pmget thee behind me I voted for Santorum!
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 2:05 pmI can’t help but look at this mess and at least see Santorum being good at winning from a disadvantage.
As MD said in one of these threads, it’s not his fault if someone slicker and more electable can’t beat him (and that seems like an oxymoronic notion).
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 2:10 pmDustin, his advantage is being Not Romney at the right time; when he became virtually the only not Romney.
Mitt is neither slick nor particularly electable;
so reliance on that was a mistake.
The Kill Newt putsch gave S. a toehold and then momentum. He’s in the eyes of many the only NotRomney standing and they are shutting their eyes and ears to his defects in part because the choir he preaches to is content to have him drift away from conservatism if he agrees with them on specific social issues.
If fish do not know they are wet, perhaps they don’t know what it is to be dry either; they cannot even imagine that Santorum is as objectionable to needed voters as he is. ABO voting is a given among conservatives, but to win those numbers aren’t large enough.
Even swing voters who wish very much to defect from Obama are more disgusted and frightened at Santorum. They will weeping, pull the lever for Obama and stop on the way home for their $6 per gallon gasoline.
The Newt Panic was so very premature. If Newtmentum seemed bad, it can always get worse. The sentiment growing against Romney hadn’t sunk in. They thought it ought to be snuffed out. The GOPs reward, and ours? An Obama landslide. Which I’m thinking is desperately needed in this country right about now, wouldn’t you agree?
Sarahw (b0e533) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:00 pmIf Newt hadn’t gone so schizophrenically negative and weirdly anti private equity he’d still be in the race I think.
His achilles heel was the widely-shared perception of him as erratic.
Plus the whole moon base thing was probably not helpful.
Me I like moon bases a lot though.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:21 pmSarah, I 100% intend to vote for Newt and I’m not counting him out.
Hopefully he can turn this around. It’s not out of the question.
A lot of people seem to think that, perhaps with less pith. All I know is that I must be wayyyy out of step with the party given how this primary has worked out. It’s practically backwards with what I’d have wanted.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:23 pmGingrich’s Transcendent Self-regard… who knew!
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/21/gingrich-self-regard/
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:45 pmspeaking of moon bases a store down the way from me has a vintage one of these, but he wants a lot for it and it’s not even in super great shape – but check out the wheel in back for when you went downhill – that’s some space age engineering right there
the moon wagon factory was just over the way from here in Burbank
don’t know what happened to it… at some point people decided moon wagons were silly I guess, and, like so many things, you couldn’t buy them with food stamps
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 4:58 pmhappyfeet-will the ebt card buy the wagon?
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:02 pmThat looks like a real space commuter in the ad.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:05 pmgreat vintage ad work.
you might could go buy lil debbies and barter I think
everyone likes lil debbies!
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:06 pm“When I say save the West, I mean that. That is my job. . . . It is not my job to win reelection. It is not my job to take care of passport problems. It is not my job to get a bill through Congress. My job description as I have defined it is to save Western civilization.”
– Newt Gingrich, circa 1979
Gingrich’s chief of staff in 1983, Frank Gregorsky, said (according to a transcript of a staff meeting) that Gingrich “assumed that he’s the whole Republican Party. He knows more than the president [Ronald Reagan], the president’s people, [Robert H.] Michel, [James] Baker. He calls them stupid all the time, and I think that’s going to get him into big trouble someday.”
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:09 pmYes, a politician with an ego, fancy that, in other news, water is wet,
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:13 pmEgo??? Understatement of 2012.
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:17 pmObama/Biden in 2012:
Hope and Change“Diminished Expectations”http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/137541/
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:20 pmAce is on fire…
“I really want Obama out of office. Unlike some who merely mouth the words — I honestly do not know if America will survive a second term.
If that notion– We absolutely cannot afford to lose this one and reassure ourselves that “At least we stood for Principle” — puts me at odds with others, so be it.
They say Obama’s good for conservative media.
I don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s not really reflected in my own statistics. So perhaps I don’t face the conflict others do.
All I know is that Obama’s re-election will be the god-damned death knell for America, so excuse the hell out of me if I am not in the frame of mind to f*ck about.
By the Way, Rush: You’ve learned well from the Left. If you disagree with someone, make sure you assign bad motives or bad character to that person. Don’t just take his stated objections as his actual motives; assign to him the worst motives you can conceive of, like cowardice and CYA stuff.
But if that’s the game, so be it.
How are your ratings, Rush?
Are they up?”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/326874.php
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:29 pmOnce again, Mitt is behind
The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:29 pmAnd he’s starting to find
Voters do care
‘Bout more than his hair
They don’t think that he is their kind.
Can Rick now beat the Mitt?
The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:34 pmTo voters, he’s a closer fit
They really hope
He can beat the dope
And pop O just like a big zit!
Rush Limbaugh and the Moon Wagon both are relics of bygone eras I think
but I like the Moon Wagon better cause of how many snack cakes it can carry plus it’s got that spiffy back wheel for so you can pop wheelies
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:34 pmThe problem is that social laxness in the aggregate, leads to fiscal laxness, for the state
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:40 pmfills the gap, that the institutions used to, where does the demand for the spendings come from,
then maybe social cons should worry more about filling the gaps and less about fetuses and homos
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:44 pmNo it cannot be filled, because any time authority is asserted, it is challenged by the ‘right’ parties,
narciso (87e966) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:46 pmthen fiscal laxness will have to be remedied independently of social laxness
lots of other countries have gotten/kept their fiscal houses in order without electing a freaky fringe wacko
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:51 pmpoor Rick, for this chance he’s been waitin’
Colonel Haiku (32cb31) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:55 pmon Catholics, the Dems they be hatin’
with vest of tired sweater
religious go-getter
Church Lady wonders… could it be… SATAN?!?!
god bless america
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 2/21/2012 @ 5:57 pmThe Colonel, like Rick’s vest sweater
The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:10 pmDoes seem to be getting better
But it’s still all rot
Because he cannot
Compete with the Lim’rick Avenger!
The Colonel is like
The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 2/21/2012 @ 6:12 pmA cat parked right on your lap
Warm, but annoying
Guess I can hardly hold it against the so-con H8rs. I get a little angst over the so-lib conservative poseurs for my part.
Like the unions levying dues of non-members, the so-cons should charge for use of the “Conservative” alias.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/22/2012 @ 12:05 amI like the space program. I would want it to be a relatively small part of our budget, but it has real value for us, particularly for national defense. A Chinese moon base would be a big problem, for example.
What I want is a balanced budget. Not a completely deleted one. We can just take the money wasted on bailing MA’s socialism out and spend it on a good space program.
Dustin (401f3a) — 2/22/2012 @ 4:56 amI want one for the chilluns with the cash flow of SS taxes deleted entirely from the government coffers. Of course that means deleting a lot of Great Society and New Deal largesse that was funded by this palm grease.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 2/22/2012 @ 5:20 amhttp://electad.com/videos/mitt-romney-town-hall-at-eagle-manufacturing-shelby-township-michigan-february-21-2012/
narciso (87e966) — 2/22/2012 @ 6:52 amWhen we see pipples on our side piggybacking on the Left’s fake criticisms of candidates they fear for similar misgivings, it does not engender confidence that those pipples are on our side.
The McBain attacks started on the Right, the Satan has us in his sights did not.
Obama accepting his Nobel, “We cannot eradicate evil from this world.”
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 2/22/2012 @ 7:44 am