I’ve noticed many folks here have been comparing Rick Santorum to Barack Obama and other pro-life Democrats.

Such a comparison is worthy of “the weirdest claim made yet against Rick Santorum” award.  They seem to have forgotten that there are no true pro-life Democrats for even Democrat “staunch pro-lifer” Bart (Mark) Stupak had agreed to put his pro-life stance aside in order to provide Obama with the final vote for Obamacare.  Those who compare Santorum to Democrats like Obama have also obviously not watched this video in which Senator Santorum fought against federal funding for partial-birth abortion in 1998.

Social issues aside, let us see just how similar Santorum is to Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. We all agree that to beat Obama one must be able to draw a strong contrast between their record and Obama’s. Is Santorum able to do that?

Let’s check it out:

TARP – Government Bailouts

Rick Santorum had opposed TARP right from the start. He didn’t merely pay lip-service in opposition, but railed out against it several months later in ’09 at CPAC.

TARP had received support not only from then-candidate Obama but also by a majority of the GOP establishment including Newt and Mitt. Santorum also opposed Obama’s stimulus, the auto bailout, and the Fannie-Freddie bailout.

(Note to Mr. Leon H. Wolf; I hadn’t heard you protest Club for Growth as an unreliable site when Erickson cherry-picked the handful of negatives against Santorum. In any case, I provided another link to an article which quoted his opposition in 2008 & 2009)

Needless to say, Obama is the King of the Bailouts.

Next.

Government Reform – Reducing Spending and Dependency on Government

In the 1990s, when he was only a freshman Senator, Rick Santorum was a leading author on the bill that completely overhauled the country’s welfare system.

Yes, you read that right. As a Congressman, Santorum had started the fight for welfare reform in the House, and once in the Senate he combined forces with his old buddies, actually wrote the bill, and successfully fought the left and ensured its passage. To give credit when credit is due, Newt who was speaker of the House at the time, voted in support of the bill.

Santorum also voted for the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996 that started the process of ending direct farm subsidies.   When Congress decided that it couldn’t live up to that promise, it voted to re-establish the subsidies in 2002 with the Farm Security Act, a bill that Santorum rightly opposed.  Santorum voted for a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto in 1995.

Santorum strongly believes in a bottom-up economy and in keeping government out of the private sector in most cases.

Obama obviously strongly opposes all reform to the federal government since, as we all know, he wants us all dependent on government for our health-care and every-day needs. He has successfully vastly increased the number of individuals collecting unemployment, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.

Okay, they clearly differ on role of government. All right, let’s try something else.

Health Care Mandates – Obamacare

Oops! Here’s a video from Rick Santorum in 1994 where he clearly and passionately spoke against government mandating individuals into buying health-care or anything else for that matter. This is a direct quote from Rick Santorum spoken in 1994 when health-care mandates were on the table;

“I think what the role of the federal government is to provide opportunity for everyone to get what they want, to live their dreams and not to dictate what everybody should have.”

Sounds like Obama to you? Not to me. Let’s also remember that in 1994 both Newt and Romney amongst many other Republicans had heavily supported and pushed for health-care mandates.

Still convinced he’s a carbon copy of Obama at least in some way? Let’s continue!

Global Warming Hoax

The entire Democrat Party has adopted “saving the environment from us bad people” as the reason they’ve been created, and many Republicans have also fallen for the hoax including … Mitt and Newt once again. Newt in a debate with John Kerry actually took the more liberal position than Kerry, arguing that government intervention is necessary in order to effectively regulate the environment while Kerry wanted the private sector to do it!

Rick Santorum, though, is included in the minority of people who had always opposed global warming, as is Rush Limbaugh and many other prominent conservatives. His record shows he’s always voted against it. As the years go by, increasingly more information keeps on surfacing which prove that global warming was a hoax from the start, and even a decade or two ago one was able to see the truth if they searched for it.

Barack Obama and his henchman in the EPA are still in the belief that the polar bears will die if you don’t use their energy-saving light-bulbs.

Polar opposites indeed.

However, Santorum MUST have something in common with Obama; I’ve seen folks here on Red State say so! All right; let’s move on!

Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

Hmm. Santorum opposed Bush’s amnesty plan, something a majority of the GOP establishment had supported, and had received an A+ rating for his stance against Amnesty. Newt, no longer in the Congress, attempted to convince members of Congress to vote for it.

Obama’s stance? In 2010, during the mid-term primaries, Obama sneakily whispered to Latinos that they should punish their enemies on November 2^nd. He also believes he’s done all he can to secure the border according to original Republican demands, and that Republicans won’t be satisfied until he puts a moat filled with alligators at the U.S.-Mexican border.

We covered all the major issues of the day, and they don’t seem to agree on anything!

Oh, wait!

National Security

Surely they think the same in regard to the defense of this country. Umm, Obama wants to cut our nuclear heads to a number lower than that of China. He has bowed and apologized to all our enemies, while alienated and insulted all of our allies.

What about Santorum? Rick Santorum has warned about Iran over a decade ago and is very clear with who our enemies are and who our friends are. He doesn’t think Ahmadinejad will love us if we’d only bow a bit deeper and understands the importance in keeping a positive relationship with our allies like Great Britain, Canada, and Israel.

Sorry, strike that one out as well.

Perhaps they are similar in position on the next vitally important topic? Let’s see!

Energy Independence

Obama is doing all he can to create jobs yet refuses to allow the Keystone Pipeline to go into effect due to environmental concerns. Never mind that we already have numerous pipelines running beneath our grounds for many years. Who cares that it would employ tens of thousands of unemployed Americans? What difference does it make to Obama that it would help lower the price at the pump or that we’d be less reliant on foreign oil from hostile countries?

Where is Rick Santorum in this picture? Rick Santorum’s grandfather worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania and Santorum speaks strongly about the importance for energy independence for the multitude of reasons involved. Santorum is aware of the dangers in being reliant on foreign oil which funds terrorism. He is also highly attuned to the need of manufacturing good here in the US, and explains that energy creation has been and can be once again a major source of jobs.

He’d therefore grant permission to execute the Keystone Pipeline immediately and also increase permits for Hydraulic fracturing, offshore drilling, onshore drilling, and everything else that will help us become energy independent and isn’t really dangerous; not “liberal/environmental-style” dangerous.

What’s left?

War  against Terror

Obama refused to credit the surge in Iraq for its success even when directly questioned about it and the facts were clear to (almost) all. In Honduras, President Obama joined Chavez and Castro in siding with the bad guys. In Iraq and Afghanistan he provides timetables that fit his political calendar ignoring the advice of his generals who are on the battlefield.

Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and helped oust our decades-long ally Mubarak who helped keep the region stable in the name of Democracy yet looked the other way when Iranian protestors pleaded for freedom from Ahmadinejad.

On the flip side, Rick Santorum supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start and expressed strong support for the surge which Obama and Newt opposed.  He warned of the dangers of allowing terrorist reaction go unanswered and warned about the threat Al Qaeda poses to the U.S. several months prior to 9/11. He criticized Obama’s handling of Iran and Egypt as appeasement for terrorism and stifling of Democracy.

Sorry but I raise my hands in defeat. Santorum is the direct opposite of Obama and not at all similar to the Democrats. Those who have made this silly comparison have also called Obama a socialist and the worst president ever. Making such a comparison minimizes all the bad Obama has done, for it leads one to think that perhaps Obama not so bad-after all … he’s like Santorum.

False.

Leon H. Wolf and many others have also been greatly bothered by Santorum’s lack of executive experience in comparison to Romney’s 4 years of Governor in Massachusetts. Executive experience is truly an important asset to any candidate but in this scenario it needs a bit of closer inspection. Romney ran for Senate and lost. He then ran for Governor, won one term, and didn’t run for reelection since he knew he wouldn’t win. He was an executive but not a very successful one.

Rick Santorum ran for the House, and won twice. As a freshman and newcomer to the House, Santorum was appalled at the level of corruption taking place, and he together with six others stood up and exposed the actions of senior members of BOTH PARTIES in what become known as the “Gang of Seven.” Compare Santorum’s actions to that of the over three hundred others who either took a part in the corruption or turned a blind eye towards it. Santorum then ran for the Senate and won twice as a conservative in the blue state of Pennsylvania. In the Senate he took the initiative and led the fight against the left in many scenarios including stopping funding for partial-birth abortion, reforming welfare, and reforming social security.

Rick Santorum is human, has made mistakes in the past, and isn’t perfect. No one is. However, after reviewing all of the above, it is clear he provides the strongest contrast to Barack Obama and I wish to go as far from Obama as possible. This therefore leads me to support Rick Santorum in the primary and definitely in the general election.

Abie Rubin blogs at The Thinking Voter and can be followed on Twitter.

Mitt Romney thumps Newt Gingrich… Romney handily defeated Newt Gingrich… Romney cruised to a dominating victory… The Romney victory a decisive win… Romney obliterated Gingrich.

Gingrich’s performance has been pretty disastrous… Comparatively poor showing by Gingrich.

While scanning the news this morning, the above captions are from various national outlets reporting on yesterday’s Nevada caucuses. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Mitt Romney won.

With 71.1 percent of precincts reporting, the former Massachusetts governor had 48% of the vote, with Newt Gingrich in second place with 23%, followed by Ron Paul with 19% and Rick Santorum was in fourth with 11%.

I’m not sure why only 71% of the precincts are shown as reporting the morning after, however, when you consider this is Harry Reid country, it makes sense that it may take a little time to “sort” out the results.

And for those paying attention, the totals show that non-Romney (52%) continues to outperform Romney (48%).

Just after the Florida Primary, there was a report that the media would now ‘pull the plug on Newt’;

Presidential candidates survive on the oxygen of media coverage. It’s what keeps them going, enables them to keep raising money. Once the coverage is withdrawn, it’s only a matter of time before their candidacies expire. Out of sight, out of mind, out of money.

Which appears to be a tactic well underway… unless there’s bad news to report which serves to further the task at hand.

So Romney wins Nevada. The only shocking thing about Nevada would have been had the race been tight. Romney carried the state in 2008, where eventual nominee John McCain finished a distant third, behind even Ron Paul. 

And Mormons account for 25% of registered Republican voters and overwhelmingly support Romney.

Here’s another tidbit that puts the opening terminology in a little better perspective, Nevada allocates its 28 delegates proportionally, which means that Romney picked up 10 delegates to Newt’s 4.

Yet, a leading Romney backer in Nevada was calling for Gingrich to drop out of the race instead of continuing to divide the party. Naturally, this ally was not as insistent on Dr. Paul and Santorum, who continue to split the non-Romney vote ensuring Romney’s success, to follow suit.

The supporter, Nevada Rep. Joe Heck, almost comically stated in reference to Ron Paul, that he should quit when it becomes apparent that there is “enough critical mass in terms of delegates”, probably sometime after Super Tuesday.

In a press conference held in Las Vegas, Newt Gingrich said, “We will continue the campaign all the way to Tampa. I suspect this debate will continue for a long time… I’m not going to withdraw. I’m actually pretty happy with where we are.”

So the only real news coming out of Nevada is that the national media continues to serve up their choice for the GOP presidential nominee, as was the case in ’08, and most Americans continue to belly up to the buffet line asking for seconds.

Cross Posted at Florida Political Press

By: Matt Rooney | Cross-posted at SaveJersey.com

I’m always amused by the anti-Romney folks out there, Save Jerseyans, who reflexively accuse Mitt of a being a “flip flopper” when they themselves can’t settle on a candidate for more than five minutes!

My criticism isn’t directed towards those of you who have loyally stood by Santorum, Newt, or whoever for months. I’m talking about folks who HATE Mitt with the burning fire of a thousands suns and have been 110% for every candidate besides him at various points over the last few months.

Bachmann (for 1 day), then Perry (2 days), then Cain (for 3 pizzas), then Newt, then Santorum for half a week, an now Newt (again)? I have trouble keeping it straight.

I wouldn’t trust you folks with custody of a pet rock let alone a country.

And today looks to be just the latest example of these flip-floppers’ indecisive primary dispositions. Newt Gingrich is now poised to upset Mitt Romney in South Carolina after two superb debate performances earlier this week. The latest RCP average reflects a 2.6-point Newt lead; Romney was up by nearly 10-points this time last week. We’re probably in for a long war… akin to Obama vs. Clinton circa 2008? We’ll know in a few hours when polls close in the Palmetto State.

I don’t want to dump on 1/3 of South Carolina’s 500,000 primary voters without a brief qualification. Some late deciders for the Speaker are undoubtedly acting on legitimate concerns.  Mitt really stunk in the last two debates. Terribly. His exceptionally lame tax return answer was even more confounding (and damaging going forward). In short, Mitt gave primary voters serious doubts precisely when he was beginning to close the deal.

At the same time, I believe know some of you were looking for a reason – however trivial or base – to NOT support a rich Mormon yankee who didn’t emerge from the womb with a copy of Ayn Rand’s Anthem clutched in his tiny little arms coursing with blue blood.

I’m also intrigued by evangelical friends who are easily able to forgive Newt’s many personal and public infidelities (the victims of which include his wives, Paul Ryan and capitalism), but yet still refuse to forgive Mitt Romney, a great family man, who despite his past mistakes was nevertheless a more conservative governor of Massachusetts than Ronal Reagan was of California.

Remember: these same “religious” folks who screamed “character counts” at the top of their lungs in the late 1990′s are seemingly unphased by Newt’s alleged “open marriage” with his first wife. It doesn’t add up.

Or maybe it does? Newt’s situation may’ve hit a little too close to home for the Romney haters. After all, the Republican base’s flip-floppers have conducted an “open relationship” with the entire GOP field for the past six months.

By: Brian McGovern | Cross-posted at SaveJersey.com

The Republican Primary battle has been heating up in the first in the south state of South Carolina over the last week with multiple debates and nasty ads flying back and forth between the candidates. My notable observation has been the odd absence of one of Mitt Romney’s most famous supporters, Governor Chris Christie.

In the last two primary states, Governor Christie has been in the forefront of the Romney campaign strategy. He brought his Jersey attitude with him to Iowa, a state where the Romney campaign was barely playing until a mere two weeks before the primary, and helped the presumptive nominee score a tied-for-first win that was seemingly out of no where. Then in New Hampshire Christie against made appearances with Romney as his support in the Granite State continued to grow leading up to primary day.

So now, as we close in on poll openings in South Carolina, the state where the pundits so often claim that Republican nominees are chosen, why is the Governor suddenly absent from the stage? It cannot be for a lack of Christie’s popularity in South Carolina, the red southern state would likely be a prime location for Christie’s aggressive attitude at otherwise tame Romney events. It also is unlikely to be the Governor’s schedule in New Jersey. Over the last few days Christie has been doing town hall meetings in New Jersey while heading to New York in the mornings and evenings to do shows like Hannity, Morning Joe, the Today Show, and Fox & Friends, just to name a few. So what could it be then?

Two words: Income taxes.

The topic has been plaguing the Romney campaign for over a week. Opponents from both parties have been demanding that Mitt release his personal income tax records, something his father became known for back in the 1960s when he ran for President. In two debates this week Romney gave terribly dodgy answers to personal tax related questions, so bad that if I were the former Governor, I would have fired the handler responsible for crafting that answer immediately this morning.

Governor Christie has publicly stated, when on television presumably to be a surrogate, that Romney should get his records out there in the open for everyone to see, if for no other reason so that the campaign can finally move past the issue. With every new interview, Christie seems to reiterate the point, while other Romney spokesmen seem to just tow the campaign line that the records will be released in April after the nomination is locked up.

One has to wonder whether this obvious disagreement in strategy may have been enough for the Romney camp to sideline Christie for the time being while the attention surrounding Romney’s wealth and tax rate settles. Unfortunately, this decision may have been made to their detriment. Romney has let an 18 point lead over Newt Gingrich drop to a statistical tie. Christie may have been the catalyst needed to get the momentum going again, but in all likelihood now it would be too late. Hopefully they have the sense to bring Governor Christie back on stage for Florida, which could very well be the deciding state in the schedule.

It is said that history is written by the victors. In the case of the 2012 election it’s hard to see how that’s even possible given that with the current trajectory of the GOP primaries we’re all going to end up losers.

Rarely does it occur that choices and consequences of government policies are so starkly presented for an electorate as they are today. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the GOP field as an alternative to our big government president.

Today, the national debt stands at approximately $15 trillion, or almost $50,000 per American citizen. $4.6 trillion of that debt was run up under Barack Obama. That exceeds the combined amount of debt accumulated by every president from George Washington through the first George Bush. Everyone knows that too much debt is a bad thing. Even Candidate Barack Obama knew enough and told us on the campaign trail:

The problem is, that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, # 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that now we have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back, $30,000 for every man woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.

So what George Bush accomplished in eight years, Barack Obama has accomplished in three. And it’s only going to get worse. By Candidate Obama’s rationale that must make President Obama über unpatriotic.

Well, the President will tell you that the policies behind that spending were necessary to save the country from a depression and are finally beginning to bear fruit. He’d point to December’s unemployment rate that dropped to 8.5%, from a peak of 10.1% in November of ’09. As the fourth best president in our history, he’s obviously doing something right.

Or maybe not… When Barack Obama took office the population of the United States was 306 million and there were 186 million people working with an additional 14.9 million people looking for work, resulting in an unemployment rate of 7.4%. (14.9 million / 201 million) That 201 million is called the Workforce and it’s the key to understanding unemployment numbers. Workforce is defined as the following:

Total number of a country’s population employed in the armed forces and civilian jobs, plus those unemployed people who are actually seeking paying work.

Today, three years after Barack Obama took office the population has grown to 312 million but the workforce has actually shrunk from 201 million to 199 million. That means that despite adding 6 million people, the number of Americans working or actively seeking work has dropped by 2 million. Add to that the 4 million working age new Americans and you have a total of 6 million more people not working or even looking since Barack Obama took office. That’s how you get to 8.5% unemployment; you get people to stop looking for a job in the first place. He’s definitely doing something, but it’s not good. Nor is it unprecedented.

The big government policies that Barack Obama is shoving down American’s throats are this very day showing themselves to be utterly unsustainable a mere 5,000 miles away. Within the last week S&P downgraded the debt of nine (9) European countries, including EU giants France, Italy and Spain. The Euro is on the brink and the economies are disasters. If that were not bad enough, unemployment in Europe is so high (10% overall and 9% in France, 14% in Ireland, 18% in Greece and a whopping 23% in Spain) that a continent already unable to replace itself is shrinking even faster as an increasing number of its citizens emigrate to seek jobs elsewhere. In Greece the economic problems are so bad that parents are now abandoning babies and children at hospitals and churches across the country.

Which brings us back to the American election of 2012. The big government policies of Barack Obama are bringing the train wreck that is Europe to our shores. Unfortunately, the candidates leading the GOP charge to unseat him are little better, despite their protestations to the contrary. They claim to be conservatives, but they are not. They are big government advocates, just less so than Barack Obama.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that the only candidate in the GOP field who actually has a record of pursuing small government policies is seemingly unable to articulate those ideas to the average voter. If that candidate, Rick Perry, is to have any chance at all to resurrect his campaign he will have to do something dramatically different and he’ll have to do it soon. He should drop the oafish Bain Capital attacks and instead focus in a laser like fashion on smaller government. That is the one issue that every American can relate to regardless of age, sex, race etc. The rapacious nature of government must be demonstrated in a way they understand. In South Carolina, where the NLRB just tried to kill a Boeing plant, that message should resonate particularly well.

And how should he do that? With PowerPoint of course. PowerPoint might be a stretch, but not by much. The image of a burning Europe with its big government economies in ruin, double digit unemployment, rioters in the streets and babies abandoned on the sidewalks makes a perfect foil for the big government policies of both Barack Obama and the rest of the GOP field. Those are the kinds of images that voters can relate to because they see more and more of them on our own shores. And of course PowerPoint would come in handy when trying to remember what agencies to cut…

It would be a shame if when the history of the 2012 election is written Rick Perry is reduced to a 53 second footnote. Particularly because that means that some big government advocate won. Despite how damaging that sub one minute episode was, it need not be fatal to his campaign, but the time is getting short. With only 2% of the delegates decided, Rick Perry still has an opportunity to resurrect his campaign and maybe change history. His only hope is to harness the power of what Americans clearly don’t want, which is on such brilliant display right across the pond. With the images of Athens on fire, London under siege of by rioters and Naples covered in trash, even the least engaged voter can understand the correlation between big government and economic ruin and social failure. It’s up to Rick Perry to figure out how to make that case. If he does he has a shot at winning. If he can’t he’s destined to be a footnote in American political history.

Wall Street Vampire? Or Just Another False Caricature?

Mitt Romney has been depicted as a blood-sucking, Wall Street Vampire. If only that were the simple truth. Having an iniquitous personality would be better than the public persona he exudes right now. It would add a certain cache to his otherwise soporific blandwagon of a campaign.

Newt Gingrich represents the anti-Romney persecution with a 28 minute political ad entitled “When Mitt Romney Came to Town.” The ad could be a Michael Moore “documentary” about E-VIL, Greeeee-dy, Rethuglicans snorting fine, Columbian Cocaine off the succulent rear-end of a hooker through rolled up $100 bills. Cicero was more fair and balanced in his indictments during The Cataline Conspiracy.

Read More →

Wall Street Vampire? Or Just Another False Caricature?

Mitt Romney has been depicted as a blood-sucking, Wall Street Vampire. If only that were the simple truth. Having an iniquitous personality would be better than the public persona he exudes right now. It would add a certain cache to his otherwise soporific blandwagon of a campaign.

Newt Gingrich represents the anti-Romney persecution with a 28 minute political ad entitled “When Mitt Romney Came to Town.” The ad could be a Michael Moore “documentary” about E-VIL, Greeeee-dy, Rethuglicans snorting fine, Columbian Cocaine off the succulent rear-end of a hooker through rolled up $100 bills. Cicero was more fair and balanced in his indictments during The Cataline Conspiracy.

Read More →

One of the most important indicators when studying primaries and elections is whether the candidates have exceeded, met, or underperformed according to expectations.

Romney’s victory in New Hampshire was a given and his performance therefore met, yet did not  exceed, expectations for a non-victory would’ve shocked the entire political world. His victory, although considerable, has not changed the script of how people assumed it would be from the start of this primary season.

Romney’s performance is contrary that of the New Hampshire primary in 2008 where expectations similarly originally expected for the then not-so-established Mitt Romney from the neighboring Massachusetts to win the primary. McCain, Romney’s opponent, had received several strong endorsements including that of Independent/Democrat Joe Lieberman, The Boston Globe, and The New Hampshire Union Leader which swayed lots of Independents over to the McCain camp. Romney’s support slipped shortly before the primary, and he ended up coming in second behind the more established McCain. McCain’s victory was thus extremely significant since he exceeded expectations, and he ultimately ended up beating Romney as the Republican presidential candidate.

The script for the upcoming South Carolina election was very much that it’s up in the air. As a Southern and strongly Conservative state, it was assumed that the candidate who assumes the position of Not-Romney will probably be victorious. Since three candidates are still vying for that title thus splitting up the conservative vote, and because Romney won New Hampshire with a considerable margin, the dynamics have changed for South Carolina and it is now expected to go for Romney. The media and all political pundits have declared it so, and even Jim Demint, the Conservative Senator from South Carolina, had announced that he would be surprised if anyone but Romney wins the state next Saturday.

Romney is currently leading the pack in South Carolina with an RCP average of 29% while the two conservative contenders who can possibly create a change in the dynamics, Santorum and Gingrich, are both currently polling at the 20% range. Although the scene may appear bleak to conservatives, a Romney victory is not yet guaranteed.

The current high expectations for Romney in South Carolina will color anything less than a full-fledged Romney victory in a very negative light. These raised expectations are extremely beneficial for conservatives for with the new dynamics, if a conservative ends up beating Romney in South Carolina, their victory will carry far more weight than previously expected. It will be seen as a serious defeat of Romney and an incredible strength of the conservative, and will result in a greatly weakened Romney going forward.

In a sense, it can be compared to the Democratic primaries of 2008. Obama had all the momentum on his side prior to the primary in Pennsylvania after beating Hillary in a majority of the previous primaries. After Hillary’s surprise victory in Pennsylvania, though, Obama’s momentum had come to a halt and many questioned whether he would be able to regain the lead. Ultimately, since it was the end of April and a majority of the states had already held their primaries, there wasn’t enough leeway for Hillary to overcome the overwhelming majority of delegates Obama had already picked up prior to Pennsylvania and Obama became the nominee.

A South Carolina upset can similarly halt Romney in his tracks, and since it is only the third state, an unexpected Romney defeat can have a powerful enough effect to sway the ultimate outcome of the Republican primaries. If Romney isn’t dealt a significant blow early enough in the primary, it seems quite unlikely that the Republican nominee will be anyone but Romney.

Despite Romney’s lead in South Carolina, here are several factors to keep in mind, which can lead to contrary results.

Romney has sailed to victory Tuesday night in the purple New Hampshire, a state which identifies with his moderate positions, with 39% of the votes. If he hadn’t topped 40% in New Hampshire there is no way he can get too much more than 30% of the votes in the southern red state of South Carolina whose views are aligned further to the right than Romney’s. Thus, if a conservative can garner 40% or more of the South Carolinian vote, he will virtually be guaranteed to beat Romney.

In order for that to occur, the conservatives must unite under one candidate Unification will result in a combination of the twenty percent of support each of them are recipient of, and will total to a whopping forty percent.

Although it may appear as an impossible suggestion since supporters of each candidate desire for the other side to join them, it can occur in either of two scenarios.  The dream scenario would be if one of the candidates back out and endorse his rival conservative.  It is also possible though for both candidates to remain in the race, with one candidate imploding badly enough for a majority of his supporters to choose on their own to unite around the other viable who will be able to serve as the “Anyone but Romney” candidate. The race will thus downsize to a two-man race and will enable the conservative to win over Romney in South Carolina, gain momentum, and hopefully emerge victorious first from the primaries and ultimately from the general election.

The (multi) million dollar question is, of course, who, if anyone, should be the one to back out of the race in order to stop Romney?

Of course neither can be demanded to pull out of the race since everyone has the right to stay in for as long as they wish. Both of them have garnered far more than zero percent in Iowa and New Hampshire and even Perry who had faced a stunning loss in Iowa, had come in with less than 1% in New Hampshire, and is polling extremely low in South Carolina, has the right to continue campaigning.  Besides, a Perry retreat, although it would narrow the field a bit more, would probably not be enough to propel one of the others ahead of Romney.

There is one candidate though who is more likely to pull out, and to understand why, we’ve got to go back to our original explanation of expectations vs. performance in addition to some other details.

At an overall glance, it seems as though Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were recipients of equally not-too-great results last night in New Hampshire.

Santorum received 9.3 percent of the vote which landed him in fifth place and right behind Newt who received 9.4 percent – a little over two hundred votes more than Santorum. Neither of them received any delegates and both performed slightly worse than Huckabee in 2008, who had come in third with 11% of the votes and had been the recipient of one delegate. Their performances last night, though, are seen in very different lights since the expectations for their performances had been vastly different.

Expectations for Newt were sky high. In Iowa he had been crowned as the frontrunner and even in New Hampshire he was doing considerably well. Newt Gingrich had been the recipient of The New Hampshire Union Leader’s endorsement, the very same influential newspaper who had endorsed McCain and many other candidates who had then gone on to win the New Hampshire primary. End of November and December polls showed a surging Newt in New Hampshire who received the support of close to and often over twenty percent  of those polled. Some speculated that Newt will eventually top Romney, while all expected him to land in the second seat.

Despite the massive anti-Bain and anti-Romney bombardment Newt engaged in as retaliation, he was unable to keep Romney from rising and himself from dropping. Newt ended up barely clinging to the fourth spot and his inability to meet expectations has painted him once again as a candidate in decline.

Newt’s lackluster New Hampshire results came at the heels of his embarrassing performance in Iowa, where he came in fourth despite having been the frontrunner with a considerable percentage only weeks before the caucuses. Newt blamed the overwhelming number of negative ads Romney had run against him as the cause for his drastic drop. Immediately after Iowa, Newt retaliated and bombarded New Hampshire with negative ads against Romney and his job in Bain. His efforts, though, proved to be inadequate in stopping Romney’s momentum. At the contrary, the attacks over Romney’s pink slips had backfired and resulted in Newt having come under heavy fire from many prominent conservatives including Rush.

Newt’s decision to remain in the campaign, first after his loss in Iowa and then after his weak performance in New Hampshire, despite it being almost impossible for him to win South Carolina with Santorum in the race indicate that his goal has changed. His expansion of attacks against Bain via the airing of a 28 minute anti-Romney commercial in South Carolina despite the considerable damage it has already caused to his campaign further hints at Newt’s revised end-point.

Why else would a candidate who still hopes to win an election increase an action which has proven in the past to cause greater damage to his own campaign than his opponent’s? It is clear that Newt is aware of his slimmer than slim chances in South Carolina specifically and in the rest of the primary. Since the presidential nomination appears out of Newt’s reach, he has undertaken a new goal; to stop Romney from being the nominee. Newt’s first attempt to accomplish this is has proven unsuccessful and too remain in the race and continue this path despite his attacks being ineffective, may result in a fuming Newt after Romney wins South Carolina, Florida, and eventually the Republican nomination.

Instead of continuing with plan number one, there is another path for Newt to take which will seriously impede the Romney campaign. Newt can endorse another candidate, which will unite the conservative vote and enable for that candidate to overcome Romney in South Carolina. Newt can continue with his attacks against Romney if he so desires, which will keep Romney on the offensive without pulling down the conservative candidate. Since Perry had imploded and is polling in the Huntsman range, Santorum would be logical choice, and for several reasons in addition to polling.

Santorum had exceeded expectations in both Iowa and New Hampshire. He had gone from the very bottom of the polls to a tied victory with Romney in Iowa. In New Hampshire he came pretty much tied with Newt at over 9% despite having polled at 1 -2% in November and 3-4% in December. Since Santorum’s performance had twice topped what was expected, his national support is in an upward climb and his coffers have begun to sport a bulge. Even if Santorum comes in second, behind Romney, it will be seen as an impressive act and he will have the opportunity to attempt another overtake in Florida.

Santorum has no incentive to get out of the race. He has exceeded expectations in the first two states and will be remembered with respect and admiration for his Iowa surprise further down the line even if he comes in second or third in South Carolina and Florida. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, has been branded as the former frontrunner whose support had vanished and the longer he stays in and serves as a spoiler, the harsher people’s opinion will be of him down the line. And that Newt the historian wishes to be remembered fondly in history is a given.

Although a newly released Insider Advantage poll of South Carolina from this morning has Newt Gingrich at 21%, just two points behind Romney and 7 points ahead of Santorum, the current poll isn’t such great news and is actually a massive slide from the previous Insider Advantage poll from 12/18 where Newt polled far ahead of the rest having come in at 31%. The current Insider Advantage poll thus reflects a whopping 10 point drop for the former frontrunner while indicating a 4 point jump for Romney (from 19 to 23) and a surging 10 point gain for Santorum (from 4 to 14).

Newt tweeted the poll and his entire camp is touting the poll as proof that he can beat Romney, not realizing that he is once again setting himself up to extremely high expectations. A Newt victory in South Carolina will be seen as having finally met expectations. Anything below first spot though, won’t reflect too well for someone who had led the pack a month earlier with double digits and had failed to live up to expectations for the third time. A Santorum victory will cause a momentum many times stronger than his Iowa surprise had, and will propel him ahead across the country. Santorum coming in as a strong second or third will also reflect positively on him since he was never touted as the frontrunner and definite winner.

Another feather in the hat for Santorum is his being the only candidate who refused to attack Bain Capital for having engaged in free market principles such as firing unproductive employees. Newt, Perry, and Huntsman have attacked Romney for having lain off employees in companies Bain has managed, ignoring minor details such as that laying off unproductive workers benefits the business and that shrinking the staff of a failing business is often necessary in order for it to turn around and be able to generate a profit once again. Isn’t it better for a business and the economy for it to operate with fewer employees rather than it keeping the entire staff only to go bankrupt and close shop?  Besides, how do these candidates who attack firing employees plan to shrink the size of government and close entire agencies, as they promise they will, without handing out pink slips?

The accusation that Bain’s actions were wrong because they had received a federal bailout is similarly flawed, and in two accounts. Firstly, although the government shouldn’t be bailing out companies, companies that have been bailed out should use the money to make a profit, as Bain did, even if it includes the firing of employees. They shouldn’t waste the bailout money by keeping employees employed for as long as the money lasts and not attempting any positive reform, only to shut the doors when the money runs out. Secondly, it turned out that the bailout accusations were false and that Bain Capital hasn’t even received a government bailout.

Newt’s general criticism of a business who profits from flipping other businesses appeared foolish and contradictory when voters discovered that he conveniently forgot to share the fact that he invested in and served on the advisory board of Fortsman Little, a competitor of Bain in the leveraged-buyout industry.

Santorum’s strong defense of the free market was and is a stark contrast to the others and especially from Newt who had adapted the role of Attacker in Chief. This resulted in many renowned conservatives who have never previously admonished Newt or shown true support for Santorum, to suddenly do so. Newt had come under nuclear fire from Rush Limbaugh and many other prominent conservatives for his left-wing socialist style against Romney, while Santorum was praised for standing up for basic conservative principles.

If Rick Santorum can continue to build his momentum by citing his pro-free market principles and unite the conservative base in South Carolina, he will beat Romney in South Carolina. A defeated Romney will continue forward, albeit with a greatly weakened image and no surety for victory.

No longer will he be able to walk away with a victory simply because the crowded primary resulted in the conservative vote having been split in three. He will have to tout a record and a plan to convince voters that he’s the right guy and unlike Santorum, Romney’s record is filled with inconsistencies and discrepancies. While Romney will be busy explaining his anti/pro conservative record and Paul will explain his anti/pro earmarks amongst many other inconsistent statements, Santorum will be able to tout a consistent and steady record.

Santorum has received above average ratings as a staunch conservative despite his having run in the blue-purple state of Pennsylvania. Whether on social issues such as pro-life and traditional marriage, economic issues such as his sponsorship of BBA, anti-tax increases and a line veto, or foreign policy issues, such as facing reality and calling evil by its name, Rick had always been consistent with is positions for he chose them because he felt they were right. Shifting along with the wind or prior to an upcoming reelection were never serious options for a person who believed in the correctness of his positions.

Abie Rubin blogs at The Thinking Voter and can be followed on twitter.

There has been much, and seemingly lately an increasing call for Governor Rick Perry to enter the fray to end Barack Obama’s presidency with just one term.

It is rather easy to see a case why Mr. Perry would make an excellent candidate. As a governor, Mr. Perry automatically has executive, political bona fides that are hard to match. Being a governor alone isn’t enough though; you have to be a good governor.

Mr. Perry seems to have that qualification answered well, too. During Mr. Perry’s tenure, the private industry in his state has been a job-creating machine. In fact, during this Great Recession, and non-recovery Recovery, his state has been the locality for a large chunk of the net jobs created. While much of the country is suffering and languishing, the state of the economy in Mr. Perry’s state is not too bad, thank you very much.

Further, Mr. Perry is not just a governor of the average state. Mr. Perry is the governor of Texas, whose economy ($1.22 trillion in 2008) if ranked as a country unto itself would nearly qualify Texas for the G8.

This leads to another positive spin for Governor Perry – fundraising. Mr. Perry is not in the field of candidates right now. He cannot use political funds donated for his Governor campaigns to run for President. Effectively, Rick Perry has ZERO dollars in any campaign accounts for President. He has no ground game built. He has not built a staff to put together a campaign – many candidates for such a staff are presently working for other active candidates, such as Tim Pawlenty. However, Texas again is a large state chock full of large corporations, large private investors, and other legitimate benefactors that would presumably be happy to fund a Perry for President campaign. While Rick Perry might enter the campaign relatively late, he would have access to one Great Equalizer™ that would partially make up for that in a primary campaign – fundraising. Rick Perry is probably the only other potential candidate for President that could match the fundraising of Mitt Romney, or for that matter Barack Obama.

Perry for President?

So, what about Rick Perry as a candidate for President? What kind of Presidency could we expect from Rick Perry? What are Rick Perry’s conservative bona fides? Because for me, in this primary contest, I am not interested in simply unseating Barack Obama. The candidate I am seeking to support in the primary would also be a strong leader of conservatives in government. I believe to truly unwind the vast depths of tyranny that has taken root in Washington, D.C. we will need a candidate devoted to Constitutional first principles as much as Barack Obama is devoted to centralizing the powers of government over people.

Well, an interesting thing happened in my household last week. As we had the TV on in the living room around supper time, Fox News had a blurb about how more rumors were swirling regarding a potential Rick Perry for President campaign. My wife immediately said something to the effect of, “Oh Rick Perry, he is a very bad man.” My wife is not exactly a political junkie by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, I was surprised she even knew who Rick Perry was, so naturally I asked for clarification. My wife immediately relayed to me a story I had never heard about: how Rick Perry sought to mandate by executive order young women be immunized against human papillomavirus (HPV).

For those who might not know, HPV is a virus that can lead to several cancers, particularly in women. The point of contention is this – the virus is essentially a sexually transmitted disease. The chief vaccine – Gardasil – can prevent against such infections, but obviously is only effective before such an infection occurs. Gardasil is a vaccine, not a treatment. Thus, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends Gardasil be administered to young women in adolescence, before the likelihood of any sexual activity.

The Opt-Out Clause myth

Naturally, the first response to defend Rick Perry is the “opt-out clause” encased within the executive order.

Without using the obvious comparison to Obamacare “waivers,” let me point out that the Governor’s sole vision still puts a mandate upon parents to apply for a waiver to not be immunized. My point remains, parents already had that right and privilege before the Governor’s order. Instead, the Governor changed the status quo to mean a child would be immunized unless you petition the government to stop the train and allow your child to disembark.

Further, this opt-out clause is not quite as simple as you might imagine. From Politifact:

The order included an opt-out “in order to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children’s health care.” Perry ordered the Department of State Health Services to allow parents dissenting for philosophical or religious reasons to request a conscientious objection affidavit form. That form, which has been available since 2003, enables parents to enroll their children in public school even if they lack state-required immunizations. It’s automatically granted as long as parents provide all required information.

According to the Department of State Health Service’s 2008-09 immunization report, which uses data from kindergarten and seventh-grade students at 1,300 independent school districts and 800 private schools, 0.28 percent of the students filed conscientious objection forms.

Parents must renew exemption affidavits every two years to maintain their validity, according to Allison Lowery, assistant press officer at the Texas Department of State Health Services.

We thought the opt-out form for public-school students proved Perry correct until we learned that not all private schools accept the affidavit. That means some private schools may not allow their students to exempt themselves from any state-required vaccinations. Some 15 percent of more than 1 million Texas girls in fifth through 12th grade in 2008 were enrolled in private schools, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to a 2006 Texas Attorney General’s opinion: “A private school that does not accept state tax funds is not required to accept for enrollment a child who has received an exemption from the immunizations required by the Texas Health and Safety Code.”

In its policy for Catholic schools, the Catholic Diocese of Austin states: “Immunizations are not in conflict with the Catholic faith. Conscientious objections or waivers, which may be permissible for enrollment in public schools, do not qualify as an exception to this policy.” Catholic schools in the diocese do accept medical exemptions, meaning if the immunization could somehow harm the child, it’s not required to enroll. [emphasis added]

To repeat, by the stroke of a pen Governor Perry changed the status quo, that parents must appeal to the government to not have their child immunized against a sexually transmitted disease. In practice, an opt-out provision is much more difficult than it sounds, particularly when scores of service providers (not just in Texas) require compliance with government mandates.

This is not liberty, this is tyranny.

The appearance of impropriety

While I was earning an advanced degree in business several years ago, you can imagine that “business ethics” was a hot topic in nearly every class within my curriculum. The news of the day was Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley. One definitional standard that stuck with me when seeking to determine ethical versus unethical behavior was the appearance of impropriety. In other words, maybe a particular action you are considering is wholly above board and completely honest. However, a valid test question could be: what will this action look like from the viewpoint of a disinterested third-party observer? What would it look like if the details were published in a newspaper report? If you can see that an action might appear unethical, then at the very least it is best to seek an even higher standard of scrutiny before proceeding. The mere appearance of a lack of ethics can make an honest and upright decision look untoward.

This standard brings us to the Merck Corporation, manufacturer of the only vaccine on the market at the time (Gardasil) that would satisfy Governor Perry’s executive order.

As part of its lobbying campaign, Merck has been funding Women in Government, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group made up of female state lawmakers. An executive from Merck’s vaccine division, Deborah Alfano, sat on Women in Government’s business council last year, and many of the bills across the country have been introduced by members of the group.

Merck declined to say how much money it has funneled into its lobbying campaign, or contributed to Women in Government. A spokeswoman for Women in Government, Tracy Morris, declined to say how much it had received from Merck. In Texas, one of Merck’s lobbyists is Gov. Perry’s former chief of staff, and Merck’s political action committee contributed $6,000 to the governor’s re-election campaign.
– The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2007 [emphasis added]

By authoring the mandate via executive order, rather than seeking a full public debate and allowing the light of the legislative process to shine upon such a government-mandated action – Governor Perry’s objectivity comes into question.

We all know that it takes cash to run successful campaigns. We know that businesses large and small donate money to candidates in that regard, just as do individuals. The mere nature of a political process will create associations between politicians and interested parties.  We do not need to assume the worst: that this was a quid pro quo, a “thanks for the donation” by Perry to Merck. However when presented with the sequence of events, it is not exactly a giant leap of faith to conclude that Governor Perry’s choice of action in this case was less than ethical. At the very minimum, it appears unethical due to the associations between the parties, casual and actual. I submit the Governor should have sought a higher scrutiny of his desired outcome, if only to maintain the appearance that his actions were not biased by his political donations and associations.

Liberty versus Tyranny

What gives me serious pause is Rick Perry’s clear, unforced choice that he apparently believes the government knows best regarding a child’s vaccination for a sexually transmitted disease. For me, it speaks to a troubling vision of government’s relationship with its people. While I know there is certainly evidence in Governor Perry’s background to counterpoint this example, it does not allay the concern. As I have said, the candidate I seek to support would restore the Constitutional vision of the relationship of the government to its people. Barack Obama, liberals, and statists in both major political parties have been shooting holes in the protections of people from their government within the Constitution for decades. It will take a spirited leader with enormous courage of convictions to do this in today’s Washington, D.C. With actions like these and others, I have serious reservations that Rick Perry would be such a person. In fact, I fear that in terms of leading a conservative movement, Rick Perry could be another George W. Bush. That is not a good thing in this case.

For my wife, she plainly states “I will never vote for that man.”  I suspect her viewpoint (and conclusion) as a mother and a conservative woman is not unique.

Further, I think the larger point is that for a potential candidate like Rick Perry, we cannot casually dismiss the fact that he has not been vetted by a national audience. While he may have run several successful campaigns for Governor in a very large state, that is still not equivalent to the microscope of national politics and national voters. If we effort to draft another candidate to the field, we do still run the risk (however significant) of drafting a candidate we may not “know everything” about. What might have been acceptable at one time to voters in Texas might play very differently on a national scene.

On my scorecard, I have serious reservations about the statist tendencies of several candidates:

• Pawlenty – supported a state cap-trade energy initiative; decidedly not conservative. Apologized, for what that is worth.
• Romney – his behavior regarding state control of medical care is well documented, and seriously troubling.
• Perry – I have serious issues distinguishing Rick Perry from the above two candidates at face value. Perry’s obvious counterpoint is the relative success of the economy in Texas during his leadership. Pawlenty and Romney largely lose relative to Perry on this point. Make no mistake; this is a terrific trump card for Governor Perry to hold when the economy figures to be the chief issue of this Presidential campaign. However, does it matter if we restore economic prosperity in America, when a President cannot dependably lead from the front on conservative, Constitutional principles?

The Choice

Having other options, I will not caucus for a candidate who apparently sees no issue with government mandating my child be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease.  In a free republic, this should be a decision left to the parents of children, not the government.

Crossposted at BA Cyclone’s blog

UPDATE:

In Rick Perry’s first days on the campaign trail, he openly apologized for issuing the executive order mandating HPV vaccines:

On his first day on the campaign trail, Texas Gov. Rick Perry admitted he made a mistake on the sole issue some pro-life advocates bring up as a concern despite his sterling pro-life record.

Perry, in a conversation with a New Hampshire voter, walked back his decision to mandate the vaccine Gardasil to 11-year old girls. According to a Politico report, a voter confronted him on the issue — explaining his remorse for the decision and indicating he put an opt-out provision in place allowing parents to decide not to have their young girls receive the vaccine.

Perry explained that, in his zeal to protect children, he went too far.

“I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry,” he said. “I hate cancer. Let me tell you, as a son who has a mother and father who are both cancer survivors.”

“I hate cancer. And this HPV, we were seeing young ladies die at the early age. What we should have done was a program that frankly should have allowed them to opt in, or some type of program like that, but here’s what I learned — when you get too far out in front of the parade they will let you know. And that’s exactly what our legislature did.”

UPDATE: “I made a mistake on that,” Perry told Iowa Radio later in the day Monday, calling it “an error in not having a conversation with the people of the state of Texas.”

“I agreed with their decision. I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen,” he said of the legislature responding to his decision.

“One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’” Perry told Houston’s ABC affiliate on Monday. “We backed up, took a look at what we did.  I understand I work for the people, not the other way around. There was a better way to do that, I realize that now.” [empasis added]

In modern politics, you rarely get a far-reaching and complete ‘apology’ like this on any issue of importance.  When someone offers an apology, I believe we need to consider their sincerity and by discernment, consider the matter closed.  I believe we have that situation here.

Considering this mea-culpa, I consider my issues with Rick Perry’s candidacy completely closed.  Rick Perry is a true conservative, and he is also human.  Rick Perry is a governor and has served as governor for 10 years.  Everyone makes mistakes.  What is critical is that our leaders learn from such mistakes.  I cannot help but consider that a candidate with Rick Perry’s level of experience as a leader and executive in government public service would make an excellent President of the United States.