Ever since FDR was elected president in 1932, the Republican Party had been vilified by liberals and the news media as the party of large corporations and the defender of greedy capitalists. That claim is not supported by the facts. In the last decade, large corporations in many industries have contributed far more money to the Democratic Party and democratic candidates than to Republicans.

As the housing finance crisis illustrates, Wall Street investment firms, large banks and even government sponsored agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac made large contributions to the Democratic Party and democratic candidates especially Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barrack Obama to prevent tightening of borrower credit standards and the regulation of new financial instruments like derivatives. The Federal government’s promotion of home ownership without regard to credit worthiness drove up house prices and ultimately cost small investors one third of their personal savings, including 401k retirement accounts.

In the health care debate, large insurers and hospital groups have spent millions of dollars on Democratic supporters and spent additional millions running radio and TV ads to promote government healthcare. Clearly these firms believe that Nationalized Health Care will help their bottom line instead of resulting in savings for the taxpayer.

In the energy policy debate, large utilities and other industries have already reserved a large portion of the carbon credits without cost. These same industries provided significant campaign contributions to the Democratic legislators writing the bill.

One of the few benefactors of Cap and Trade legislation will be the Wall Street firms that will trade the carbon credits that are not already reserved. These firms have made significant contributions to Democratic candidates or are actually managed by politically influential Democrats such as Al Gore. Cap and Trade legislation will drastically increase the energy costs for the average American, however it will drastically increase the profitability of certain large firms that are politically well connected. By promoting government intervention into the natural supply and demand for energy, Wall Street firms will be able to achieve excessive profits at the expense of average taxpayers just as they did in the housing finance industry.

Large corporations have found that the party of free enterprise and limited government no longer serves their interests. They have found that the policies of the Democratic Party which allow government, not the marketplace, to determine the economic success of a firm are much more profitable. However, that may explain why millions of jobs have left this country for China and India and 70% of all jobs created in the last 10 years have been created in small businesses.

Small businesses still believe in self reliance, free enterprise and limited government. Perversely, it is the owners and employees of small businesses that pay the vast majority of the taxes collected in this country, and then those taxes are used to fund programs that thwart self reliance and free enterprise.

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-David Nace is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

PPP (D) Arizona Political Survey (Race 4 2012 Edition)

• Mike Huckabee 49%
• Barack Obama 45%

• Mitt Romney 50%
• Barack Obama 43%

• Barack Obama 47%
• Sarah Palin 47%

Among Independents

• Barack Obama 45%
• Mitt Romney 43%

• Barack Obama 47%
• Mike Huckabee 44%

• Barack Obama 52%
• Sarah Palin 43%

Among Men

• Mitt Romney 53%
• Barack Obama 42%

• Mike Huckabee 51%
• Barack Obama 44%

• Sarah Palin 50%
• Barack Obama 45%

Among Women

• Mitt Romney 46%
• Barack Obama 45%

• Mike Huckabee 46%
• Barack Obama 46%

• Barack Obama 49%
• Sarah Palin 43%

Favorable / Unfavorable (Net)

• Mitt Romney 40% / 39% (+1%)
• Mike Huckabee 36% / 35% (+1%)
• Sarah Palin 44% / 48% (-4%)

Among Independents

• Mitt Romney 37% / 45% (-8%)
• Mike Huckabee 31% / 45% (-14%)
• Sarah Palin 39% / 56% (-17%)

Among Men

• Mitt Romney 44% / 40% (+4%)
• Sarah Palin 48% / 46% (+2%)
• Mike Huckabee 36% / 41% (-5%)

Among Women

• Mike Huckabee 36% / 29% (+7%)
• Mitt Romney 37% / 37% (0%)
• Sarah Palin 39% / 50% (-11%)

Do you approve or disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance?

• Approve 47%
• Disapprove 47%

Among Independents

• Approve 50%
• Disapprove 42%

Do you support or oppose President Obama’s health care plan?

• Support 40%
• Oppose 53%

Among Independents

• Support 45%
• Oppose 45%

Survey of 617 Arizona voters voters was conducted September 18-21. The margin of error is +/- 3.9 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 42% Republican; 37% Democrat; 22% Independent. Political views: 42% Conservative; 40% Moderate; 18% Liberal.

I had the pleasure of attending the first annual Foreign Policy Initiative conference yesterday, and in between mingling with the insiders while drinking bottles of Fiji water, a luncheon with Mitt Romney took place. The governor answered a few questions from a moderator, and while most of what he said was the typical red-meat fare that even I had to like, there was a rather noticeable gaffe.

My NewMajority.com colleague Tim Mak has already penned a write-up:

Today, at the Foreign Policy Initiative’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney opined that the President’s decision to halt plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe may have been made on faulty intelligence. Describing the President’s move as a “kick in the sand at Poland and the Czech Republic” that was “visible, embarrassing and disruptive,” the former Presidential candidate questioned the quality of the information used to make the decision.

“Is our intelligence really that good?” he wondered aloud, “Is our eyesight into Iran that clear?”

Former Gov. Romney asserted that the decision to shelve plans to deploy a missile shield was made on the mistaken assumption that since Iran’s regime is not developing long-range missiles, defending against long-range missiles would be a waste of resources. Even if they weren’t developing this technology, Romney argued, “There are places in the world where they [Iran] might acquire long-range ballistic missiles.”

Really? Following this principle to its logical end, we could hardly do anything but act in a near-panic, not being sure exactly what was going on, constantly questioning whether our intelligence was “really that good.” Romney seems to misunderstand why exactly the right is so ardently opposed to Obama’s decision in Eastern Europe: it is a slap in the face to our friends — Jon Kyl, who’d spoken earlier yesterday morning, spoke sadly of headlines from the region crying “Betrayal!” — a symbolic gesture of appeasement towards Russia. The problem, in other words, isn’t faulty intelligence. It’s the symbolism.

Regretfully, I did not have the chance to offer my question to Romney (at Aron’s suggestion, I was going to ask whether he still opposed leaving a residual force in Iraq, given that even the president supports it now), but after hearing him speak for an hour yesterday, I was offered little evidence that he has changed at all from his 2008 entity. That should please many, but upset many others.

Let the 100-comment thread commence!

EDIT: For those of you who think he’s right: Do you really believe that Iran wants to fire a missile at the Czech Republic? Really? Do you honestly not realize that this is about Russia?

On September 17, 1939, Russia invaded Poland and ironically, seventy years later, the Obama administration rewarded Russia by caving in to its demands regarding the European phase of our anti-ballistic missile defense program. The plan, negotiated by the Bush Administration with two loyal Eastern European allies, was expected to place a ground based interceptor site in Poland and tracking radar on a site in the Czech Republic.

Jan Firscher, Interim Czech Prime Minister told reporters that “Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations” . This is not only a blow to our comprehensive U.S. anti-ballistic missile program and to European security, but a major betrayal of two allies who took a significant political risk in their relationship with Russia. Once again, the U.S. is demonstrating to friends that we are a very undependable ally, and this time to two countries that have faithfully stood with us in the War on Terror.

Recognizing the importance of continuing to develop our missile defense program, The Heritage Foundation produced a powerful documentary called “33 MINUTES” and has held numerous showings around the country to educate Americans to the threat and the technical feasibility of missile defense. The title “33 minutes” refers to the length of time it takes from the launching of a ballistic missile from Iran or North Korea, possibly armed with nuclear or biological weapons, to reach a U.S city.

We live in a very dangerous world in which rogue nations like North Korea and Iran are not only developing dangerous weapon systems but may supply them to non-state terrorist networks. Iranian President Mahmoud Adhadinejad has frequently told us of his “desirable and achievable” goal to bring about “a world without America”. In August, it was reported that intelligence sources believe that Iran has the technology to build and detonate a nuclear weapon and within six months could assemble and deliver one on Iran’s existing ballistic missile.

Another threat comes from the capability of this technology being provided to a terrorist to launch a nuclear armed missile into space high above America from a fishing boat off our coast. This would inflict catastrophic damage on this country through an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. The result of this little discussed danger would be to virtually fry the U.S. electric grid and every piece of electronic equipment, disrupting telecommunications, water, food, sanitation and virtually all basic human needs. Yet a naïve Administration in Washington is putting the country at greater risk by slashing our defenses.

Missile defense technology has proven very effective but the entire system is far from completed. The $8 billion dollars budgeted for the program this year, just a tiny part of the defense budget, has been cut by $1.4 billion, with additional cuts down the road a real possibility.

Many Americans are suffering shock and stress over the decimation of our free market economy. Too few are focused on the catastrophic danger we face by neglecting or decimating our missile defense systems.

The nuclear club continues to grow and many countries now have both nuclear and ballistic missile capability. In 33 minutes, life as we know it could end. All it takes is one missile launched from thousands of miles away at an American city and President Obama will either have the capability to destroy it or to issue apologies to the families of the dead.
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-Ellen Sauerbrey, former Assistant Secretary of State, is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Survey on the War in Afghanistan

Do you support or oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan?

• Support 46%
• Oppose 45%

Among Democrats

• Support 33%
• Oppose 62%

Among Republicans

• Support 66%
• Oppose 26%

Among Independents

• Support 47%
• Oppose 41%

Do you support or oppose sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan?

• Support 41%
• Oppose 50%

Among Democrats

• Support 30%
• Oppose 62%

Among Republicans

• Support 58%
• Oppose 31%

Among Independents

• Support 35%
• Oppose 58%

Do you agree or disagree with the view that the military action being taken in Afghanistan is necessary to protect Americans from having to fight terrorists on U.S. soil?

• Agree 58%
• Disagree 33%

Among Democrats

• Agree 49%
• Disagree 42%

Among Republicans

• Agree 73%
• Disagree 21%

Among Independents

• Agree 55%
• Disagree 35%

Survey of 900 registered voters was conducted September 15-16. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 42% Democrat; 31% Republican; 21% Independent.

FYI;

• I don’t watch this show, ever.
• I could barely make my way through this clip.
• We allowed this guy to remove Newt???

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

I am inviting controversy with this post.

This comes from General McChrystal’s assessment of the Afghan war:

The people of Afghanistan represent many things in this conflict – an audience, an actor, and a source of leverage – but above all, they are the objective. … [The government of Afghanistan] and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] have both failed to focus on this objective. … ISAF’s center of gravity is the will and ability to provide for the needs of the population “by, with, and through” the Afghan government. (2-4)

Obama is going to have to make a (pause and shudder) decision – whether to send tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, as McChrystal advises, or not to send them. Obama does not do decisions. No doubt he thinks choosing between victory and defeat is ‘a false choice’.

If victory means providing the Afghans with whatever they need, he may for once be right.

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Jillian Becker is editor-in-chief of The Atheist Conservative

A few weeks ago, we discussed the fact that “The People’s Romance” with by Government has manifested itself in America, and it has serious consequences on how people view and handle government growth. But many ask “How does this happen?” and “What can we do?”

For better, or worse, it is part of human nature to bond together for mutual protection, and often projection. Within limits, the inclination is admirable – unless someone comes along who ploys upon it to seize power by false promises and phony threats.

Enter the leftwing politicians with their penchant for Big Government’s total control.

One of the major reasons for this, economist pioneer Dan Klein states, is “sociobiological and cultural evolution.” Man was born as a hunter-gatherer where he interacted and bonded together with multiple other humans. Soon after, natural leaders would rise and those leaders would then monitor everyone’s support. That meant that if one person slacked off, the leader would see that, and the group would trust him and decide punishment.

No one would argue that this happens on a micro scale, as humans interact within their own clubs, businesses, and families every day. But it is government that takes this sociobiological need and exploits it.The whole mentality that the government must care for the poor, provide massive entitlements, and insure industries against failure, is putting government as the ultimate parent over (it’s) child likes.

Economist Deirdre McCloskley mentions in her book “How to be Human” that it is difficult to teach free market economics to eighteen year olds because they “lived mainly in socialist economy, namely, her birth household, centrally planned by her parents, depending on loyalty rather than exit.”

So what can the few of us who have not fallen in the trap do to combat this? It’s simple: control the rhetoric.
For far too long, liberty-minded Americans have been losing the battle for language. For example, the world “liberal” once meant someone who was pro-markets and pro-individualistic freedoms, like Adam Smith or David Ricardo. Now people in America are more likely to think of Nancy Pelosi or Ted Kennedy, who have already done their fair share of dampening free-market individualism and initiative.

But, of course, in no way is this a recent development. For example, when the great economist Friedrich von Hayek wrote his seminal book “The Road to Serfdom,” he had to write a new introduction for the American version that explained what liberal really means.

And the worst part is, when politicians use war as a tool for entrenching “The People’s Romance.” War is a time when people must bond together as they did during World War II to defeat a common enemy. So demeaning what many brave Americans fought for by labeling political excursions “The War on…” (Poverty, Drugs, AIDS, Hunger) is counterproductive towards freedom and a license for big government.

So, “what can we do?” First and foremost, the right should not accept the left’s language control that has historically gone unchallenged. Remember it was Orwell who warned that when you lose the language you lose the battle against tyranny and Big Brother.

And it is that battle that if lost by liberty-minded people for the final word for the Far-Left will be “Totalitarianism.”

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-Justin Williams is the Senior Commentary Editor of ALG News Bureau, and, as always, he accepts any questions or comments on the Barstool at jwilliams@libertyfeatures.com. The Barstool Economist is syndicated through Liberty Features Syndicate.

If Mark Lloyd has his way, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Marr and Ron Smith may have to broadcast from an offshore Island. Mark Lloyd is the newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer for the Federal Communications Commission. His writings make it clear that he wants to tax and regulate “right wing” radio out of existence.

Liberals understand that talk radio is the major source of conservative grassroots networking and information sharing. It encourages and empowers individuals to have a voice and to use it. When the Congressional switchboards light up it is often because talk radio has admonished their listeners to “call your member of Congress and tell them how you feel”.

With virtually all of the major network and print media parroting the same liberal message, talk radio remains the only powerful obstacle to the passage of the leftist agenda. Case in point, the effort to jam a dismantling of the U.S. health delivery system through, unread and undiscussed. The strategy has foundered because Rush, Hannity , and a litany of local hosts have revealed on a daily basis new outrageous provisions found buried in the House health care bill. They were equally vocal about Cap and Trade and the budget busting deficits. Vermont’s Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has complained that talk radio is drowning out their message.

The left knows that a frontal assault on talk radio, re-implementing the Fairness Doctrine would set off a firestorm in the United States. So while there are some members of Congress who are calling for it to be revived, the President said during his campaign that he is not in favor of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.

But there is more than one way to skin a cat. The Administration has created a diversity officer position that has never before existed at the FCC and appointed Mark Lloyd, whose stated goals would tax and regulate conservative and Christian radio into bankruptcy and give the proceeds to public radio.

As a senior fellow of the Soros funded Center for American Progress, Lloyd co-authored a report titled “The structural imbalance of political talk radio”. The conclusion is that there is too much conservative programming and not enough liberal talk. It matters not to the authors that radio station owners air Rush and Hannity and Mark Levin because that’s what the public supports and want to listen to, or that Air America could not attract enough listeners to succeed in the marketplace. The report suggests remedies to fix the “imbalance” that would put local and national caps on commercial radio station ownership and ensure greater “accountability” over radio licensing.

Most astonishingly, Mark Lloyd is calling for each private radio station every year to pay a fee (tax) for their broadcast license, equal to their gross operating budget, with the monies going to the liberal public stations, with whom they compete for listeners. This is a clear formula for driving private radio out of business. And just in case any survived, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.

He calls for national and local public stations to be funded at levels above that of commercial broadcasters. He further argues that funding for public radio should not come from congressional appropriations and that sponsorship should be prohibited for all public broadcasters.

It is hard to imagine that even this administration could adopt such whacky ideas but it not hard to imagine a left leaning FCC writing rules that set standards for more “local” programming and meeting diversity needs. The Senate has already passed a bill introduced by Senator Dick Durban that requires local radio stations to set up community advisory boards, including “under-served groups”. These groups would be involved in the license renewal process. Being confronted by Acorn or the Reverend Al Sharpton at a hearing contesting their license renewal would have a chilling effect on decisions made by station owners regarding conservative programming.

Michael Copps, an FCC commissioner has expressed concern that deregulation of media ownership has undermined democracy and has called for re-examining licensing regulations to make them “more reflective” of public interests.

People equal policy. In appointing a radical “Diversity Czar”, the Obama administration has placed a leftist into a position to promote policy that will squelch conservative speech.

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-Ellen Sauerbrey is the former head of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration along with a guest writer for Liberty Features Syndicate.

Rasmussen Minnesota Political Survey (Pawlenty for President Edition)

How would you rate the job Tim Pawlenty has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 26%
• Somewhat approve 30%
• Somewhat disapprove 13%
• Strongly disapprove 30%

How likely is it that Tim Pawlenty will run for President in 2012?

• Very likely 29%
• Somewhat likely 43%
• Not very likely 14%
• Not at all likely 4%

If Pawlenty runs how likely is it that he will win the Republican nomination for President?

• Very likely 16%
• Somewhat likely 34%
• Not very likely 29%
• Not at all likely 7%

How concerned are you about the amount of time Governor Pawlenty is traveling out of the state?

• Very concerned 30%
• Somewhat concerned 20%
• Not very concerned 28%
• Not at all concerned 18%

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 29%
• Somewhat favor 20%
• Somewhat oppose 12%
• Strongly oppose 36%

In reacting to the nation’s current economic problems, what worries you more….that the federal government will do too much or that the federal government will not do enough?

• Federal government will do too much 51%
• Federal government will not do enough 38%

How would you rate the way that Al Franken is performing his role as Senator?

• Excellent 19%
• Good 22%
• Fair 23%
• Poor 31%

How would you rate the way that Amy Klobuchar is performing her role as Senator?

• Excellent 32%
• Good 24%
• Fair 23%
• Poor 19%

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted September 15. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points.

Inside the numbers:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of Minnesota Republicans say it’s likely Pawlenty will win the GOP nomination, compared to 40% of Democrats and 39% of unaffiliated voters.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Minnesota Democrats say their new senator is doing a good or excellent job, while 56% of Republicans say he is performing poorly. Voters not affiliated with either party are closely divided: 34% give Franken positive ratings while 34% say he is doing a poor job.

I guess an introduction is in order. I’m Nate Gunderson, a long-time reader of Race 4 2012 (commenting under the name of Nate G.) and also a long-time supporter of Governor Romney. With a team of cohorts I’ve recently launched MittRomneyCentral.com (which is ever being developed), and I also manage the pro-Romney blog aggregator PlanetRomney.org. As such I am not here to shove Romney down your throats, but to defend his record where necessary (and when my time permits), report on some of the goings-on in the Romney camp, as well as discuss and inform on conservative issues, especially those that affect the race for 2012. I don’t pretend to be a great writer, nor even a great debater due to my slowness in writing posts or comments. I am however an American with valid opinions and great desire to see our country take corrective actions to remedy some severe missteps as of late.

I appreciate Kavon’s willingness to have me. I hope that we continue to have a healthy, fruitful, and civil debate.

Now to the news…

Just this afternoon there was a noteworthy article written at Newsmax.com by Ronald Kessler. This article is a much needed clarification of the record of the MA healthcare plan that has received so much criticism as of late, most notably from potential 2012 rivals Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee. Most frequent of the complaints leveled against the plan is that it is just a failure – but seldom are any facts or reasons given and without such there is nothing to argue against. So, the second most common statement is that it is bankrupting the state. This simply is not true. Detractors point to total cost of the program for shock effect, but that value is hardly fair to the overall picture. A more accurate report would be the net cost of the program, since the plan does provide savings in other areas in the budget.

Central to the plan was Romney’s recognition that uninsured individuals were costing the state and federal government money because they showed up in emergency rooms for non-emergency care. If they had health insurance, Romney concluded, those government payments to hospitals could be applied to paying to cover the uninsured.

“We said, let’s take the money that the federal government is giving us and that we’re taking from our own state coffers that we use to give to hospitals to give out free care,’ ” Romney says. “Instead, let’s use that money to help low-income people purchase their own private market-based insurance.”

In this society of one-liners and 140 character encapsulations (Twitter), the full story seldom gets told, but the headlines stick. Someone like Huckabee, whose name has proliferated the conservative halls of this country, should have access to such information and be able to avoid falsely claiming that the MA plan is making the state go belly up. Unfortunately he and other have gleefully sounded the alarm and the echo chambers have sounded in return. The FACT is, the HC plan is little over 1% of the MA’s budget, and it is not the reason for their economic woes. Can someone tell me a state that didn’t have to close a budget deficit the year? Massachusetts is in the same boat, and opponents have in their political opportunism seized upon MA’s woes and said “Look at that! Romney must have done it.” The only thing this indicates to me is that Romney has a huge target on his back going into 2012.

But wait there’s more! Some would like give sole credit to Romney to the MA plan. Remember there was a legislature involved. Remember that this legislature is extremely liberal (what is it 87% Dem?), and they have major override powers, which they used in this plan. More from the article:

As initially proposed by Romney, “The plan would not have cost the state an additional dollar,” Romney says. “However, the legislature decided to add some features, which are ones that I did not support.”

For example, Romney says, “In my proposal, I said that every individual should have to pay some portion of their health care insurance premium. In the final bill, people with low incomes don’t pay anything. Also in my proposal, I said that there should not be any mandates directed to insurance companies as to what insurance policies must include, such as unlimited treatments for in vitro fertilization. Such mandated coverage made the product far more expensive.”

Romney observes that those are legitimate decisions by a legislature.

“I didn’t agree with all of them,” he says. “In some cases, I vetoed those provisions, but they were put back in. And yet in the final analysis, the program is very much in line with the forecasts that were made by the legislature at the time of its passing.”

There were 8 sections in the bill that Romney vetoed, 6 were overridden. One of which is the employer mandate to offer insurance if you had a payroll of X amount of dollars. If you want to do your own research regarding the bill, here it is in it’s entirety. (It’s 39,000 words!) Also noted in the text are the sections he vetoed. Hint: Press CTRL-F in your browser and search for the word ‘veto’.

Other thoughts concerning the MA health-care plan: Does it cover abortions for $50? Yes. Is Romney to blame for that? Definitely not. Will you explain why? Yes, in a future post. Is the MA plan good for the whole nation? No, the health care plans and regulations should be handled at the state level – what’s good for MA is not necessarily good for Alabama. What should national heath care reform entail? Nothing more than provisions to help lower the costs of health care, something an individual state won’t be able to do by itself. What provisions would those be? Open up markets to sell across state lines, tort reform, and reform of the entitlement programs.

Again that article by Newsmax can be found clicking here. It is your civic duty to read the whole thing.

Takeaways;

• Regarding MassCare, most of his talking points are solid (starting the interview with, “no Government insurance in our plan“) and will appeal to some moderates and indy’s.
• Since Mitt cannot explain the success and failures of MassCare in one sentence, the program will continue to be a  issue with conservatives, who shy away from any variation of government activism, even pragmatic legislation.
• Governor Romney needs the health care debate to die and not become an election issue post-2010.  The entire health care debate has become poisonous, even if some of the MassCare legislation would be a net positive for the United States.  The cost overruns and mandates will nag his 2012 campaign. 
• Governor Romney looks much more relaxed and comfortable with the media, especially with ad/hoc Q&A sessions.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

I have had the pleasure of traveling abroad quit a bit in my life and it has provided me with an appreciation of the respect for immigrants and multiculturalism that exists in our society.  Although racism and different forms of bigotry does still exist in America, we can certainly pride ourselves on being one of the least racist and casteist societies on earth.  Although we have much more work to do to achieve a color-blind society, the remaining distance to this goal is significantly shorter than the path already taken.  We are at least trending in the correct direction.

Having witnessed how various European nations treat immigrants, refugees and visual minorities, I wonder if our liberal press and Democratic politicians understand just how ridiculous their recent statements are when they accuse Tea Party protesters and conservative politicians of racist thoughts and convictions?  Do they understand that the average Arab America possesses a per capita income and standard of living above the American average, yet in many European cities, Arab and African men have little opportunity to achieve economic security outside of their ethnic (and newly ghettoized) communities?  Compare that to Europe, which is creating a brand new generation of cultural outcasts and economically disadvantaged residents, through their alienation of 2nd generation and immigrant Arabs and Africans.

Have any of you seen swastika’s and racist mobs at a PGA event where Tiger Woods was teaing off, or during a Monday night football game?  High taxes and socialized health care are not the only things I want our society to avoid importing from Europe.  One can make the argument that creating a low-growth, casteist, entitlement society encourages the building of silos between ethnic majorities and growing minority groups.

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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Gov. Pawlenty talks about health care, ACORN, and Democratic overreach in this interview with the Washington News Observer:

When over a million people gather in one place to speak about issues, that may be the maturing of a political movement. Add in the thousands who attended related 9-12 events across the country or gathered to greet a bus caravan dubbed the Tea Party Express and the number approaches 2 million. These are not just voters, but activists motivated for a cause – and they are the people who can truly win elections by being the ground force both local and national candidates need to succeed.

In seeing this march on Washington, one is reminded of the last large issue-based conservative movement. In the 1980’s a group coalescing around social issues, particularly abortion, eventually became known as the Christian Coalition and attempted to become a dominant political force in the Republican Party. While they greatly assisted in the elections of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the religious Right eventually grew disillusioned with the process and drifted away from political activity. Similarly, much of the impetus behind the TEA Party cause stems from fiscal irresponsibility by Beltway politicians of both parties – but there are a large number of social conservatives allied in the cause too.

To address this prospective rift between fiscal and social conservatives, one needs to find common ground. But the most fervent social conservatives support what the deficit hawks and libertarians in the movement see as big government in the form of legislating morality, such as Constitutional bans on abortion and gay marriage. The perceived ignorance of those two issues by the Republican Party was the straw that broke the camel’s back, splitting social conservatives away from the GOP fold. Those voters staying home helped defeat the Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

Despite these electoral defeats, all but a handful of Republicans inside the Beltway seem to be wary of embracing the fiscal conservatism of the TEA Party movement much as they eschewed the values voters’ agenda over the last two decades. Taking these voters for granted without addressing their “red meat” issues comes at a great risk for GOP strategists, especially in states and Congressional districts which used to be solidly Republican but swung toward President Obama and, especially, the “Blue Dog” Democrats over the last few cycles.

The answer may be in a renewed push for Tenth Amendment rights, which over time have been eroded by the federal government overreaching into issues more properly defined and addressed by the several states. Most tend to think of the federal stranglehold on state purse strings as the greatest example of this usurpation, but social conservatives can point to abortion as one issue which would be correctly more worthy of argument at a state level. Moreover, the current law on abortion was decided by federal judicial fiat rather than by the legislative process, and creating law from the bench is another common enemy despised by advocates across the TEA Party political spectrum.

To succeed in their political goals, the newly-formed coalition of 9-12 will have to make a few internal compromises between fiscal and social hardliners. The overall idea they have of supporting Constitutional and limited government is a very sound one, and it’s an idea which has a number of enemies already bent on ridiculing and marginalizing the very thought of government for and by the people, with decisions made mostly at the local level.

The mandate for change didn’t end with the 2008 election; on the contrary, that call for change has only just begun and the events of 9-12 proved the point.

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-Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

I don’t quite agree with either Alex or DaveG.  I’ve become far more conservative on size of government issues, and far less likely to trust that government’s can be “run like a business” by “pragmatic technocrats”.  I DO think that “good government”, in that sense, is mostly a myth, but not because the free entreprise system is so groovy that it can handle every problem, or that government can’t, in theory, deal with some of these things better than the invisible hand.  Instead, the problem is a systemic one: government simply cannot function, at such a high level of complexity, with all the pressures brought to bear by the political system.  Even if you mapped the policies out perfectly, interest group A would jump in and change priority Z, and interest group B would nix provision Y.  And, of course, you’re never able to map the policy out perfectly in the first place.  You’re constantly working from a defective blueprint which has hazy and indistinct lines; when people start rubbing those lines out entirely, you might as well stop construction.  Good government folks would rather squint and trace and make do.

But, to me all this doesn’t suggest that we need to drastically reduce the size of government.  That sort of thing meets systemic hurdles of its own. If Alex is right about the futile drives towards good government at the national level, he’s wrong about the solution.  There’s a third way: modest, responsible, flexible government.  Government that simply doesn’t try to undertake “fundamental” reforms which are inevitably wrecked by the systemic flaws in our sort of national system.  Good government can’t make sense of these facts.  It is laser-focused and targeted instead of flexible.  It is bold instead of modest, echoing the refrain of the New Deal era Republicans who promised to sustain and expand big government, only more efficiently.  It sees responsibility as a shackle weighing down the non-partisan planner.  If it sets itself up against terms like “The Great Society”, that is only because it has its own alternative based on the same essential model.

The Party of Reagan and Goldwater is preferable to the party of Nixon and Bush, but it’s still an inadequate vehicle in the 21st century.  We need a party that focuses on meaningful, small-bore federal reforms that won’t break the bank and which will put us back on the pathway to long-term fiscal solvency, and we need a party that abrogates some of the national government’s power back to states and localities.  With the right flexibility, and the right incentives, they can often solve problems that get bottle-necked at the federal level.  Until we embark on something like this course, we’re bound to be caught between the same two groups that managed to divide us for 30 years.

Update: Since IllinoisGuy says he doesn’t understand part of my post I’ve decided to add this randomly:

Think of it this way.  A policy wonk dreams up the perfect solution for health care; it’s just brilliant, good government stuff.  It gets people insurance, drives down costs, and maybe doesn’t impose too heavy a burden on freedom.  Then he gives it to the politician and says, “here sir, my life’s work.  do great things”.  The politician takes it to some committee, where other politicians who have been heavily lobbied by the insurance industry say, “hey, we think that’s too punitive for insurance companies” and they strike a key portion of the perfect plan.  Ok, well, compromise and all.  Only, now they give the bill to some other committee, or some other folks on the same committee.  These folks have been heavily lobbied by the trial lawyers, and they say “hey, we think tort reform is too hard on the trial lawyers”, so they strike out another key portion of the perfect plan.

And then, they take it to another batch of politicians who haven’t been lobbied by anyone, but who know the peculiarities of their electorates, and these folks say, “hey, you have to strike out position x,y, and z; I can’t vote for these things because my district hates them”.  And pretty soon, you’re left with a formerly perfect plan which is now a train wreck.  This goes on, to some degree, in every political system and at every level, but the more moving parts there are, the more complex and sweeping the reform, the more likely this process is to stretch “good government” past its breaking point.

At the state level, or in small-bore federal reforms, you can get something done which comes close to solid policy.  But, when you’re doing, grand, sweeping things at the federal level- even if your only ideology is to do grand, sweeping things efficiently- policy is bound to come apart at the seams.

-

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

After going totally gaga for Tim Pawlenty for months, DaveG has suddenly pulled a 180-degree turn and decided that T-Paw has become T-Pawty and needs to be replaced by the newest guy to try to pick up the “technocrat” label. Apparently that’s Mitt Romney. He is “essentially what we need: a cerebral problem-solver who has a Blackberry surgically implanted into his hip, who understands the modern economy and the modern world and who will be able to save the economy and stop the government from going bankrupt and prevent America from becoming just another satellite of an ascendant China in 100 years.”

But what is he basing this on? His track record, or his image? DaveG notes that Romney “could propose” a certain solution to Social Security, or that he is the only candidate that “gets” the current state of affairs. But an assertion, no matter how strongly-stated, is merely an assertion without some piece of evidence to back it up. Where in Romney’s track record has he demonstrated that he knows how to do this? DaveG is right that Romney very well may propose certain policies, but, well, so may Huckabee, Palin, or Dave’s former beau Pawlenty. So what’s the rush?

The “problems of the 1970s” that DaveG believes that the Tea Party crowd seems to think haven’t changed are…what? They go unnamed. But whatever they are, Romney has moved past them and Palin is mired in them. I take a different view: that we are in the middle of the same debate as the one that should have taken place with a more vigorous opposition in the 1930′s — the expanding scope of the federal government. We are facing the impending doom of unsustainable, morally inappropriate entitlement programs, as well as out-of-control debt and deficit spending. If this doesn’t get under control, we’ll be only wishing that we could go back to the state of affairs in September 2008. Who has a track record of reigning in spending while holding down taxes (and fees) while governor? It’s not the man who said that he “didn’t lose any sleep worrying about whether the rich pay too many taxes.” It’s not the man who professed to “like mandates.”

We are literally nationalizing banks and auto companies. We have a president borrowing an individual mandate idea from Mitt Romney’s own health care program (which translates into: hitting up the young to give their money to the old). We are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a ridiculous “stimulus” bill meant to shield people from the effects of living. We have to ask ourselves a question: are we the party of Reagan, who proclaimed that government is the problem, or are we the party of Bush, who proclaimed that when someone hurts, government has got to move?

Romney as envisioned by DaveG — who I think is correct about how he will run — is a modern-day Richard Nixon: an endlessly pragmatic, adaptive politician who’s willing to take the middle course in order to enact government that “does well” rather than gets out of the way. Both Romney 3.0 and Nixon 2.0 would have scoffed at Goldwater’s notion that the president should go to Washington not to change entitlement programs, but to end them. Nixon gave us the Environmental Protection Agency, affirmative action, and detente. Despite his promise to “double Guantanamo,” whatever that means, I somehow envision Romney as a detente kind of guy.

Actually, it is arguable that, on domestic policy, at least, Nixon was even a bit of a precursor to Bush. Bush created a new federal department, expanded national health care, continued the federal takeover of our education system, and, in his second term, let Russia, Egypt, and Iran run wild. And bragged about it all. Bush’s second term looked a lot like how Nixon’s reign would have, as far as I’m concerned. Why? Because that’s just how “good government” works. It looks a lot like how bad government works. Inefficient, wasteful, and needless. This is inevitable. And I don’t want that from our nominee.

DaveG comments cogently:

Alex: I think that the new president as well as the nation’s economic woes have changed the conversation in the nation to focus on role of government issues in the economic sector as opposed to cultural issues and foreign policy and that has shaken up the political alliances that existed over the last couple of election cycles. In 2006 and 2008, I think people like you and me were primarily concerned with ensuring that folks didn’t retain power who believed that the nation’s biggest problems were naughty pictures and buggery in the bedroom. Hence our mutual dislike for both Romney and Palin in 2008. But I think as your articles demonstrate, now that the conversation has changed, the alliances have changed as well. Under Bush, one of the main topics of national conversation was to what extent should government try and change the culture or influence society. The Palins and the Romneys generally were supported by voters who thought government should do more of that, while the Rudys were supported by voters who thought government should do less of that, like you and I and Aron and Metro. Under Obama, the conversation is now about what government should do as it interacts with the economy, and so the divide between Obama’s opponents is now entirely different, with one camp that opposes big government and another camp that opposes stupid government. Or to put it another way, the Palins and the Becks oppose Obama because they believe government action is wrong, while the Romneys oppose Obama because they believe the way in which he wants to use government would lead to a bad outcome for the country. So if you’re a libertarian who is oppose to bigger government on, say, constitutional grounds, you’re likely to find an ally in Palin. But if you’re a utilitarian who wants to fundamentally remodel health care, but just not in the way that Obama wants to do it, then you’re probably going to have a friend in Romney, because he wants to remodel health care too. So in that sense, it makes sense that you would end up in the Palin camp in 2012 and I in the Romney camp, despite all of the bad things we said about both of them just last year.

He is right. And in his philosophy, he is wrong. We cannot be the party of “smaller behemoth government.” The utopia of “good government” remains just that — a utopia. There are no precursors to it. It has never existed. It is a progressive idea at its core. And that is why we must be the Party of Reagan and Goldwater, not the Party of Nixon and Bush.

Who will emerge as the Goldwater-Reagan foil to Romney’s Nixon? I’m not sure. If someone held a gun to my head right now and forced me to pick a candidate from the “Big Three,” I’d endorse Sarah Palin, for a multitude of reasons that I will name soon. But this foil had better emerge before we have to suffer another “good government” candidate.

Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com

PPP (D) New Jersey Gubernatorial Survey (Torricelli Edition)

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Newark Mayor Cory Booker?

• Favorable 41%
• Unfavorable 20%

Note: Sixty percent (60%) of NJ voters have an unfavorable opinion of Governor Corzine.

Among Independents

• Favorable 35%
• Unfavorable 24%

Note: Seventy-four percent (74%) of independent voters have an unfavorable opinion of Corzine.

Among Republicans

• Favorable 29%
• Unfavorable 27%

Note: Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republican voters have an unfavorable opinion of Corzine.

If Jon Corzine was replaced on the ballot by Cory Booker, would you vote for Democrat Cory Booker, Republican Chris Christie, or independent Chris Daggett?

• Chris Christie 41%
• Cory Booker 33%
• Chris Daggett 13%

Note: Thirty-five percent (35%) of NJ voters support Governor Corzine.

Survey of 500 voters was conducted September 11-14. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 39% (D); 33% (R); 28% (I). Political views: 52% Moderate; 29% Conservative; 19% Liberal.

Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent thinks he has Mitt Romney in another flip flop at the Values Voter Summit:

When government is trying to take over health care, buying car companies, bailing out banks, and giving half the White House staff the title of czar – we have every good reason to be alarmed and to speak our mind!

This is interesting because Romney supported TARP and said at CPAC:

I know we didn’t all agree on TARP. I believe that it was necessary to prevent a cascade of bank collapses.

So for bank bailouts before he was against them? Not quite, Romney didn’t technically say he was against bailing out banks. He only said that with banks being bailed out, people had good reason to be alarmed and speak their mind. Not that it was totally wrong to do those things.

He didn’t technically lie, but like Spock in Star Trek (2009 movie), he implied something that wasn’t true. (i.e. that he was opposed to bank bailouts.) He’s got wiggle room to say he didn’t flip flop, but for those who haven’t followed Romney’s position, he succeeded in creating  a false impression without speaking a false word. (Hat Tip: Yglesias.)

I think the answer is yes, with a definitely maybe thrown in for Pawlenty. Here’s why.

First, it looks like Romney is going to win New Hampshire this time around, and probably quite decisively. The most recent poll out of the state put Romney at 50 percent in a multi-candidate field, placing him 33 points ahead of both Huck and Sarah, known quantities all. This makes sense, because Romney almost beat John McCain there in 2008, even though it was “McCain’s turn” and despite the fact that McCain is essentially President of New Hampshire, which is a testament to the power of Massachusetts politicians over Granite State primary voters. The New Hampshire primary is a blue-state, Northern Republican primary, and while these particular blue state, Northern Republicans are especially quirky and somewhat more conservative than their fellow New Englanders, they are also naturally disinclined to accept a Huck or Sarah for cultural reasons, and will probably be even more disinclined to accept them once they start showing their red-state chops in an attempt to best one another in Iowa. Further, the 2012 New Hampshire primary will be filled with anti-Obama independents, and independents like wonkery and sobriety, and Romney has the latitude to convey that this time around given his position as Establishment Candidate, while Huck and Sarah and the rest all have to excite the crowds in Iowa, and that requires red meat, and red meat tends not to be independent-friendly.

So the point is that Romney is currently way ahead in New Hampshire, and based on the political dynamics of this cycle, he’s probably going to stay way ahead in New Hampshire when all is said and done. That means that both Huck and Sarah simply must win Iowa to advance, because they’re the other two members of the Big Three, and failing to win both Iowa and New Hampshire would be a campaign-ender for any member of the Big Three in a way it wouldn’t for, say, a Mike Pence coming out of nowhere and finishing a strong second in both states.

If Huckabee doesn’t win Iowa, the narrative will be that Huck was unable to repeat his 2008 performance, that the new Red State Republican in the race is whoever unseated him in Iowa, and that Huck is essentially a has-been. By the time South Carolina comes around, that meme will have settled into the national political psyche and Huck will be done. If Palin doesn’t win Iowa, the narrative will be that the entirely of Sarah’s campaign was a huge bubble, that she had been propped up by a vocal minority, and that, like Dean ’04, Palin ’12 was simply an illusory movement that folded as soon as actual people started to vote. Again, by South Carolina, everyone will have forgotten about her as a serious candidate. But if either Huck or Sarah does win Iowa, they can weather a loss in New Hampshire by simply blaming Romney’s home-state advantage, just as Romney can (and probably should) skip Iowa and focus on flooring the opposition in New Hampshire as center-right uber-wonk and winning South Carolina on the basis of his status as the Establishment Candidate/”It’s My Turn” Candidate.

Things are trickier with Pawlenty. Ordinarily, I would say that expectations are so low for a candidate who didn’t run previously and who isn’t a member of GOP nobility that Pawlenty should be able to finish second in both states and stay in the game. I think the thing that screws Pawlenty up is that he’s a cultural conservative from a state that neighbors Iowa, and a cultural conservative from a state that neighbors Iowa should be able to win Iowa if he’s going to take the nomination and the presidency. Still, if it’s Huck/Pawlenty/Palin in Iowa and Romney/Pawlenty/Huck in New Hampshire, Pawlenty will probably at least be able to hang out until Super Tuesday to see if he ends up as the compromise candidate as the second choice of the Huck and Romney people. Ditto if Palin wins Iowa and it’s a Palin/Romney race going into South Carolina. Still, how many times does a major party nominee lose both Iowa and New Hampshire? That’s why I think Pawlenty kinda, sorta has to win Iowa, but Huckabee and Palin definitely have to win Iowa to win the nomination.

Washington Post Virginia Gubernatorial Survey

If the election were being held today and the candidates were Creigh Deeds, the Democrat and Bob McDonnell, the Republican, for whom would you vote?

• Bob McDonnell 51% (54%)
• Creigh Deeds 47% (39%)

Will you definitely vote for _____________________ in November, or is there a chance you could change your mind and vote for someone else?

Creigh Deeds

• Definitely vote 72% (62%)
• Could change mind 26% (33%)

Bob McDonnell

• Definitely vote 69% (59%)
• Could change mind 28% (38%)

Do you think Creigh Deeds’ views on most issues are too liberal for you, too conservative for you, or just about right?

• Too liberal 42% (39%)
• Too conservative 6% (7%)
• Just about right 47% (37%)

Do you think Bob McDonnell’s views on most issues are too liberal for you, too conservative for you, or just about right?

• Too liberal 7% (6%)
• Too conservative 40% (30%)
• Just about right 47% (46%)

Regardless of how you may vote, whom do you trust to do a better job handling the economy and jobs?

• Bob McDonnell 48% (50%)
• Creigh Deeds 43% (35%)

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling education?

• Creigh Deeds 47%
• Bob McDonnell 43%

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling health care?

• Creigh Deeds 47%
• Bob McDonnell 43%

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling taxes?

• Bob McDonnell 50% (50%)
• Creigh Deeds 39% (31%)

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling transportation issues?

• Bob McDonnell 46% (43%)
• Creigh Deeds 38% (31%)

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling the state budget?

• Bob McDonnell 49%
• Creigh Deeds 40%

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling gun control?

• Bob McDonnell 47% (48%)
• Creigh Deeds 36% (27%)

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling the abortion issue?

• Creigh Deeds 44% (34%)
• Bob McDonnell 42% (39%)

Whom do you trust to do a better job handling issues of special concern to women?

• Creigh Deeds 48%
• Bob McDonnell 38%

Regardless of how you may vote, do you think Deeds or McDonnell would be a more effective leader?

• Bob McDonnell 50%
• Creigh Deeds 45%

Do you think Deeds or McDonnell better understands the problems of people like you?

• Creigh Deeds 46%
• Bob McDonnell 45%

Do you think Deeds or McDonnell is more honest and trustworthy?

• Bob McDonnell 38%
• Creigh Deeds 36%

Do you think Deeds or McDonnell more closely shares your values?

• Bob McDonnell 50%
• Creigh Deeds 43%

Do you think _____________________ would rely on his religious beliefs too much, too little or about the right amount when making policy decisions?

Creigh Deeds

• Too much 7%
• Too little 15%
• About the right amount 59%

Bob McDonnell

• Too much 30%
• Too little 6%
• About the right amount 54%

There’s been news recently about a report McDonnell wrote as a 34-year-old graduate student in 1989 expressing his views on some social issues and the role of government. In his thesis, McDonnell criticized working mothers and homosexuals as detrimental to families and urged the promotion of traditional values through government. McDonnell calls this not in-line with his current views while Deeds says this shows McDonnell’s real positions on these issues. In thinking about your vote for governor, does this thesis make you more likely to support McDonnell, less likely or won’t it affect your vote one way or the other?

• More likely 11%
• Less likely 30%
• Won’t affect vote 58%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Tim Kaine is handling his job as governor?

• Approve 59% (51%)
• Disapprove 38% (45%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

• Approve 53% (47%)
• Disapprove 47% (51%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the economy?

• Approve 52% (45%)
• Disapprove 47% (54%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care?

• Approve 48% (41%)
• Disapprove 51% (57%)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Democrats in Congress are doing their job?

• Approve 37%
• Disapprove 62%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are doing their job?

• Approve 27%
• Disapprove 71%

Which comes closer to the way you feel: government reform of the nation’s health care system is necessary to control costs and expand coverage, or government action on health care will do more harm than good?

• Necessary 52% (45%)
• More harm than good 46% (52%)

Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases or illegal in all cases?

• Legal in all cases 19% (18%)
• Legal in most cases 40% (37%)
• Illegal in most cases 27% (27%)
• Illegal in all cases 12% (14%)

Which view comes closest to your own?

• Government should promote policies and programs discouraging homosexuality 11%
• Government should promote policies and programs that treat homosexuality as acceptable 19%
• Government should not get involved in this issue 69%

Survey of 1,003 likely voters was conducted September 14-17. The margin of error among adults is +/- 3 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 32% (27%) Democrat; 29% (34%) Republican; 34% (34%) Independent; Political views: 44% (37%) Moderate; 36% (41%) Conservative; 20% (20%) Liberal. Results from the poll conducted August 11-14 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

In August, independent women favored McDonnell 59 to 31 percent; now they split 50 percent for Deeds to 47 percent for McDonnell.

In Northern Virginia, where statewide Democrats have been successful but Deeds was slow to win support, he now leads McDonnell, 57 to 40 percent, among likely voters. In the innermost Washington suburbs, Deeds leads 63 to 34 percent. A month ago, the two men were running about even in Northern Virginia.

In contrast to his gains in Northern Virginia, Deeds has made little evident progress in the rural western and southwestern part of the state, a region the Democrat calls home, or “Deeds country,” and where he has spent significant time. McDonnell tops 60 percent in this area, for his best showing in the state.

Overall, McDonnell, who has lived in the state’s three most-populous areas and resides outside Richmond, leads 55 to 44 percent outside Northern Virginia.

Nearly four in 10 voters who back McDonnell are “very enthusiastic” about him, compared with just more than two in 10 of Deeds’s about their choice.

McDonnell’s focus on transportation has not won him supporters on the issue in congested Northern Virginia. Transportation ranks as the second-most important issue in the region, and Deeds has a 49 to 36 percent advantage as the one voters trust to deal with it. A month ago, McDonnell and Deeds were roughly equal among likely voters in Northern Virginia on transportation.

Deeds also benefits from improved ratings for Obama and the Democratic initiative to overhaul health care. Overall, 53 percent of Virginia’s likely voters approve of the job the president is doing, up from 47 percent in August. A month ago, most saw government action on health care as doing more harm than good; now, a slim majority sees it as essential to controlling costs and expanding coverage.

Beth Reinhard, of the Miami Herald, has penned a revealing insight into Gov. Crist’s personal touch, in the truest sense of the phrase. In short, the article shows that Charlie seems like the archetypal politician (who maybe goes above and beyond the typical perception of a “politician”) incredibly effective with retail politics and arguably tailor-made for the role of aisle-crossing, consensus-generating Senator. For an idea as to how the Governor has managed to maintain such high approval ratings, even among Democrats, give the article a shot. However, if you only seek some of the highlights, I’ll do my best to provide them:

After President Barack Obama made history with a vast online network of small donors, Crist raised a record-breaking $4.3 million.

He did it the old-fashioned way — one big personal check at a time — dwarfing the two other major candidates, Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek.

He dials the numbers himself. He asks about the prospective donor’s wife and kids by name. And then, without flinching, Crist makes “the ask.”

I need your help, buddy. I can’t do it without you. We’re going to bring change to Washington, the Florida way!

From dozens of interviews with Crist’s campaign contributors and advisors, a picture emerges of a gracious arm-twister who lavishes donors with praise, solicits their opinions — and then demands to know how much and when.

When donors come up short — or even if they don’t — Crist calls again.

Can you dig deeper?

“Charlie doesn’t have any shame,” said lobbyist Ron Book, one of the sought-after rainmakers in Tallahassee.

“Let’s just say that you can’t say no,” said Miami developer Armando Gutierrez.

“He will not let you off the phone until you make the commitment,” said Jacksonville insurance executive Michael Hightower.

…Does his success come from his sheer willpower to call as many as 200 people on a Monday morning? The nerve to hit up total strangers and even political adversaries? A year-round regimen of calling donors on federal holidays?

… Closed-door fundraisers are slipped between made-for-television appearances at hospitals, schools and firehouses, leaving voters with the impression of a small-town mayor instead of a career politician married to a New York socialite.

Local TV viewers recently got a glimpse of Crist and Monroe County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro in shirt sleeves, wading into the ocean to release a rehabilitated 280-pound sea turtle. Hours later, after the camera crew was gone, Crist sat down to a $1,000-per-person dinner at the commissioner’s waterfront home.

In another example of the governor molding a down-to-earth image in public while privately pumping high rollers for cash, Crist paused to ask a bellman’s name before striding into the glamorous Fontainebleau hotel on Miami Beach last week.

“Charles,” replied the 32-year-old in a white uniform jacket. “Me too!” Crist exclaimed, grasping the hand of his newest supporter.

… Crist is the rare politician who prefers a flip-phone to a BlackBerry. He shuns e-mail, volunteers his phone number and handwrites thank-you notes. Donors clamor for the personal attention.

…Miami attorney Manny Kadre remembers Crist calling when Kadre’s wife was in labor. Have her call me when the baby is born.

Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, got a text message from the governor when Barreto took his son to orientation weekend at the University of Florida. Tell Bradley, best of luck.

In person, Crist can work a room — without looking over anyone’s shoulders.

“He makes you feel like the only thing on his mind at that moment is you,” Barreto said. “It’s one on one, with total eye contact and attention.”

Democrats get the same treatment, earning Crist raves for bipartisanship while quietly swelling his fundraising pool.

The day after Democrat Rod Smith lost the 2006 gubernatorial primary, Crist placed a sympathetic call to one of the campaign’s top money men, attorney Danny Ponce. Crist was also one of the first to call Ponce after his father died.

… Crist’s most successful campaign event so far was hosted by some of the state’s best-known Democratic trial lawyers, including Morgan. The June 12 cocktail reception at an Orlando hotel and steak dinner at Morgan’s home raised about $300,000, approaching Rubio’s three-month take.

Crist has raised so much money from so many corners of Florida that it’s hard to yoke him to any one special interest group. He’s beholden to no one and to everyone.

“Charlie loves being the governor of the doctors and the trial lawyers, the governor of big business and the environment,” said Kadre, the Miami attorney close to Crist.

Republican Jeb Bush wanted to be known as the “education governor” for his signature issue. Crist calls himself “the people’s governor.”

Asked how many phone numbers are saved in his cellphone, Crist said, “Not enough.” He laughed. “Always need more. Got to reach out.”

He added, “I’m blessed to have dear friends, and I like to work hard. It’s that simple . . .I love people. I love to talk to them about everything.”

…Crist’s former campaign manager, recently appointed U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, recalls urging the candidate, then running for governor, on a Sunday to reach 50 supporters the next day. Crist made 200 calls between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m, waking many donors.

“It not only got the job done but it created a buzz. We raised $1 million at our first event, which was unheard of,” LeMieux said.

The governor leaves nothing to chance. He once urged a donor to send a check to his home address in St. Petersburg, making it hard to weasel out of the pledge. He pushed a businessman on vacation to get his assistant to wire money from his bank, recalled Vivian Myrtetus, a former Crist spokeswoman.

… For someone who raises so much cash, Crist appears to lavish little on himself. He eats one small meal a day. He pays off his only credit card every month. He frequently flies commercial, and his campaign pays only three full-time employees and an accounting firm.

“Don’t be surprised to see him sitting in 23C and staying at the Radisson,” said Miami political consultant Carlos Curbelo. “He takes the time to talk to every single person who crosses his path.”

Morgan, the Orlando trial lawyer, was walking past the Dippin’ Dots ice cream kiosk at the Seminole Town Center Mall on the day Crist called about the upcoming fundraiser.

“Hold on,” Morgan told Crist, “The Dippin’ Dots woman is trying to talk to me.”

“Put her on,” Crist said.

Morgan did. “I just got you another vote,” he told Crist after retrieving his phone from the delighted purveyor of flash-frozen beads of ice cream.

Crist didn’t pause. “Make sure you invite her to the fundraiser.”

I apologize for the length! I just had a hard time cutting out parts! Anyway, say what you will about Crist’s record (and he done plenty to call question to it), but the man knows how to connect with people. Although I still prefer Marco Rubio for the Senate nomination, we could do a lot worse than Charlie. After all, Crist’s glad-handing style appears better suited to the Senate, rather than the governor’s office, which requires making tough decisions and tradeoffs (and consequently, running a greater risk of offending constituents and interest groups) more often than the Senate.

Kris Kobach is the past chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, a former White House Fellow, and the front-runner for the 2010 Republican nomination for Secretary of State.

Today, The New York Post ran a column by Kobach on the issue that prompted Rep. Joe Wilson’s challenge toward Obama’s integrity: whether ObamaCare will indeed cover illegal immigrants:

What prompted the exclamation, after all, was the president’s assertion: “There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This too is false.”

If only. In fact, the House’s lead health-reform bill (HR 3200), would give taxpayer-paid insurance to illegal aliens.

Of course, to realize this, you have to actually read the bill, and many members of Congress haven’t.

To disguise the facts, supporters of health “reform” point to Section 246 of the bill, which reads: “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

But this is a huge bill, and such disclaimers must be read in context. In fact, the bill lets illegal aliens get subsidized care in two ways.

Section 246 applies only to the subtitle of the bill concerning “individual affordability credits” — insurance subsidies to help people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level who don’t qualify for Medicaid.

That section’s disclaimer doesn’t cover the taxpayer-subsidized “public option” policies — which are described in Section 221, a subtitle that contains no language excluding illegal aliens.

Thus, any illegal alien may sign up for health insurance under the public option — which will inevitably be massively subsidized by the taxpayers.

In any case, even the Section 246 disclaimer is utterly toothless: It’s simply a hopeful statement, lacking any enforcement mechanism to screen applicants and prevent illegal aliens from getting the taxpayer-paid benefits.

And enforcement mechanisms are essential. Numerous government reports have found that despite statutory prohibitions to the contrary, illegal aliens already get all sorts of public benefits whenever enforcement mechanisms are absent.

Take the Earned Income Tax Credit — now the government’s largest cash-transfer program. By federal law, illegal aliens aren’t eligible — but there’s no requirement that the IRS verify EITC recipients as eligible, so illegal-alien households get millions under the program every year. Without question, the same would be true with health credits under the House bill.

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Benjamin Hodge publishes the Web site KansasProgress.com, based in Johnson County, KS, in the Greater Kansas City area.  Hodge is a delegate to the Kansas GOP and a former state lawmaker.  You can join Hodge’s efforts on Facebook, through his personal Web site, on Twitter, and through his PAC.

Mark Hemingway’s take on Pawlenty’s speech and the straw poll results.

The Baptist minister’s victory in the straw poll was probably a foregone conclusion, though I was somewhat surprised by the strength of Romney’s showing. (Romney controversially won the Values Voters straw poll in 2007 when the conference briefly opened it up to online voting in addition to attendees.) That’s not because I expect the crowd would be hostile to Romney, but because Tim Pawlenty was the featured speaker at the conference last evening and blew the roof off the place.

Pawlenty’s speech received several standing ovations — you can read it here. Pawlenty fired right back at the DNC, which has been going after his criticisms of Democrats’ proposed health care reforms:

The DNC put up a video or some sort of thing attacking me on this debate for various things I’ve said in recent weeks and months, and I accept the challenge.  And I’ll just respond by calling out the president back tonight.  And I would say – (applause) – and what I’d like to say to him is, DNC and he calls me out, I’ll call you out, call you back, and here’s my message:  Stop spending the country into bankruptcy.  Stop taxing us into oblivion.  And the next time you address a group of young people maybe you should apologize for the crushing debt you’re putting on their shoulders.

If the DNC thinks they’re putting him in his place, they’re really just elevating his profile. Then near the end of the speech, Pawlenty told a Reagan anecdote that he capped by reciting 2 Chronicles 7:14. The entire crowd began reciting the verse along with him — it was definitely a moment. Pawlenty simply nailed his speech. Right message, right crowd, right tone, right on. That said, Pawlenty’s speech at the convention last year wasn’t the best. If Pawlenty is gearing up to run in 2012, time will tell if this speech represents him rising to the occaison or if he merely found a rare moment in the zone. Either way, after witnessing his command of the audience Friday night, people underestimate Pawlenty at their peril. On Saturday, I overheard attendees still buzzing about his speech the previous night.

And in fairness to Romney, he was given a much worse timeslot and seats for his speech were only half-full. It was still a decent speech though, and Romney is proven as a campaigner and politician. One less-than-stellar speech at the Values Voters conference that not many people saw is hardly something he’s worried about. Romney’s delivered great speeches and he’ll deliver more in the future.

It’s interesting Pawlenty’s speech didn’t help him out in the straw poll a bit more (though it’s worth noting that half the attendees didn’t bother voting in the straw poll), but my favorable impression of his speech is hardly unique. The crowd’s positive reaction was the headline at both the NYT and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Whether this will translate into any momentum for Pawlenty remains to be seen, but I don’t think anyone expected him to be a breakout star at the Values Voters conference.

For the record, I had a slightly different opinion.  I thought Pawlenty’s speech was uneven, but terrific in spots.  He has the blue-state Republican problem on social issues; he hasn’t yet figured out how to talk about them honestly without overdoing it.  He’s a lot better than Romney was at the equivalent point in the 2008 cycle, but there’s still some fine-tuning to do.  The beginning and the last half of the speech were excellent though and Hemingway’s account of the reactions don’t surprise me at all.

Governor Mike Huckabee has won the 2009 Values Voter 2012 straw poll.

Mike Huckabee 170 votes – 28.5%
Mitt Romney 74 votes – 12.4%
Tim Pawlenty 73 votes – 12.2%
Sarah Palin 72 votes – 12.1%
Mike Pence 71 votes – 11.9%
Newt Gingrich 40 votes – 6.7%
Bobby Jindal 28 votes – 4.7%
Rick Santorum 15 votes – 2.5%
Ron Paul 13 votes – 2.2%
Undecided 31 votes – 5.2%
Other 10 votes – 1.7%

I was interested to read DaveG’s tenative, semi, almost endorsement of Mitt Romney.  No doubt many of the party’s moderates will drift in the same direction over the next few years but, it seems like a fantastic case of projection in the face of increasingly bleak prospects for their “movement”.  What specifically did Romney say in today’s speech, or recently, to convince anyone that he’s somehow planning to disavow the Palin’s or run as the pragmatic technocrat moderates have always hoped he was, secretly? 

Was it when he said, “The liberals, in their heart believe that the private enterprise system — profitability, for instance — that those things are inefficient and wrong, and that a government-run system would be better”.  Sober-minded, eh?  Non-ideological, huh?  Pragmatic…right? 

Or how about when he praised the tea-partiers as “patriots” and lambasted the Democrats for impugning them?  Or when he responded to a heckler screaming a Joe Wilson echo of “he lies”, with “I approve that comment”.  This is surely the reaction of a man ready to heartily embrace the moderate; the technocratic; the stoic and the serious-minded. 

I don’t, by the way, mean this as an indictment of Romney.  The point isn’t that he is disingenuous or even wrong, but rather that he isn’t moderate.  He’s a modest conservative in immodest times and he knows it.  This passionate rhetoric isn’t remotely remarkable. 

What is remarkable is that it should be ignored and that the vast moderate forces- which once commanded Dirksen and Taft to bow before a distant General, and nearly rejected a pragmatic Nixon; which could have forced a homey Rockefeller on an unwilling electorate and which did force a Connecticut liberal on a reluctant Reagan- should now be satisfied because…a candidate defends his own health care plan.  That’s now all that stands between moderation and radicalism for these fellows; an unwillingness to attack ones self in the name of the cause.  They won’t get a bigger concession and probably won’t ask for one.  Mitt Romney hasn’t disavowed his health care plan and well, all things considered, that’s good enough for them. 

Yet, even remarkable doesn’t capture the violence of this shift.  It’s an earthquake or a tsunami gleefully wrecking the foundations of the moderate Republican movement.  And it’s right that this should happen.  We face a turning point, where liberalism’s ghosts are on the verge of being excorcised through a bundle of policies cobbled together in near parody of its long-sought after goals- internationalism for the sake of internationalism, concessions for the sake of concessions, spending for the sake of spending, universal health care for the sake of universality- and the moderates answer that the American people really want something like this, just not quite this, and that we ought to be sensible. 

It is worth thinking back to the man who’s failings created these ghosts and definitively ushered in the reign of the moderate Republican: Adlai Stevenson.  There’s a symmetry of sorts at work. Now, the 21st century’s Adlai Stevenson sits in the White House, flush from historic victory yet teetering on the edge of oblivion.   The original grins from the pearly gates, because he thinks he knows the score.  His soaring rhetoric, which twice failed to redeem liberalism, now nearly describes the men who created its first serious opponent.  Only one word has changed: they are continually uttering “diffident phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea”.  Maybe, Adlai’ll finally have his revenge. 

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Review of Governor Mitt Romney’s Speech at the 2009 VVS

Unlike Pawlenty’s speech, I was there on time and caught the whole thing.

• Good opening applause, with polite STANDING OVATION. It is obvious that a portion of the crowd would not stand (25%)
• Romney: Bill Bennett (who spoke before ) a “treasure” and “papa bear”
• Romney on Obama: “He can spin a speech but he can’t spin his record”
• Romney: “America has freed other nations from dictators”
• Romney:  Stimulus brought back 30 years of failed liberal programs
• Romney: Economy is shrinking while government is growing
• Romney: “Spending and borrowing isn’t irresponsible, it’s morally wrong”
• Romney on people talking about 2^nd stimulus: “Don’t repeat the stimulus, repair the stimulus”
• Romney: “Confusing global warming with the heat they have been taking at the townhalls.”
• Romney: Insurance should be portable. “I reformed health care in my own state”. “There is no public option in Massachusetts”
• Partial STANDING OVATION …40% standing: “Obama is not going to get his way” on health care.
• Romney: “We raise a stronger generation when a child is raised by a father and a mother”
• Partial STANDING OVATION …40% standing: Romney: “time for president to treat friends better than foes”
• Partial STANDING OVATION …40% standing: “CIA deserves respect”
• STANDING OVATION at end with medium applause intensity.

My Analysis:

No gaffes. A few good one liners which is when he received the most applause. The room felt awkward when he talked about MA health care. The people here are opposed to what happened in MA but wanted to be polite as Romney addressed it. I think it might have been better for him to not have brought it up at all or to have addressed it in enough detail to convince the audience that it was a good idea. It was fairly brief and he didn’t make a detailed defense of it. Gov. Romney did not address values issues of abortion, traditional marriage, ENDA, or religious freedom in any real way besides giving single lines of support.  He needed to show that those issues were important to him to win over these voters. I think the straw poll later today will show that he had not yet accomplished that. Romney is running out of time to win over this crowd. It will take a few exposures for him to change people’s minds and I thought that today might be a start but I don’t think that it turned out that way.

The straw poll results comes out later today. My predicted results are:

Huckabee 33%
Palin 28%
Romney 11%
Pawlenty 8%
Santorum 5%
Pence 5%
Gingrich 4%
Jindal 3%
Paul 3%

Well, there’s been quite the chatter the last few days!  Instead of my normal boring recitation of a mishmash of stories and topics I find interesting, I want to put my thoughts out there on our recent addition of David Schmidt to the front page posters, Gov Huckabee, and the 2012 campaign.

Many supporters of Gov Romney are mad.  I’ve seen “anti-Mormon” posted more times than I can count, mainly from Gov Romney’s supporters complaining about Mr Schmidt and Gov Huckabee.  The anger stems from the 2008 campaign, where some dirty pool was played against Gov Romney (as happened to most every candidate, btw, and from varying sources), some of which involved his religion.  For his role in it, Gov Huckabee apologized to Gov Romney, and the apology was accepted.  You don’t think it was sufficient?  Gov Romney does, and he was the primary target.  You need to ask yourself whether holding onto that anger and hate is worth the damage it will do to you (and hurt you it will).  I will not ask you to forgive, and I will not ask you to forget.  All I ask is that you judge both Gov Huckabee and Mr Schmidt on their actions HERE AND NOW, as opposed to actions done in the heat of a bitterly contested primary, where the eventual winner was thrashed electorally.

I understand it, and can sympathise with it to a certain extent.  My grandfather converted to LDS later in life, and all my experiences with the members of his church where he lived were positive.  All of them.  They are good people, and while I don’t know enough about their religion to say whether I agree with everything they stand for, I have no issue with their faith whatsoever, and consider them to generally live and support the life that Jesus preached.  To me, that makes them Christians.  If you want to use a different criteria to determine whether they’re Christian or not, that’s your problem, and I’m not going to play that game.

All that said, that was 2008, a year where Republicans were absolutely spanked electorally.  If you care even slightly about Conservative issues being discussed in DC, the first step is to put in a political party that will discuss them, and that means the Republicans.  There are several candidates who appeal to the Conservative base on a variety of issues.  Govs Romney and Pawlenty appeal strongly to many fiscal conservatives.  Govs Palin and Huckabee appeal strongly to social conservatives.  The truth of the matter is we need every single vote we can muster for 2010 and 2012, and that means we have to be big enough to allow a voice to these people.

By no means should we tolerate attacks on people’s families, religion, personal issues, and whatnot.  If those things come up in the run-up to 2010 and 2012, I will be among the first to denounce it.  Shots at programs implemented, or on someone’s track record, however, is open season, even if the person hasn’t officially declared for office yet.  That’s what the non-base voters care about, what will we do to improve the country, not whether you said something bad about someone else a few years ago.  Until we focus on that, we are sunk.

An added bonus of getting these issues out early is it dulls their effectiveness when (not if) they are used in a general election by Democrats.  You don’t think Gov Romney’s tenure in Mass will be used by Dems, or Gov Huckabee’s in Ark?  Of course it will, but discussing it now, and getting a cogent answer out there that can be referred back to will make it a waste of their time.  If a primary is run mostly with dignity and honesty, it will strenghten, not weaken, the eventual winner.

In short, be mad and don’t vote for Gov Huckabee in the primary if he’s offended you.  Until he does something in the current election cycle, however, let the past go.  Have a little faith in your fellow party members.  Push for your candidate and be vigilant for legitimate new information.  Otherwise, you’re looking for a replay of 2008, and that didn’t turn out so well for us…

A Tentative Endorsement from a Former Opponent

At some point in history, some very wise individual once advised against letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is good advice, as in politics, there’s no such thing as perfection. In politics, as in life, there exist a number of highly flawed choices and it is the job of each individual to select the least flawed option, from their point of view. I opposed Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2008 because I didn’t think he was what the country needed at the time. Romney ’08 was politically tone-deaf, transparently utilizing a playbook that was both outdated and apparently opportunistic. Romney’s campaign attempted to morph the governor into Fred Thompson, only to wonder why the sorts of voters who would go for a guy like Fred Thompson ditched Romney whenever something resembling the real thing leapt into the race. Not only that, but because Romney wasn’t really Fred Thompson, but was just playing him on TV, the transformation went really badly, and instead of railing against unpopular culturally liberal things like, say, late-term abortion, Romney railed against things that everyone sort of wants when the lights are off, like naughty websites on the Internet. The whole thing ruined Romney’s brand, because the real Romney is essentially what we need: a cerebral problem-solver who has a Blackberry surgically implanted into his hip, who understands the modern economy and the modern world and who will be able to save the economy and stop the government from going bankrupt and prevent America from becoming just another satellite of an ascendant China in 100 years.

But now it appears that Romney has gotten the message. Thankfully, he’s not trying to out-Palin Sarah Palin this time around. Instead, he appears to be running as the high-tech, non-ideological problem solver that he is. He’s defending the parts of RomneyCare that deserve defending, while admitting that as president he would do more to control costs. That’s a good thing, because we need a massive health care overhaul in this country, just like we need a massive Social Security overhaul and Medicare overhaul and immigration overhaul and education overhaul. American society has advanced to “Nintendo Wii” levels, but federal policies and programs are stuck in 8-bit NES mode. Congress is filled with liberals and conservatives who came to Washington in the 1970s and who still want to fight the battles of the 1970s, while society aches because no one is willing or able to change the rules and regulations at the federal level that need to be changed in order to fundamentally restore the economy, regain fiscal sanity, and keep us competitive in a global economy that is not going back no matter how many tariffs Obama puts up nor how many times Eric Cantor uses the term “Communist China” to get hoots from the base. Of the 2012 presidential candidates, the only one who currently understands how to do all of this, and who appears willing to accomplish this transformation in government, is Mitt Romney. And that is why I do the unthinkable (if you read my posts on Romney during the race for 2008, you’d understand why this seems unthinkable) and offer a tentative endorsement to Mitt Romney for president.

Some elements of the Right want to re-discover the Golden Age of the Gold Standard. These folks believe that if we just bring the federal government back to its constitutional mandate, build up walls to immigration and trade, and refuse to acknowledge organic cultural changes, America will become some sort of utopia that will be immune from all of the challenges of modernity. Ron Paul represents the most extreme form of this, of course, and with Paul it’s sort of a sunny, quirky movement. But his mantle has been embraced and transformed into an angry, emotional movement by the Tea Partiers and the Glenn Becks, who have as political leaders folks like Rick Perry and who look to Sarah Palin as Philosopher Queen to usher in this new order. Because these folks are the loudest on the Right, they are, through sheer force, pulling the Huckabees and the Pawlentys in their direction. Pawlenty, who once spoke in a cerebral manner about the need for a three-legged stool of health care reform that addresses universal access, cost-control, and quality, is now trying to morph into Rick Perry, awkwardly referencing states’ rights in opposition to federal action on health care. Does T-Paw realize how ridiculous he’ll sound if he starts trying to out-Perry Perry? Or out-Palin Palin? Sorry, but Pawlenty is interesting because he’s a different kind of Republican. If he tries to transform into a Tea Partier, not only will he lose all those who thought he was interesting, he’ll be overwhelmed by the Becks of the world, who exude anger at modernity in a way that Pawlenty’s temperate demeanor never could. This reinforces my belief that Pawlenty ’12 is much like Romney ’08 — it’s the initial run where the candidate tries to get his bearings but can never quite find his voice.

Huckabee is heading in the same direction, ditching his interesting ideas about moving towards a consumer-based health system in favor of taking shots at RomneyCare while offering no alternative solutions (because the voters that he and T-Paw are now trying to woo don’t really want solutions, they just want to emote). Do Huckabee and Pawlenty realize that only one-fifth of the nation tells pollsters that it wants no additional regulations on insurance companies? Can you win a general election with only a fifth of the country? Can you even with a GOP primary with a fifth of the country, particularly if it’s split three ways?

The country is facing serious challenges, and it deserves better than the debt-growing, anti-trade, big-and-bulky-government policies of Obama/Pelosi/Reid. But it also deserves better than angry prairie populism that, once in the White House, simply cannot be translated into actual policies that fit the problems of the modern world. Romney is the only major 2012 candidate who gets this. America needs a president who can figure out how to transform our health care financing system from a hodgepodge of unsustainable entitlements and obsolete employer-based insurance mechanisms into something that makes sense for the 21st Century. As Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics notes, health insurance isn’t really insurance anymore, because insurance is something you hope you never use, while advances in medical technology mean that health care is something Americans use on a regular basis for quantity and quality of life issues. And given that the average American changes jobs 11 times by the time he or she is 40, having this system based around employment makes no sense. How about replacing both Medicaid and the employer-based health insurance system with some sort of consumer-based health financing system that utilizes the private sector to do the financing? That’s something I could see Romney being able to figure out.

And what about Social Security? It’s unsustainable in its current form. Americans will never give up some form of basic, government-mandated retirement security. But surely there’s a way to maintain the safety net while adding highly regulated private accounts that will lead to more investment and a greater return for Social Security recipients. Romney could propose a plan less ideological than Bush’s, and could sell it smarter than Bush did, who sent folks like George Allen on Sunday shows to suggest that Americans be able to keep their Social Security tax money and invest it in their home. Given today’s level of foreclosures, that kind of plan would probably sound even more unacceptable to Americans now than it did then. Romney would offer a plan that is more practical and would do a lot better job selling it to the American people.

As far as trade and immigration go, America needs a president who understands the importance of our economic relationships with the rest of the world at least as well as, well, Bill Clinton did. The immigration charade has to stop. Leaving the borders open as a wink and nod to the economic demands of business while refusing to change the laws to acknowledge these demands as to avoid raising the ire of the Buchananites is a game that must end. Let’s rework our immigration policies so that they reflect the modern economy, and let’s make our education system the best in the world so that the kids on the streets of Philly will get the training they need to fill the jobs that employers have to offer, meaning that employers won’t have to ship in folks from overseas to fill American jobs. Romney’s enough of a Wall Street Journal/Chamber of Commerce type that he’d be willing and able to do this.

Finally, let’s continue to modernize the military to prepare for the next war. And there will be a next war. The Middle East is about as volatile today as Europe was 100 years ago. Afghanistan and Iraq are often called wars of choice, but what if a region-wide war breaks out in the Middle East and Near East? Are the major world powers, such as Russia, China, and the Anglo-American Alliance, really going to be able to stay out of it? We can’t stay out and we won’t, so we’d better be ready.

The result of replacing our current obsolete federal policies on these issues with sleek, shiny, modern policies will be a foundation for economic growth, reduced government debt, and continued security. Of course a Republican president has to tend to the sacred cows of the GOP, such as not raising taxes and appointing conservative judges, but Romney’s political shifts over the past few years put him in a place where he doesn’t appear to endanger those sacred cows in the way that many feared my 2008 candidate, Rudy Giuliani, did. By 2012, Romney will have been pro-life for at least six years. As such, Romney appears to be the closest thing to the high-tech, fiscally conservative, forward-thinking president that I want — a good-government conservative who doesn’t deviate from GOP orthodoxy on any big issues but who understands the primary challenges of our era and who knows how to tackle them and is willing to do so. Given Obama’s drift towards 1970s leftism and given the Tea Party Right’s insistence that none of our challenges have changed since the 1970s, Mitt Romney is the only candidate for president that makes sense for America in 2012. As such, I hereby announce my support for Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

I have to admit that I missed the beginning of Pawlenty’s speech as I was delayed by an errand down the street that took more time than it should.

PAWLENTY POINTS:

• Addressed stereotypes of GOP/conservatives that are unfair or untrue. Talked about voters in Minnesota that would agree with GOP on 7 to 8 out of top 10 issues yet not vote GOP because the Dems are for the “working people”. GOP needs to break down that wrong stereotype. Said conservative values have been making an impact in Minnesota and if they can in a left of center place like that, they can and should anywhere.
• Pawlenty: We represent not just conservative values but American values
• Talked about thanking and acknowledging God in Minnesota by have days of prayer and proclamation
• Pawlenty: We need to respect human life.
• Pawlenty: We need to value Constitution…good judges and judges that will not redefine marriage.
• Pawlenty: Weakness tempts enemies. Addressed radar site/missile defense plan of Obama and why it is a bad idea. We need to stand with our friends the Poles. Pawlenty said he was part Polish.
• Addressed how government mandates with health care have failed in two states. Didn’t mention Romney or MA although people knew what states those were as Huckabee had talked about TN & MA as bad examples of health care reform.
• Pawlenty: Why do we want to people who have Medicare, Medicade, & SS headed for bankruptcy to run more things.
• Talked about cutting expenses in MN
• STANDING OVATION: Talked about getting “called out” by Obama/DNC this morning and said he was calling Obama back out tonight.
• STANDING OVATION: Obama needs to apologize to young ppl for the crushing debt we are putting on them.
• Pawlenty: Put Hyde amendment language in health care bill
• STANDING OVATION : Read 2 Chronicles 7:14 Bible verse which says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
• STANDING OVATION at end of speech and good applause.

My analysis:
Covered a wide range of issues. No gaffes. Solid speech. Spoke with more passion than usual which is what he needs to do although I think he still doesn’t have all the charisma he needs yet. I felt Pawlenty’s speech was a bit preachy/trying to put on the values voter lingo too much in the beginning. It just felt he was trying to prove something as he talked about prayer proclamations and other faith things he did in Minnesota. Others I talked to sensed the same thing although it wasn’t like it was terrible…just a slight thing.

Tim was strongest talking about fiscal issues and health care where he appeared most comfortable. The audience was most comfortable with him at those points as well and that is when he received his standing ovations and the crowd connected with him. I sensed the audience liked Pawlenty but wasn’t ready to enthusiastically rally behind him.

When he talked about cutting spending in MN, I thought about their MN highways which I consider to be some of the worst in the country. (I’ve driven on highways in 45 of 50 states over the last 18 months. MI highways are the worst in my opinion although MN and MI roads could just be a factor of the cold weather…I don’t know.) I like cutting government, I also like a government that does the things it should do, like maintain roads, well.

The speech only served to confirm my feelings that Gov. Pawlenty is planning to run for President.

Tim Pawlenty’s speech has not yet been added to the video archives. I will try to edit this post with the link when it becomes available.