Now it's "wait and see"

The Supreme Court has heard all the arguments, and it's a matter of waiting to see what they decide. But the prospects look good. When someone like Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's legal expert, who had predicted beforehand that the health care law would survive the Supreme Court, now calls it a “train wreck for the Obama administration,” I think that's a good sign. Obviously, people who are on one side or the other would tend to see the prospects as pointing their way. So when someone finds that it looks as if he has been wrong, that counts for a lot. But, it is not in the bag. And we won't really know until June.

Reports I hope are true

Today the Supreme Court heard the actual arguments on the individual mandate in the health care law. (Yesterday, they only considered the question as to whether the law was subject to the terms of the Anti-Injunction Act, which would, if so, mean challenges could not be filed for a few years. And yesterday it appeared that just about all the Justices, liberal as well as conservative, agreed that it was not.) And reports seem to show that there is at least a majority (including Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose decision is often the one that makes a majority) that will declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. (See also this report.)

I hope those reports are accurate. If ever there was a case of overreaching by the Congress, this seems to be one.

(David Frum disagrees. And usually I agree with a lot of Frum's ideas. But he's dead wrong here.)

And now the final test of "Obamacare"

One thing that is very special about the United States is the importance placed in compliance with our Constitution. We have a Constitution that is over two centuries old, and it is agreed that all brabches of our government must abide by it. (By contrast, in the United Kingdom, Parliament is all-powerful. It has been said that the only thing that Parliament cannot do is “make a man a woman, or make a woman a man.”) The constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President is always open to challenge before the Supreme Court. And the court began today to take up the so called “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” of 2010 — frequently called “Obamacare.” Whatever this court decides, it is certain to be as controversial as Roe v. Wade, and all of us are waiting with bated breath to see what they decide, since there are a substantial number of lower court judges who have made conflicting decisions on the question.

To me, there is no question; the law is clearly unconstitutional. Congress cannot make people buy a private product like health insurance. The argument that states make drivers buy auto insurance is irrelevant — Congress is bound by the strictures of Art. I, Sect. 8 of the Constitution (and a few additional paragraphs in some of the amendments that give Congress the right to enforce those amendments by appropriate legislation), while the States have powers, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment, to do a lot of things that the Federal Government cannot. But some people claim that the commerce clause of Art. I, Sect. 8, or perhaps the taxation clause of the same article, gives Congress the power. And the Supreme Court does not always rule in conformity with the way I would read the Constitution: one recent example is Heller v. District of Columbia, where the Court invalidated D. C.'s gun control laws based on its reading of the Second Amendment. So we have a nervous three months or so to wait before the Court's actual decision comes out. Perhaps, though, people attending these hearings will be able to discern, from the questions the Justices ask the lawyers arguing the case, how they are likely to rule — or more specifically, how Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to rule, since the others, by their general ways of reasoning, are almost certain to divide 4—4.

It is going to be a long wait.

Article IV - and marriage

Article IV of the United States Constitution states: “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.” And this clause generally has been taken to mean that if you have a driver's license issued by one state, you can use it in another, or if you get married in one state, you are married everywhere else, too. But this clause has been strained by the fact that different states have decided differently with regard to the issue of same-sex marriage.

Jessica Port and Virginia Anne Cowan, though living in the District of Columbia at the time, went to San Francisco in 2008 to take advantage of the fact that same-sex marriage was legal in California at the time. They married, and eventually bought a home in Maryland. But in 2010, they decided their marriage wasn't working, and filed for divorce. Since they remained on amicable terms, with nobody contesting the divorce, one might think this would be easy — as undoubtedly it would be if one of the women were a man. But the judge in the case decided that since Maryland did not allow same-sex marriage (a law has been passed to allow it, and signed by Governor O'Malley, but it will not take effect till next year, and still could be overturned in a referendum), the marriage was not valid, and thus he could not grant a divorce! You might think that, since the marriage was invalid, they might be satisfied — they would, in effect, have the same result as if they were divorced, namely the women were unmarried under Maryland law. But it has been pointed out that if one of them wanted to marry again in a state which legalizes same-sex marriage, she'd run the risk of being considered a bigamist.

The whole thing is very confusing. One same-sex couple has been granted a divorce in the very same courthouse where Port and Cowan were denied one. And other judges have gone both ways on the issue. So the Maryland Court of Appeals will have to decide the matter. But if this were not a same-sex couple, I'm certain that no judge would rule that a California marriage would be invalid in Maryland.

What really does Article IV mean in such a case? Will the U. S. Supreme Court eventually have to rule?

Rick Santorum - closet Democrat?

Today I read this post in Tom Bowler's blog, Libertarian Leanings:

Rick Santorum now says he would just as soon have Barack Obama win a second term if Mitt Romney beats him out for the Republican nomination, which at this point seems assured.


“You win by giving people a choice,” Santorum said during a campaign stop in Texas. “You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who's just going to be a little different than the person in there.”

Santorum added: “If they're going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.”

Santorum was referring to an unfortunate statement by Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom who said that the fall campaign would be a new start, “almost like an Etch A Sketch.” Santorum jumped all over it, promoting it as evidence that Romney will say anything to win the presidency.

Hmmm. Pot, meet kettle. It's a stunning statement by Santorum which he made while campaigning in front of conservatve crowds in Texas. If it has any effect at all, though, it may just hasten his departure from the race. Quite frankly, I'm in favor of that. With his strongest support coming from the most conservative of us, Santorum strikes me as a candidate most unlikely to win in the general election.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, it seems, doesn't disagree. While Rick Santorum was turning the Romney campaign gaffe into a major gaffe of his own, DeMint stepped up to say, it's time for the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns to reassess.

“They can drag it out to the convention if they want, but I think if some of them look at where they are, the best thing they can do is maybe look at throwing their support behind the one who might be our nominee — and that’s beginning to look like Romney,” he said.

Even though he has so far steered clear of making any 2012 endorsements, Senator DeMint is not at all uncomfortable with the Romney as the Republican candidate. He was, after all, national co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid. Now, his focus is on defeating President Barack Obama.

“What I can tell conservatives from my perspective is that I’m not only comfortable with Romney, I’m excited about the possibility of him possibly becoming our nominee,” DeMint told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Santorum as the conservative savior is an image that looks less and less realistic the further along we go. He's now gone so far overboard campaigning to save us from Mitt Romney, that he offers an Obama second term as a viable alternative to himself. Could he have come up with something dumber to say? Senator Santorum, please go away.

It is clear that Rick Santorum has no business putting himself forward as a Republican. His campaign is clearly designed to do one of two things: either win the nomination and lose to Obama because 75% of the American public hates everything Santorum stands for, or lose the nomination and make sure Mitt Romney loses to Obama. Either way, Rick Santorum is clearly simply a closet Democrat, running so that Obama's winning is assured. I concur with Tom Bowler's “Senator Santorum, please go away” comment.

Whatever happened to freedom of the press?

It's not clear as to whether this is White House censorship (one more assault on the Constitution by our President!) or media being so subservient that they'll just roll over and play dead at Obama's command, but this interesting post just appeared on Dylan Byers' blog on Politico's site:

The White House is now confirming that it asked media organizations to pull a report about Malia Obama's school trip.

“From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest,” Kristina Schake, communications director to the first lady, told me via email. “We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.”

On Monday, the AFP reported that Obama's daughter was on a school trip along with a number of friends and 25 Secret Service agents. The story was picked up by Yahoo, The Huffington Post, and the International Business Times, as well as U.K. publications like the Daily Mail and The Telegraph and other overseas publications like The Australian.

But on Monday night, the story had been removed from those sites. The AFP page for the story now links to a story titled "Senegal music star Youssou Ndour hits campaign trail," as does the Yahoo page. The Huffington Post page now links directly back to The Huffington Post homepage. The Daily Mail, Telegraph, and Australian stories now lead to 404 error pages, reading "page not found." The International Business Times story also links to the IBT homepage, though a version of the original story still exists online.

Nobody made the press scrub stories on Amy Carter or George W. Bush's twin daughters. But Obama's girls are off limits.

Thanks to Tom Bowler, whose blog, Libertarian Leanings, posted a note about this and thereby called my attention to it.

The Illinois result

At first last night, it looked as if Mitt Romney would actually get twice as much of the Illinois vote as Rick Santorum. I suppose that was because the Chicago area vote came in faster than the downstate vote. But the final result was a bit closer. As I read the results, with 99% counted, it was 46.7 percent to 35 percent, and that is still a landslide.

Santorum wins the rural vote; Romney the urban and suburban. And this is just like Ohio and Michigan — except, because Chicago is such a big part of the Illinois electorate, Romney's win was bigger in Illinois than in those other two Midwestern states. Everything falls into pattern. This is the way it is in the Midwest. (In the Northeast, Romney wins everyone's vote. And in the South, Santorum wins — except in Gingrich's home state of Georgia and next-door South Carolina.)

Mitt Romney now has a big lead in the delegates — more than double Santorum's total mdash; and it is going to be just impossible for Santorum to make up this deficit. And this is the way I like it.

Other primaries that are coming up

In the first week of next month, the primaries will be held in Maryland. And for the presidency, my task will be particularly easy as far as choosing how to vote, though I need to make six selections: I just have to look for the three delegates and three alternates whose name is coupled with the "(ROMNEY)" tag on the ballot.

There will be other races, as well, though. Four people are running for the 8^th District Congressional seat now held by Democratic Representative Chris Van Hollen. The district has been redrawn (mainly because Governor Martin O'Malley tried to pack enough Democrats into the neighboring 6^th District to defeat Roscoe Bartlett, the incumbent Congressman there). Perhaps this makes the 8^th more competitive, though I wouldn't bet on it. But anyway, I have to choose one of the four who are trying to get the GOP nomination. Only one has sent me any campaign literature, Ken Timmerman. So I had to go combing the Web to find out something about the candidates. And it's not Timmerman who will get my support, but Shelly Skolnick.

Skolnick's Website description (he doesn't seem to have his own website, but he was interviewed by the Frederick News-Post) has one thing I like. He is one of the few Republicans who is not afraid to call himself a “moderate.” And that is good reason to support him. I'm still open for suggestions, but it looks as though he will get my vote April 3.

A pattern is appearing

It happened in Michigan. And in Ohio. And it appears to be happening in Illinois, where tomorrow is Primary Day as well. In the large states, as the actual primary approaches, people begin to realize that it's important to have an electable Republican candidate, and swing toward Mitt Romney.

According to Real Clear Politics, the Chicago Tribune poll taken March 7-9, showed Romney leading Rick Santorum by only 35% to 31% -- almost a tie. The Fox poll, on the 14th, showed Romney's lead growing to 37-31. The Rasmussen poll on the 15th had it 41-32, and the most recent poll, by Public Policy Polling, shows Romney beating Santorum in a rout, 45 to 30! Romney's lead is biggest in urban and suburban areas, and this is typical as well — it was those areas that he won in Ohio.

But these, of course, are not the final poll — that will come, at least in Illinois, tomorrow. As they used to say in old-time radio, stay tuned for the result!

The way we vote: why it's not good, and how to fix it

Over on his blog, “The Least of All Evils,” Dale Sheldon-Hess just put up a posting called “The Tyranny of the Majority Weak Preferences,” which really goes to the heart of the problems we have with our plurality voting system. Our voting system tends to favor extremists, as we are seeing now. (And some people who advocate “instant runoff voting” don't seem to realize that it favors extremists, if anything, more strongly than plurality does.)

Please read that post. And if you want to know what kind of a system might eliminate this bias toward the extremes, read William Poundstone's book, “Gaming the Vote.” It describes even more of the flaws of our plurality voting systems, and points the way to fix them.

Since Gingrich stays in, what does this mean?

Well, Newt Gingrich remains in the race, as mentioned in the previous post. So what does this mean? Probably, it hurts Rick Santorum, since some of the people who really dislike Mitt Romney and would be voting for Santorum will instead vote for Gingrich in the later primaries. Gingrich isn't going to take away many votes from Romney — most people whose first choice is Gingrich and second is Romney (are there any?) will vote for Romney since it's obvious Gingrich is out of the race. So Romney, if anything, has an easier path to the nomination. His opposition remains fragmented. Any attacks by Gingrich on Romney, obviously, don't help, but he's got to be concentrating his fire on Santorum, not Romney, since it is prospective Santorum voters he's looking to get. And any effort by either Santorum or Gingrich to hurt the other means that much less effort can be devoted by Santorum to attacking Romney — and that much less effort is needed by Romney to defend himself from the Right instead of attacking President Obama's record.

Thus, as one who favors Romney's nomination, I think that Gingrich's staying in is actually a plus.

Gingrich won't give up

Apparently, even though Rick Santorum beat him in both Alabama and Mississippi yesterday, Newt Gingrich remains in the race. He's really an irrelevancy, of course, but he takes votes from Santorum, helping Mitt Romney. And I can't be unhappy about that. The real story is that even Santorum is far behind Romney in the thing that counts: delegates. The estimate is that Romney has nearly twice Santorum's delegate count — 494 to 251. And big states that Santorum has no chance in have yet to vote. Things don't look all that bad for Mitt Romney.

My take on some recent columns

Regular readers of this blog know that many of my posts are prompted by columns I read in the Washington Examiner, which is, for me, a local paper. The Examiner is a conservative paper, and its columnists all hew to that line to one or another degree (although not always agreeing with everything that each other says). In this way the Examiner differs from the Washington Post, which often prints columns by Charles Krauthammer, probably the columnist in all the papers I see with whom I most agree. But getting back to the Examiner: two columns that appeared earlier this week particularly caught my eye.

Most of the time, it seems Gregory Kane's columns prompt my disapproval. This time was a rare exception. He wrote the column Sunday, and it appeared in Monday's paper under the title: “Rush Fluke apology came too late” I will not quote the whole column in detail, but only the first paragraph; I do recommend that you read it all on the Examiner's site:

If indeed, as some media reports have indicated, Republicans are now “on the defensive” in the contraception controversy, they have one Rush Limbaugh to thank for putting them there.

The main point was that, by using such offensive language, Limbaugh (if anything) attracted support to the woman he criticized. There was a good case to be made — based on religious freedom and the First Amendment — to oppose President Obama's contraception mandate. But Limbaugh's way — to insult the woman who spoke in favor of the mandate — poisoned the air. Mr. Kane, this time you and I agree.

The second column I want to write about came from a columnist with whom I more usually find myself in agreement: Noemie Emery. And while my agreement with Gregory Kane is out of the usual, the fact that Ms. Emery's column agrees with my thought is more typical. Her column appeared in Wednesday's paper under the title “Back to the what, Mr. Will?” and in it, she takes George Will to task. Again, I will not quote the whole column but advise you to read it all on the Examiner's site. But the one thing she said that particularly caught my eye was this piece:

Romney is poised exactly at the midpoint of the Republican Party, strong with those to the right or the left of this center, very strong with the "somewhat conservative," while being conservative enough not to enrage or discourage the base.

This is the best reason why Mitt Romney should be the 2012 GOP nominee, and I like the way she put it.

"Super Tuesday" results

The results are in, and the big one, Ohio, was slow in coming because it was close. The first returns showed Mitt Romney ahead, then Rick Santorum led for most of the night; when I went to bed, Romney was leading, but it was too close to be certain whether that lead would hold. The final difference is still so close that Santorum can claim a tie. And so there will not yet be pressure for him to withdraw, and the contest will go on.

And the pattern of the results is interesting. Romney won all the counties that were anywhere near the biggest three cities, Santorum won the rural vote (and smaller cities like Toledo). Yet, because the delegates were awarded by a formula that was not strictly proportional, although there was only a 1 point difference in their percentages, Romney gets almost twice as many delegates.

Of course, nine other states voted as well. In some cases, the results were predictable. Neither Santorum nor Newt Gingrich was on the ballot in Virginia, so it was just Romney and Ron Paul. Apparently, Paul got some of the vote from people protesting the ballot restrictions — I can't believe he would really get 40% of the vote in a more open election. But Romney got 60%, and might win just about all the Virginia delegates because of the way they were apportioned.

And two states were “home turf” for candidates — Massachusetts for Romney, where he used to be Governor, and he ended up with almost ¾ of the vote, and Georgia for Gingrich, where he was a Congressman (although representing just one district, of course), and he won nearly half the vote, a big win in a 4-man race. Vermont went to Romney, who seems to be solid all over New England, and Tennessee and Oklahoma to Santorum, who can claim that Romney is not conservative enough to win anywhere in the South (though Romney did win Florida a month or so ago, but that state is geographically in the South but demographically more Northern.)

And that leaves two small, relatively inconsequential states. Idaho was a state some were saying might go to Ron Paul, because it's a caucus and he was working hard there; in fact it was Romney's biggest win, in percentage points, after Massachusetts. And Santorum picked up North Dakota.

In delegate totals, Romney seems to have picked up abouit the same proportion of the delegates at stake yesterday as he had up to then. Santorum will probably say he won enough to keep slogging on. Gingrich got a bunch of delegates, but mainly from one state — Georgia — so his run seems quixotic, as does Paul; yet I can't see any of the three trailing candidates wihdrawing yet. So while yesterday solidified Romney's command, it didn't seem to make much difference in the process.

Mitt Romney is rich. Very rich. So what?

Some people point to Mitt Romney's comments about his wife's two Cadillacs or his mentioning that he “didn't make much” from speaker's fees (which exceeded most people's total income last year) as something to be counted against him as a Presidential candidate. Of course, those people would never say a negative thing about John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom were certainly fabulously rich by the standards of their day. Some of these people probably even voted for John Kerry, whose fortune certainly was nothing to sneeze at. (And at least Romney earned his fortune. Kerry just married into his.)

So Mitt Romney is rich. Very rich. But I do not see why this should be a disqualification. The real question is, would his ideas for the direction of our government be better than those of the current occupant of the White House? And it is clear to me that the answer is a very strong yes.

More on Reagan, libertarianism, Santorum, etc.

It seems that the Reagan quote in yesterday's post is genuine. In The Daily Caller, there was a nice posting dated January 7, which I just discovered, including the words:

When Rick Santorum’s nephew endorsed Ron Paul in an op-ed in The Daily Caller this week, he wrote: “If you want another big government politician who supports the status quo to run our country, you should vote for my uncle Rick Santorum.” Santorum respectfully and lovingly dismissed his young nephew’s endorsement. The senator said his nephew was just “going through a phase,” and later added: “I am a Reagan conservative. I am not a libertarian. And the people who are calling me a big government guy are libertarians.”

In an interview with Reason magazine in 1975, Ronald Reagan said:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism … The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Says Santorum: “I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”

Santorum is not a Reagan conservative. Not even close.

Now Jack Hunter, who wrote those words, describes himself with the words:

It surprises people when they learn I’m not a libertarian. As Ron Paul’s official campaign blogger, I’m often perceived as being a libertarian and I am no doubt sympathetic to many libertarian views. But ultimately I’m a traditional conservative — a limited-government constitutionalist of the Barry Goldwater variety. That said, I’m no more offended at being called a libertarian than a heavy metal fan is when called a rock and roller — both terms represent far more synthesis than antithesis. Santorum has no comprehension of this basic philosophical and historical truism.

Being against big government does not represent the totality of American conservatism, but it does represent what Reagan called the “heart and soul” of conservatism. Reagan recognized that the “desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom” was indeed libertarianism but that it was also conservatism. This observation was fairly commonplace on the right during Reagan’s time, when “conservatism” was still more of a substantive philosophy than a Republican marketing tool. For example, in his book “Flying High,” a memoir about the 1964 presidential campaign, William F. Buckley repeatedly refers to Goldwater’s philosophy as “libertarian” and his famous book “The Conscience of a Conservative” as a “libertarian tome.”

In 1960, the first year I could vote for President, I refused to vote for either Goldwater or Johnson. (Under today's rules, when 18-year-olds can vote, I would have been able to cast a vote in 1960. But in those days you had to be 21 except in two States — Georgia and Kentucky — and I lived in neither.) I hsd seen a lot of propaganda about Goldwater, and I had been turned off by his dismissal of Nelson A. Rockefeller (my favorite politician at the time) with the words “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” So I did not see, at that time, the value of much of Goldwater's ideas. But now, after nearly fifty years, I wish I could go back and vote for him — though my one vote would, of course, not have made a difference.

I still am more of a Rockefeller Republican than a Goldwater or Reagan Republican. But more than anything else, a Rick Santorum who can say “I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement” is the antithesis of what I want to see in the GOP's direction. And should he be the nominee, I could scarcely support him. (I am not very sympathetic to Hunter's preferred candidate, Ron Paul, either. But this is not due to his libertarianism, but other things about which I have written before.)

Reagan's view of conservatism?

On another blog, I read a comment to a posting there, quoting Ronald Reagan as saying: “The very heart and sole [I presume Reagan actually said soul] of Conservatism is libertarianism.” If Reagan said this, it is easier to align with conservatives. But certainly, people like Rick Santorum refuse to accept this: “social conservatives” are quite hostile to people's liberty when it comes to things they deem to be “immoral.”

If Reagan actually said this — I'd like to find out if he did — I'm more aligned with Reagan's type of conservatism than I thought.

Olympia Snowe's retirement

News has come out that Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine will retire rather than run for re-election when her term is up. While this is certainly her decision to make, it saddens me. Sen. Snowe was one of the few voices of moderation in the Congress, and she will be missed.

Maine, for some reason, has sent more than its share of outstanding women to the Senate, going back to the days of Margaret Chase Smith. And one will still remain when Sen. Snowe retires: Susan Collins. But the Republican Party does not have many good, moderate Senators left, and even the loss of one is a major setback.

It was great having you in the Senate, Sen. Snowe. As I said, you will be missed.

And two more states have spoken

Well, now we have heard from Michigan and Arizona. And the news is good from my point of view: Mitt Romney won both.

Of course, in Arizona, the results are not a big surprise. The state has a lot of Mormons, for whom Romney's religion — which counts against him in some states — is a plus. And both Governor Jan Brewer — still very popular in Arizona, even if (or perhaps because) demonized by President Obama — and Senator John McCain of that state have endorsed him. But the size of that victory is a good sign: Romney won nearly as many votes as all the other candidates combined.

Michigan was closer. Once upon a time, this State was expected to be solid Romney territory — it was where he was born, and his father was a very popular governor there. But there were some polls recently that showed Rick Santorum winning the State. However, clearly, as they got a better look at what Santorum stands for, they began to reject him. Romney's margin over Santorum is only about four percentage points, but since Santorum was leading in some Michigan polls by as much as 15 points earlier this month, this is a good showing for Romney.

Hopefully, this is a forecast of more to come. Mitt Romney is clearly the best hope to replace President Obama in November's election, and it is important that he be the nominee.

Every cloud has a silver lining ... and vice versa!

I certainly cannot be unhappy that the economy is finally starting to improve. But one consequence of this improvement is not so good: People are increasingly approving of President Barack Obama.

Just as “every cloud has a silver lining,” (even bad occurrences can have good consequences) the reverse can also be true. One of the worst Presidents we have had may be re-elected because, in the last few months before the election, the country's economy finally starts to improve.

Of course, a lot can happen between now and November, even if the economy continues to improve. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Obama health-care law in March, and issue its ruling in June. Military actions in the Middle East may make Obama's withdrawing of troops from the area look as bad as it really was. I cannot predict the happenings of the next 8½ months. But, at least for now, this silver news on the economy has a cloudy lining of increases in Obama's approval.

The prospect of a Santorum nomination

There are polls that say that in Michigan — the state where Mitt Romney was born — the primary might be won by Rick Santorum — a man who stands 100% against most of what I believe in. And this causes me to contemplate — with fear and loathing — the prospect of Santorum's actual winning of the Republican nomination this year.

This poses a severe problem to me. I cannot support Santorum; as I said, he and I are diametrically opposed on many important issues. And I certainly cannot support Barack Obama; he and I are opposed on about as many important issues. So what will I do in November, if it is Santorum vs. Obama? Well, the first thing is: Neither of these two will get my vote. I will look to see who the Libertarians nominate — if they are on the Maryland ballot, since Maryland makes it well-nigh impossible to vote for a write-in candidate. If it is someone like Gary Johnson, I might consider voting for him. And I will look to see who Americans Elect nominate (if they actually nominate someone and make it onto the Maryland ballot), and whatever other third parties are on the ballot here in Maryland. My last resort is to do what I did in 1964 — vote for nobody for President, but in order to be counted, vote straight Republican for all other offices on the ballot. In none of these cases will my vote help to elect someone to the Presidency, but I am resigned to that, since Maryland will probably be won by Obama anyway, and my vote cannot help elect someone to the Presidency anyway because of our electoral college method of choosing the President.

Any of these is an unpleasant alternative, but that's where I am left if the GOP nominates Santorum.

Maryland's gay marriage vote

And now, on this Friday, the Maryland House of Delegates (the lower house of the State legislature) voted to permit gay marriage. Last time, it passed the Senate but failed in the House, so (since no Senator has voiced any intention to change his vote) it will pass the Senate and be signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, who this year has gotten behind the bill as he did not last time. The forces of bigotry will try to put it up for a referendum, and I don't know how successful they will be, but since they will at least try, it will probably hold up the effective date of the law. But there is a good chance Maryland will be the next state to permit it.

This time, what got the bill through the House was two Republican Delegates' changing their votes — a good thing, because it means that what I consider my party is moving toward the right side of this question. The Democrats have far more delegates than they need to pass any legislation, but in this case there are a substantial number of African-American members who seem to believe, as I mentioned recently, that discrimination is only discrimination if it's directed against African-Americans. They should be ashamed about themselves, but until they understand that anti-gay discrimination is as bad as anti-black discrimination, it is necessary to make progress within the Republicans who are not Religious Right fanatics. And some progress has been made, as shown by this vote.

An interesting blog post

The Urban Right is a blog by an African-American Republican named D. R. Tucker. I do not always agree with what I have seen him post, but a posting dated Thursday takes a position which I would like to echo.

What do Republicans say to their gay friends?

How do they explain the fact that so many in the GOP’s base seem to be enthralled by Rick Santorum, who has never said one positive word about an LGBT person in his entire political career?

How do they justify the party’s history of denigrating the gay rights movement and characterizing same-sex marriage in apocalyptic terms?

How do they excuse the talk-radio tirades, the religious right’s ridicule, the punditocracy’s prejudice?

I can’t speak for every Republican, but I know I've made plenty of excuses for the GOP’s homophobia. My logic was pretty simple: to denounce GOP gay-bashing would be to help “the left,” and helping “the left” was simply out of the question.

So I didn’t complain when George W. Bush exploited fears about same-sex marriage to renew his lease on the White House. I didn’t speak up when self-righteous senators and reactionary representatives made noises about passing a Federal Marriage Amendment. I didn’t turn the dial when conservative radio and television personalities insisted that gays and lesbians were grotesque and loathsome.

I kept my mouth shut. For the team.

I am convinced that there are millions of Republican voters opting to keep their mouths shut for the team despite knowing in their hearts that homophobia is not morally right. They are so fixated on having Republicans win federal elections that they have chosen to ignore the reckless rhetoric those Republicans are relying on to win.

They need to speak up. Right now.

Ignoring homophobia is a fundamentally senseless act. Think about it: the Republicans who kept their mouths shut about Bush’s gay-bashing and supported his re-election effectively gave Bush the opportunity to thoroughly wreck the GOP, thus clearing a path for Barack Obama. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to speak out before it was too late?

There’s no downside to standing up against Republican homophobia—but the pain of remaining silent is tremendous. The hurt of conscience is more intense than any physical suffering. It’s a hurt I feel every time I recall the days when I said nothing as Republicans came after gay and lesbian families and denounced them in the cruelest terms possible.

Republicans of conscience—the ones that are still left, that is—must stand up now and call out Santorum and every other Republican who refuses to give the minimum standard of respect to gays and lesbians. The hatred must stop, and it must stop today.

The ends of an electoral outcome cannot justify the means. When a Republican pundit or politician opens his or her mouth to denounce gay rights, they should immediately hear millions of voices responding, “Stop it!”

By doing so, we will hasten the day when openly homophobic figures like Santorum won’t even think of running for President. We will hasten the day when both political parties recognize the importance of appealing to gays and lesbians. We will hasten the day when equality is the guaranteed winner of every election.

I will die regretting the years I declined to speak out against Republican homophobia. I should have realized that any GOP victory dependent on the denigration of gays and lesbians will go down in history as a stolen victory.

I can’t change the past, but I can certainly learn from it. The most important lesson to be learned is the moral necessity of calling out homophobia and opposing the vicious vision of those don’t believe in treating gays and lesbians as equals. Thus, let me be the first to say: “Rick Santorum, shut up already!”

I think we need people to speak up within the GOP who are willing to express sentiments like these.

Chris Christie's bad decision

Generally, I like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. But nobody is perfect. And Christie seems to have caved in to the social conservative wing of the GOP. Perhaps he wants to run for President in 2016 and figures he needs their votes, perhaps he's really anti-gay (though I doubt it). But he's decided that he will veto a bill on gay marriage that just passed the New Jersey Senate. Obviously, the people of New Jersey want this bill. A Senate that turned it down the last time passed it, with the votes of some Senators that had been negative last time. The only thing that can reverse votes on such a hot-button issue as this is the perception that the people of New Jersey do want it.

I guess even someone like Chris Christie cannot fight the social conservatives and still expect support from the party. Too bad.

Marion Barry, Dave Catania, and the District of Columbia electorate

Today, have to apologize to those who look to this blog for observations of nation-wide import; I'm dealing with a very local thing. But it actually has national relevance, so read on.

David Catania is gay. Marion Barry is African-American. Both are Council members of the District of Columbia. Catania's sexual orientation, and Barry's race, should not matter. But they do — as was shown in a recent event. The D. C. Council has 12 members — usually 13, but one, Harry Thomas, has resigned over a criminal indictment (which in itself helps to make the point that this post will get around to!) There was a retreat for Council members, at which Catania and Barry got into a shouting match. Barry suggested that Catania was prejudiced against black men, something for which there is absolutely no evidence. (But it seems that many African-American politicians cannot accept that there are groups, such as gay people, who also have been the targets of discrimination. For them, discrimination against African-Americans is an evil that must be stamped out, while discrimination against anyone else is a fiction that doesn't exist. So Barry — as well as many African-American members of the Maryland General Assembly [State legislature], voted against gay marriage when the issue came up before them.) And Catania, who might have been excused for losing his cool, still went, in my opinion, too far, shouting, “F— you, Marion!”

What a dysfunctional legislative body! Yet Marion Barry — who was caught in a crack sting while he was Mayor — gets elected time after time to the Council. And it's not just the current members of the D. C. Council. Shortly after I first came into this area, a Council member named Douglas Moore got upset at a truck driver who parked in an area reserved for Council members, and ended up biting the driver!

Yet the voters of the District keep voting for people like these. And they complain that they do not have the political rights that residents of the 50 States do. Well, when the Senators and Representatives look at the kind of people that D. C. voters elect to office, it does not surprise me that they do not consider the District of Columbia as worthy of giving full and equal political rights to. A voting public that elects people like Thomas, Barry, and Catania, and has elected Moore in the past, has not shown their worthiness.

Gregory Kane, gay marriage, and religious freedom

A column appeared by Gregory Kane in today's Washington Examiner entitled “No reason to trust Maryland liberals on marriage.” In it, Kane seems to think that even though Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has promised clergymen who would not preside over same-sex weddings that they would not have to, they will have to in the end. He says:

I have the sneaking suspicion that the forces hankering to legalize same-sex marriage won't rest until pastors like Hickman and Coates are compelled, by law, to perform same-sex marriages in their churches. Here's the plan I see developing.

The CMPA passes. Within a year, maybe two, maybe three, a same-sex couple or couples challenges that portion of the law that lets pastors like Hickman and Coates decide if they want to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies or not. That part of the law will be challenged because it's "unconstitutional."

The lawsuit winds its way through Maryland's courts, where it would take only one activist judge to rule for the plaintiffs, nullify the clause protecting churches that choose not to perform same-sex marriages and thus compel them to do so.

And yes, call me a cynic, but I do believe that the same-sex couple or couples who will make the challenge have already been selected.

But Kane is having unnecessary nightmares. There are clergymen now, this very day, who will not conduct certain kinds of marriages sanctioned by law: rabbis who will not conduct a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, Catholic priests who will not officiate at a marriage where one of the parties involved is divorced, etc. And if Kane has one example he can demonstrate that a clergyman has been forced by a court to conduct a marriage that he will not sanction for religious reasons, I will accept his argument. But I believe I am safe in saying that this has never happened — in Maryland or any other State. So why is Gregory Kane worried?

Obama and the contraception mandate

Well, President Barack Obama thought he could make a compromise with the Catholic Church on the contraception mandate. And the Catholic bishops have spoken, and to a man, they have said it was unacceptable.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there is a First Amendment issue here. I don't agree with the Catholic Church's position on contraception, or for that matter on abortion. But they have a right to their beliefs. And forcing Church-related employers to pay for insurance to cover what they believe is against God's will is a violation of their beliefs. And disguising it by saying the employer will not be paying for it doesn't cut it. Somebody is going to pay for it, and if it's not the employee, the insurance company is going to factor it into the premium, so the employer is paying for this coverage.

President Obama calls it a compromise — the bishops obviously do not. And while I find myself usually opposed to Catholic bishops on lots of issues, and indeed on the underlying issue here — the sinfullness of contraception — I defend their rights to hold their beliefs and not be forced into subsidizing that with which they disagree on religious grounds.

Conservatives can support Romney

It was nice to see the news that the Conservative Political Action Conference, being held now here in Washington, D. C., took a straw poll and the results were Mitt Romney 38%, Rick Santorum 31%, Newt Gingrich 15%, and Ron Paul 12%. It shows that, although some conservatives consider Romney too moderate for their tastes, enough will support him that the recent Santorum wins in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri will not sidetrack Romney's course to the nomination. Maine, today, also gave him some good news, though, since neither Santorum nor Gingrich even bothered to campaign there, and Romney is from nearby Massachusetts, it is not an unexpected win. (Also, Maine, like Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, did not really choose any delegates at its caucuses today.) But the CPAC straw poll is big news. It demonstrates that even conservatives will vote for Romney. And well they should. If a far-out conservative like Santorum would be nominated, he would certainly lose to Barack Obama in November. And I am certain that conservatives would prefer a Mitt Romney who beats Obama to a Rick Santorum who loses to him. Electability is important!

"Defense of Marriage" -- how does it defend? And WHAT does it defend?

Opponents of same-sex marriage often couch their opposition in terms which imply that they are “defending” traditional marriage — in fact, one piece of anti-gay legislation has been entitled the “Defense of Marriage Act.” But how can they make this claim? I simply do not understand how expanding the right of marriage to same-sex couples in any way negatively impacts the marriages of opposite-sex couples. This is one point that has never been explained in any way that I can find.

Marriage has sometimes been tied to procreation, and it is true that science has not yet found a way to combine two sperm cells to create a new human being. But not every opposite-sex couple is capable of procreation either. I have never heard of an opposite-sex couple being denied a marriage license because the woman has had a hysterectomy, or the man a vasectomy; nor has any law been enacted that would restrict marriage to couples in which the woman has not yet reached menopause. So there is certainly no reason that lack of the ability to procreate can be cited as a reason to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

I have held the opinion in the past that “civil unions are enough” — and I still think that this is so if a civil union carries all the privileges of a marriage. But in states like Virginia, those opposed to same-sex marriage also oppose civil-union legislation, so that, if the purpose of instituting civil unions is to quiet those who are upset with calling it a “marriage,” it has failed that task. Therefore, since no concessions can be obtained from the opposite side, pro-same-sex-marriage forces can hardly be faulted from seeking the whole deal. And once more I pose the question: “What are anti-gay-marriage forces ‘defending’?”

The 9th Circuit Court's ruling on gay marriage

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion (Perry v. Brown) on California's Prop. 8 anti-gay-marriage vote. In keeping with a Supreme Court doctrine that judicial rulings should be as narrow as possible, covering only what is absolutely necessary, the ruling didn't try to establish a Constitutional right to marriage — which supporters of gay marriage would have liked to see — but merely stated that Prop. 8 was invalid simply because it took away rights that had already been possessed by gay people (as a result of a California court decision). And they referred to another decision, Romer v. Evans, by the Supreme Court, that prevented Coloradans from voiding already-passed anti-discrimination laws affecting gay people. And therefore it applied to California, but no other state.

The Religious Right will, of course, appeal, but even assuming they lose and the 9th Circuit Court's decision stands, nobody outside California can gain much from it. But it is an incremental win for equality. And that's a plus.

One thing is clear: By citing Romer v. Evans, the Court has made a clear appeal for the support of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. He is often the deciding Justice in 5-4 decisions, and he wrote the opinion in Romer v. Evans.

Is Newt Gingrich's star falling?

The results of Minnesota's caucus show Newt Gingrich dead last: Rick Santorum won his second state (like Iowa, it seems to show he seems to do better in caucuses than in primaries), and Ron Paul did well there too (though not as well as one prediction I saw, which said he might actually win Minnesota). It was not a good state for Mitt Romney, either: he finished a poor third, with only 17%. But Gingrich got only 10%.

There were also caucuses in Colorado, and Santorum won those caucuses as well, although beating Romney more narrowly: 40% to 35%, with Gingrich and Paul far back, both only a bit over 10%.

And in Missouri, Gingrich was not even on the primary ballot. Santorum got an absolute majority — this clearly was a good day for him, with Missouri joining Minnesota and Colorado. (However, the Missouri primary chooses no delegates, so it only got Santorum some bragging rights.)

All in all, this was, I have to admit, not a great day for Mitt Romney. But it was an even worse day for Newt Gingrich. It will certainly energize Santorum — an unfortunate thing, as Santorum represents the worst of the Religious Right. It is certainly turning out to be a long primary/caucus season.

The Obama administration, the Catholic Church, and contraception

Normally, I'm not very much in favor of the ideas put forth by the Catholic Church on things like abortion, contraception, and such. But let's face it — they have a First Amendment right to believe as they choose. And certainly the Obama Administration's decision that unless they serve only Catholics, the Church's institutions have to cover contraception in any health insurance they provide to their employees violates that First Amendment right. As much as I disagree with the Catholic Church, I have to admit that their rights are being trampled on by the Administration.

Now, some time ago someone claimed, in a comment to this blog, that, by recognizing gay marriage, the State of Massachusetts was also interfering with the rights of Catholic institutions. In particular, he pointed out that many of the State's adoptions were facilitated by Catholic Charities. But that was a different story, as I see it. A person who wants to get married has no alternative but to be married under State law. He (or she) ought to be able to get married to anyone he desires to, without considering the wishes of someone else who might not want to allow that couple to adopt a child — the couple does not need to go to Catholic Charities to adopt; they can take another route. (And, as it turns out, Catholic Charities had placed children with gay couples in Massachusetts. So their position seems to be that it's OK for a gay couple to adopt a child, as long as they don't claim the title of “married.” I cannot understand this position at all.) On the other hand, a person who wants to get contraceptives does not need to work for a Catholic Church-related organization. And such a person perhaps should not work for such an organization. He (or she) is obviously at odds with Catholic doctrine here. It's just like the fact that someone like me should not try to get a job working for the Democratic Party. (Or, for that matter, for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, the anti-meat-eating, anti-pet organization.) I would never want to work for an organization whose core principles I oppose. It's entirely a different question.

So here, I defend the Catholic Church's position. They have their First Amendment rights, and the Obama Administration needs to recognize this.

The Nevada caucuses

Nevada's caucus results are in, and almost a carbon copy of the Florida primary result: Mitt Romney won big, with more votes than any two of his competitors combined, and only a few percentage points short of an absolute majority. Once more, Romney has gotten the votes of people who see the 2012 nomination fight as a contest to determine who will be more likely to defeat Barack Obama, as do I.

So far, none of the other candidates seems ready to drop out, though — those who were going to if they saw they could not win have already dropped out. So it looks like a long wait until we get to the Tampa convention to ratify the GOP primary/caucus voters' decision to nominate Mitt Romney. But that's the way it is going.

Indiana's right-to-work law

Yesterday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a right-to-work law for that state. Hurray for Indiana, but we really need a national law.

Years ago, Federal law outlawed the “closed shop,” where a worker had to be a member of a union to be hired, but allowed “union shop” contracts, where a worker might be forced to join the union after he was hired. Unions love these contracts, because workers can be forced to pay dues to corrupt unions that do nothing worthwhile for their workers. (Any union that really serves the workers it supposedly represents should be able to convince the workers to join voluntarily.)

Typically these days, the only workers who benefit by union contracts are the ones who do a substandard job — because any worker who wants to do a good job gets harassed by the union (since he's showing up the others!) Good workers, as well, are prevented from having their talents recognized, because union contracts typically require a worker to be paid the same whether he performs well or not: either all the workers get the same pay, or their pay is only dependent on seniority. In non-union shops, by contrast, workers get evaluated as individuals, and their pay depends on the job they do. A good worker will not be underpaid, because the employer wants to keep him.

Once upon a time, unions performed a necessary function — there were sweatshops, and workers needed the unions to make their jobs safe and adequately compensated. Those days are gone, at least in the USA. And this is shown by the precipitous drop in union membership — in the 1950s, unions enrolled more than a third of all workers, while now it is only slightly more than 10%. And in the private sector, it is far less than that — less than 7%. Clearly, most workers only belong to a union if they have to. And this is why we need a national right-to-work law: a law that will clearly state that nobody has to belong to a union unless he really wants to.

Newt Gingrich - a strange candidate

Newt Gingrich puzzles me. On the one hand, he seems to characterize Mitt Romney as a liberal, and says he will win the nomination because the GOP will not nominate a liberal Republican. but if he is the conservative alternative to Romney, why is he acting like the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, between attacking Romney for outspending him 5 to 1 in Florida and quoting the “of the people, by the people, for the people” line of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? You can almost hear him saying “I am of the 99%!”

Sometimes he appeals to the memory of Ronald Reagan, forgetting that Reagan was the originator of the “big tent” philosophy and created the “Eleventh Commandment”: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” His attacks on Romney would certainly not have been approved by Reagan.

And how can Gingrich think he will win, if he blames Romney's win in Florida on outspending him 5 to 1? Does Gingrich think that Floridians are more susceptible to advertising than people in other states? If it was really because Romney outspent him that he lost Florida, how can he ignore the fact that that Romney can equally well outspend him in every other state? And can he really believe that the “people” are on his side, when Floridians voted for Romney over him by a 3 to 2 margin? And even if Santorum's votes were added to his, to produce a total “conservative” vote, Romney still beat their total.

Gingrich earlier ran a “high road” campaign, not attacking the others. Now he is getting down in the gutter to attack Romney. Isn't he afraid he will give Barack Obama some ammunition to use against Romney in the general election campaign?

Good news for Mitt Romney from Florida

Well, though only about 2/3 the votes are in as I write this, it really seems that Mitt Romney's win in Florida is decisive and substantial. Even if Rick Santorum's votes were added to Newt Gingrich's, they would not have exceeded the Romney vote. Clearly, Florida Republicans have gotten the message: A Republican president can only be elected if he is the kind that will appeal across the board, so that he will outpoll Barack Obama in November.

It's going to be a while before the next primary, which will allow Romney to consolidate his support. It is very clear: Mitt Romney will be the nominee for 2012.

Newt Gingrich's resignation as Speaker

There was a column I saw today that took to task the writer of a Romney ad in Florida for coupling the ethics problems that Newt Gingrich had in the House of Representatives with a reference to Gingrich's resigning the Speakership in disgrace a couple of years later. The columnist pointed out that the occasion for Gingrich's resignation was not a development in the ethics problems, but rather, poor GOP showing in the elections for Congress. But even so, does not this make this a bad sign for Gingrich? The Republicans made a bad showing in an election that should have been their year — Bill Clinton was President, and in off-year elections, the President's party usually does badly. And Clinton was hardly a dream President — his ethical problems were legion. The fact is that Bill Clinton got reelected by campaigning, not against Bob Dole, his actual opponent, but against Gingrich. Do the Republicans want to nominate someone who is so unpopular that he can single-handedly lose them an election? I certainly hope not.

Will Florida decide it?

For a while, Newt Gingrich was leading in some of the Florida polls. But the most recent ones show Mitt Romney with a substantial lead. If Romney wins in Florida, many are saying that he has the nomination sewed up.

And, of course, anyone who is anybody in the GOP wants Romney to be the nominee. People like Bob Dole and John McCain, who were past nominees. People like Tim Pawlenty and Chris Christie, who might have been a lot of people's choices themselves. And George H. W. Bush, who has actually served in the White House. Also, almost nobody who served in the Congress when Gingrich was Speaker seems to want him — and a lot of them have come out for Romney. Among non-politicians, people like Ann Coulter have declared themselves — certainly not for Gingrich. So hopefully, Gingrich will, after Florida, realize his is a lost cause and fall in line behind Romney — as Romney fell in line behind John McCain when his cause was lost, four years ago.

Let us face it. The only thing that really matters is defeating Barack Obama in November. And clearly, Romney has the best chance in November — all polls show that. So let's get this business over with.

Noemie Emery, Chris Christie, and wishful thinking

Yesterday I opened my copy of the Washington Examiner to see a column by Noemie Emery entitled “Why they still pine for Christie.” I will not post the entire column here, but you can read it by following the link. And her main thrust is that Chris Christie would be a better nominee for the GOP than any of the current contenders.

Well, I'm not going to say anything negative about Christie here. Those of you who have read my earlier posts know I like him, and would happily support him — even in preference to Mitt Romney — if he chose to run. But he does not want to run for the Presidency this year!

So it is simply wishful thinking for Emery to build up Christie as the best candidate. The day is long past when a candidate could be nominated without seeking the nomination and getting delegates pledged to him elected by the primary voters. This could be done in 1940 for Wendell Willkie. It cannot in 2012. So, writing about how great a nominee Christie would be is a waste of effort. Sorry, Noemie Emery!

And another old corporate name dies: Goodbye, Eastman Kodak

And now, another long-famous corporate name has filed for bankruptcy. One far older than Borders, or Blockbuster, or Syms, or any of the other companies that have filed in the past few years. Sad to say, it seems that Eastman Kodak can no longer continue its existence and has filed. And while some people might say that Kodak was the equivalent of a buggy-whip company after the rise of the automobile, this really was not true. In fact, one of the few assets that Kodak brings to the bankruptcy proceedings to pay off its creditors is a collection of digital imaging patents that have substantial value.

So what did Kodak do wrong? For one thing, it did not, apparently, fully exploit those patents it had. Many of the Japanese camera makers, such as Nikon and Canon, seem to have made the transition to digital cameras work. (So did Fuji, whose background is in film, the other major product for which Kodak was known.) Was it poor management? Or the weak Obama economy? We will never, I fear, know for certain. But it's sad to see an old name like Eastman Kodak go.

After South Carolina, where do we stand?

It is clear that Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina primary — not a surprise that he won it, but really surprising that he won it so big. But there are special factors. Apparently, there was a debate just before the primary in which Mitt Romney didn't do very well, and South Carolina is a hotbed of Tea Party sentiment, and those factors both counted for a lot. Gingrich won't do as well in Florida, the next state, though. Mitt Romney is leading the polls there by more than 20 percentage points. And so the effect of this primary will only be to make things a bit more exciting, and less predictable. It is getting more and more a two-man race, but neither Rick Santorum nor Ron Pail is quitting, and that makes for a very complicated picture.

Things are moving fast and furious

Yesterday, two new developments occurred in the race for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination. First, the Iowa results were recounted; it seems that Rick Santorum actually won by 34 votes (but this will yet change; eight precincts haven't been heard from), instead of Mitt Romney winning by 8. But this is not an actual vote that decides the Presidency (or even the nomination) the way a few votes gave Florida (and ultimately the White House) to George W. Bush in 2000. It's basically a tie, and Santorum and Romney will probably both get about the same number of delegates from Iowa that they would have gotten if the original result stood. All that means is that Santorum can now claim to have won Iowa — a state where he had campaigned hard for months, and which Romney had essentially ignored until two weeks before the caucuses. If Santorum points to this and minimizes Romney's win in New Hampshire (which he is doing now, on the grounds that Romney “almost lives there”), the real comparison is this. Romney won New Hampshire decisively, as he was expected to; Santorum, by contrast, got what was really a tie in Iowa, a state where Romney was given little chance.

The second development was Rick Perry's departure from the contest, endorsing Newt Gingrich. This probably means that Gingrich will win South Carolina today. But how keen will the “values voters,” who support Perry, be for a man who cheated on his first wife with the woman who then became his second, and then cheated on his second wife with the woman who then became his third? I think this stalls Romney's quest for the Presidency a bit, but it will resume.

And tomorrow it is South Carolina

Tomorrow, it is South Carolina's turn to hold its primary — one of the few cases in this country where any election, primary or general, is held on anything other than a Tuesday. The polls in the most recent days are mixed; they show Newt Gingrich ahead in some and Mitt Romney in others. (Rick Santorum, who was ahead of Gingrich just a short while ago, seems to be fading; the latest polls show him fighting Ron Paul for third place, a long way behind the top two.) The polls are so indecisive that it looks as though we will have to await the actual results tomorrow night or Sunday.

And this is closer to what I might have thought — Gingrich should be very popular in South Carolina, given that his political career was made in neighboring Georgia, and his Southern type of conservatism should resonate there. Of all the non-Romney candidates, he has the best qualifications — but yet, so much controversy surrounds him that I cannot see him winning in November; and, of course, the puropse of these primaries is to pick a nominee who has the best chance to win, against President Barack Obama, in November. So I still feel the party has to pick Mitt Romney.

Some people are using Romney's wealth as a reason not to support him. Surprisingly, nobody seems to think that John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt could not do right by the “little man,” yet they cannot visualize Mitt Romney as understanding people who don't have a lot of money. I don't think that the fact that someone is rich should be held against him, but apparently some people do. But fortunately, this argument is coming out now, in January, so that President Obama cannot suddenly spring it in the heat of a general election campaign. It will, by the time of the conventions, be old hat.

So, as I said, now we need to wait till South Carolina's votes come in.

The Wikipedia strike

Anyone who wanted to look up something on Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, yesterday, was out of luck. The powers-that-be had shut it down (and several other sites such as Reddit had done likewise, but Wikipedia is the most important of the bunch) as a protest against a couple of intellectual-property-rights bills being considered in the Congress. I have not looked closely enough at these bills to say how I feel about them — I suspect that I agree with the people who shut Wikipedia down on the substance of the bills, but I cannot be certain — but I think it was a sublimely silly thing to do.

Usually, a strike is an action by one party to exert pressure on another, where the second directly benefits by the activity of the first and is harmed by the first party's failure to perform. But in this case, the “second party” that they are trying to influence — Congress — can function very well without Wikipedia. They have their own research organization — the Library of Congress — which has direct access to a lot of the material which anyone might have gone to Wikipedia to look up. So shutting Wikipedia down for a day does little to advance their cause. In fact, the public that uses Wikipedia billions of times a month can only become angry at its not being there, and rather than petitioning Congress, they are more likely to turn against Wikipedia.

Several other Internet-related entities — in particular, Google and Yahoo! — have taken the more conventional step of lobbying Congress. And they appear to be — at least, to some extent — successful. Even before the Wikipedia shutdown, key Senators and Representatives had moved into opposition. Even Senator Ben Cardin (from my home state, Maryland), who had sponsored legislation of this type in the past, has moved into opposition.

So did they really need to shut Wikipedia down? I believe not.

Rick Santorum, gay marriage, love, and hate

Looking around the Web, I spotted this posting on a blog, with reference to candidate (and former Senator) Rick Santorum:

At a campaign stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina today, a woman told Rick and Karen Santorum that she's trying to reconcile her support for him with the fact that her son is gay and he and his friends react poorly at the mention of Santorum's name because they think he hates gay people.

Replied Karen Santorum: “I think it's very sad what the gay activists have done out there. They've vilified him and it's so wrong. Rick does not hate anyone. He loves them. What he has simply said is marriage shouldn't happen. But as far as hating, it's very unfortunate that that has happened. And a lot of it is backyard bullying.”

Said Rick: “This is a public policy difference. And the problem is that some see that as a personal assault.”

He went on to reply that children deserve a mother and father and unless that is promoted there will be less of it, adding: “… There's all sorts of other relationships that people have, and they are valuable relationships — whether they are amorous relationships or friendship relationships or familial relationships — they're all important, they all have value they all should be affirmed. But that does not mean that we should change the laws to order — to create an atmosphere where children and families are not being promoted.”

Karen Santorum's saying “He loves them,” I suppose, is consistent with the Catholic Church's policy (and that of many other Christians, but I mention the Catholic Church because that is Santorum's religion) of "love the sinner, hate the sin." But I, for one, find it ridiculous. A person is the sum total of his beliefs and actions, nothing more, nothing less. I cannot love someone who does hateful things — at least fully; I can certainly love the person in those aspects that are not hateful to me. But in any case, to put myself in the position of those “gay activists” to which Karen Santorum referred, I would rather be hated, but left alone without interference, than loved, but prevented from doing something that I feel necessary to my life's fulfillment.

The position that “children deserve a mother and father and unless that is promoted there will be less of it” fails to consider what children without “a mother and father” would have instead. A child with two parents, even if both the same sex, is still better off than one with one, or even none, because they have been abandoned. Nobody is advocating that one (or both) parents of a child who has “a mother and father” should abandon that child, so what point is Santorum trying to make?

I strongly believe that laws should prevent something only if somebody would be harmed by the act they would prevent — and nobody has pointed out to me anybody who would be hurt by allowing two men, or two women, to assume the status of a married couple. So the only harm that anyone can argue is to God's order — if one assumes that marrying someone of the same sex is a sin. And violations of God's order should be left to God — not the State — to punish. The Catholic Church may believe homosexual activity is a sin; certainly there are religious communities that do not. (The Episcopal Church has chosen a homosexual bishop — though this has led to a split within the church.) In the spirit of the First Amendment, if something is considered wrong by one religious group, but not by another, the Government has no business banning it.

One more candidate drops out in favor of Mitt Romney

And now, the Republican field has narrowed again. As some other people who might have been candidates, but decided to stay out (namely, Tim Pawlenty and Chris Christie) have already done, Jon Huntsman has decided that the way to win this year is to unite behind Mitt Romney. And yesterday, he withdrew as a candidate.

As one of his aides told CNN,“Governor Huntsman did not want to stand in the way of the candidate best prepared to beat Barack Obama and turn our economy around. That's Mitt Romney.” Or in Huntsman's own words, as reported by Fox News, “Today, I am suspending my campaign for the presidency. I believe it is now time for our party to unite around the candidate best equipped to defeat Barack Obama. Despite our differences and the space between us on some of the issues, I believe that candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”

Now, what is necessary is for the rest of the candidates to realize that this is so.

On Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is being celebrated as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Now, I understand that the African-American community feels the need to commemorate one of their own, but I have to say that King is hardly one that I would want to honor with a national holiday. (And this doesn't make me a racist, though opponents of the King's birthday holiday seem to get automatically tagged as such.) While, in the early days of his adult life, he was a positive force for civil rights, he eventually ended up taking a position that I cannot call honorable: while he spent so much of his life trying to gain rights for his own fellow African-Americans, he stood in the way of this country's effort to gain freedom for people in Vietnam. Certainly not a person worth honoring.

I suppose that African-Americans should get to choose their hero, but wouldn't Thurgood Marshall have been a better choice? Marshall was the primary advocate for the side trying (successfully) to end segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education case, and argued for civil rights in a number of other cases, and eventually ended up as the first African-American Supreme Court justice. I don't know when Martshall's birthday was, but I'd sooner make that a national holiday than King's.

And the polling continues

I have looked again at the Real Clear Politics polling data in South Carolina, the next state to have its primary. Mitt Romney is still holding on to a narrow lead, but second place is back in the hands of Newt Gingrich, who I might have thought more likely than Rick Santorum to carry the bulk of the anti-Romney sentiment. And the surprising strength of Ron Paul is continuing — he is now in a virtual tie with Santorum for third. (Though each has only about half Romney's support.) Meanwhile, Rick Perry is far back in the pack; with just over 5%, it looks likely that if these numbers hold up, he will follow Michele Bachmann's lead and fold up his campaign after the South Carolina primary.

Gingrich is someone who built his political career in the South — in fact, in Georgia, the state neighboring South Carolina — so he should get the “favorite son” vote that Romney got in New Hampshire. If the polls hold up, he will simply come in a fairly close second, unlike Romney's decisive win in New Hampshire. And this will solidify the Romney claim to the 2012 nomination.

And now... South Carolina

Mitt Romney has now won Iowa (barely) and New Hampshire (rather decisively). Now the scene shifts to South Carolina.

I would have thought South Carolina a bad place for the Romney candidacy. It's Southern and conservative, so it might be Perry or Gingrich country. But I just looked at the polls on the Real Clear Politics site, and all the polls listed there have Romney in first place — in one case, only by three points, but in another, by 18. And — surprise! — neither Perry nor Gingrich is in second place, but rather Rick Santorum — who, until Iowa, tended to be an ignored candidate. But he is a candidate strongly aligned with the Religious Right, which I suppose makes his cause resonate with a lot of South Carolinians.

If the polls hold up, and Romney comes in first even in South Carolina, nobody can stop his nomination. And that is a good sign. If Romney can win as decisively as this, he can devote his energies to the fight against Barack Obama, which is where they need to be directed. We need someone who can defear President Obama this November. And more and more, that “someone” is Mitt Romney.

And now, New Hampshire has spoken

New Hampshire has spoken — a lot more decisively than Iowa last week. Some people said that (because Mitt Romney had been a Governor of next-door Massachusetts, and had a residence in New Hampshire) if Romney won less than 40% in New Hampshire, it would not be a convincing victory: his percentage was just short of 40%, but that seems to have been close enough for the analysts, considering that second place went to Ron Paul with less than 30%. And since neither second-place Paul nor third-place Jon Huntsman is considered a major threat to the nomination, and people like Newt Gingrich (despite his endorsement by New Hampshire's most influential newspaper) could not even make 20%, this has to be considered a significant win for Romney.

What this means, of course, is that Republicans want someone who can run a credible campaign against Barack Obama, who will of course, as a sitting first-term President, get his own party's nomination. Even self-identified conservatives (and they form a majority of New Hampshire Republicans, according to polls) realize that a Romney, impure conservative that he is, will be better for conservative ideas in the White House than a far-left Obama, and this is governing their votes.

As Rick Santorum almost won Iowa by staking out there and campaigning in one state while the others traveled about, Jon Huntsman did the same in New Hampshire. And this got him, as I said earlier, third place, with a lot bigger share of the votes than he is likely to get in any other state. But New Hampshire has only a small number of delegates, and he will only get a fraction of those. So, though this is likely to be the high water mark of his campaign, I suspect that in a month or two, Huntsman will withdraw. Ron Paul, the second-place finisher, is likely to soldier on till the convention. He may actually be the second-place candidate on Convention Day. But no matter how devoted his supporters may be, they do not represent the bulk of Republican identifiers, and he has no chance at the nomination. And Paul and Huntsman are the only two (other than Romney) who can call the result in New Hampshire positive for them.

Rick Perry, of course, wrote off New Hampshire, so his low finish is not surprising. He is staking everything on South Carolina. And he might do well in that bastion of Southern conservatism. But the November election will not be fought in places like South Carolina, and Republicans in general know that, which is why most of the party is going to fall in line behind Romney.

New Hampshire does not always pick the eventual nominee. And it tends to pick Massachusetts people even when, like Henry Cabot Lodge or Paul Tsongas, they have no chance at their party's nomination. But combined with Iowa, the results point to a Romney candidacy. And I am happy to support that candidacy.

And now, New Hampshire

Today, folks in New Hampshire are voting in the first primary of 2012. Like the Iowa caucus, if it has any effect it will only be to winnow the field down. Mitt Romney is expected to win, so even if he wins big, nobody will concede him the nomination; after all, they know him well in New Hampshire; he was Governor of next-door Massachusetts, and has a residence in New Hampshire. Rick Perry, who had decided to rethink his options after losing big in Iowa, decided not to try in New Hampshire. His appeal is to Southerners, not New Englanders, so he's putting his eggs in a basket called South Carolina, whose primary is later this month. But this may be the end of the line for Jon Huntsman. He did not bother to compete in Iowa, preferring to try in New Hampshire, which he perceived as more akin to his brand of politics. Unless he does well in New Hampshire, he'll probably give up.

Another person who will have to make a decision is Newt Gingrich. The most influential newspaper in the state endorsed him, but his star started to fall when he came out below Rick Santorum and Ron Paul in Iowa. Unless he does well in New Hampshire, I think he's out of it.

Unlike Iowa's caucus, New Hampshire has a real primary. It's very hard to vote in a caucus; you have to be at the right place at just the right time, but in a primary, you have hours to cast your vote. So New Hampshire, proportionately to population, should have a much bigger turnout. But it's still a very small state. It does not have a lot of people, so it will not have a lot of voters, and so it still cannot have a big effect on the result, except by convincing some candidates to drop out.

Well, let us see what happens. Tomorrow we will know.