Mitt Romney and the New Southern Strategy

Remember when Romney bragged after his NAACP speech,

By the way, I had the privilege of speaking today at the NAACP convention in Houston and I gave them the same speech I am giving you. I don't give different speeches to different audiences alright. I gave them the same speech.

We knew even then that Romney wsn't telling the truth - you don't have to work so hard to stay "off the record" at every single private fund raising events and meeting if you're saying the same thing in every venue.

I'm reminded of Santorum's comments, his expression that he didn't want to make the lives of bleah people better by giving them "somebody else's money". We know who the "bleah" people are, even if we're pretending that Santorum didn't catch himself half-way through a moment of honesty.

When Romney rails against people who don't pay federal income tax, he's not actually speaking about people who don't pay federal income tax. That's simply the latest shorthand for "bleah people" - the undeserving poor. He's taking advantage of the fact that most people don't differentiate between FICA and income tax, or even between federal income tax and state and local taxes, and that a lot of retirees, disabled workers, disabled veterans, people who collect unemployment, and similar groups of people who pay no federal income tax don't see themselves as falling into that category. They, unlike the undeserving poor, earned their benefits. (Never mind that Romney would put most or all of those benefits on the chopping block for reduction or elimination.)

If you look at the 47% you'll find a lot of Republican voters, and Romney knows that. You'll even find irrational voters - an acquaintance of my wife's supports her family through her husband's SSI (he lacks enough work credits for SSD, she has never worked), Medicare, food stamps, housing subsidies and the like, but is very concerned that Obama is going to take away her benefits and give them to somebody undeserving, presumably a "bleah person", and always votes Republican. Perhaps if people within the 47% had a better sense of who they are, the Republicans would have to change the code. But up to now it has worked, with Republican voters in that 47% "knowing" that the rhetoric is about somebody else.

The problem for Romney is less that he's using the code, and more that he refuses to admit that he was speaking in code. As long as he doubles down on the, "Yes, I really meant that my job as President would not involve worrying about anybody who doesn't pay federal income tax," he'll subject himself to questions about the classes of Republican voters who fall into that class. And if he starts qualifying his statement along the lines of, "Retirees who depend on Social Security? Disabled veterans? People who have worked their whole lives but can't find a job? I actually do care about them," sooner or later he'll be talking about a number far less than 47%. And that could put a very different complexion on things.

Hey, Pleb - Why Aren't You Kissing The Ring?

Yesterday, when I was spending a ridiculous amount of time troubleshooting a server, I missed a lecture from David Brooks in whose view our nation, it seems, is no longer sufficiently deferential to authority. After an odd sort of introduction in which he complaints that modern memorials tend to humanize rather than deify their subjects, Brooks asks, "Why can’t today’s memorial designers think straight about just authority?" And by "memorial designers" he appears to mean "average Americans".

Some of the reasons are well-known. We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power. Most of the stories we tell ourselves are about victims who have endured oppression, racism and cruelty.

Then there is our fervent devotion to equality, to the notion that all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect. It’s hard in this frame of mind to define and celebrate greatness, to hold up others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves.

But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.

I disagree with Brooks' initial premise. We live in a culture that, on the whole, idolizes fame, wealth and power. We have an enormous population of celebrities who are "famous for being famous", people with little to no skill or talent beyond attracting media attention. From the Kardashians to Joe the Plumber, they're not necessarily bad people but they have nothing to offer beyond their fame. We assume that anybody who has become wealthy or who has succeeded in business is admirable and worthy. And yes, that extends to politics. You need look no further than the host of mediocre politicians who sought the Republican presidential nomination - and were taken seriously.

I am not sure what to make of Brooks' second point, save for this: If Brooks could make a genuine case that we're tearing down "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", he would provide an example. It's fair to say we're living in a very polarized time, and that there's a strong partisan effort to tear down individuals and politicians associated with "the other side", but that's far from new or unique to this era. It's fair to say that we know more about people of prominence than we did in the past, and that it's easier to deify a business or political leader if you don't know about his quirks and foibles - but although it may be easier to imagine that somebody is "immeasurably superior to ourselves" if we don't know the facts, it's not unreasonable to judge a person based upon facts instead of myths.

Really, in this context it would be helpful for Brooks to clue us in, by naming at least one individual whom he concedes to be "immeasurably superior to" himself.

In terms of a "fervent devotion to equality", Brooks may not realize this but one place you can get the idea that "all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect" is... wait for it... the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...." One might also note that the preamble to the Constitution does not begin, "We the others who are immeasurably superior to you...." Brooks may believe that to be the subtext, "Ha ha, let's pull one over on the plebs and suggest that they're our equals", but even if he truly believes that language to be a conceit it would be absurd for him to simultaneously pretend that no prior generation "fell for it".

Further, the concept of true equality is not dominant in our culture. When you hear demagoguery about "liberal elites", the neglect of "flyover country", whether the President is a "full-blooded American", and the like, that's about building a sense of superiority in the target audience. Perhaps Brooks means that we should attempt to be more objective when assessing ourselves, but there's no shortage of judgment in our society when it comes to assessing others.

Brooks complains that the slogan, "question authority" is used indiscriminately - questioning not only bad authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Vietnam - but also good authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Iraq? As with sharing the identity of his superiors, examples would strengthen his argument - or reveal its incoherence.

Brooks complains that Americans perceive "elites" as self-interested. He does not define that term, and his separate reference to "public servants" makes it clear that he's not simply talking about elected officials. In what sphere other than politics would he have us believe that the "elites" are looking out for the rest of us? Should we look to the historic leaders of the tobacco, energy and financial industries? The entertainment industry? Are we being too hard on media elites, such as Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black? Egad. You don't have to assume that they're hiding something to recognize that they're people, and that they very often put their incomes and stock options ahead of the interest of their own companies, let alone the general public. I'll concede - Rupert Murdoch is "immeasurably superior" to me in terms of his ability to identify and exploit economic opportunities, but beyond that he's a terribly flawed human being. Should I close my eyes to that truth?

And what of politicians? When Mitch McConnell declared that "the single most important thing we [the Republican elite] want to achieve" is to make President Obama a one-term President, should I take him at his word? Or not? Because if I take him at his word, how can I avoid viewing him as a flawed human being, looking out for position and power even if it harms the country? And if I think of him as lying, how is it not his fault that people assume that he means what he says instead of assuming that he has glorious, positive motives and intentions that he hides from us?

Nonetheless, Brooks states, "I don’t know if America has a leadership problem...." Seriously? He can be a card-carrying member of a party that is led by McConnell, and that flirted with the idea of President Gingrich and President Santorum, and still wonder?

You can argue that McConnell makes it easy - that he's the low-hanging fruit - but really, if I'm not supposed to look at McConnell who's left to deify? John Boehner? Am I supposed to deify Mitt Romney, who technically has not yet even won his party's nomination, based upon his past ten years of self-aggrandizement and political campaigning? Just assume, perhaps because he's rich and has the right pedigree?

Daniel Larison refutes Brooks' notion that the Tea Party and OWS movements are leaderless, and responds,

What bothers Brooks about these movements is not that they reject all authority, but that they have weighed the claims to authority made by the current political class and found them badly wanting. These people probably haven’t concluded that they are “better than everyone else around them.” They are reasonably sure that their leaders are worse than they should be. If they are more cynical now than before, it could have something to do with the complete lack of accountability for the people most responsible for the calamities of the last ten years.

Not just ten years, though. The Watergate scandal broke in 1974. And any comment on increased cynicism toward government should acknowledge that the Republican Party has made a deliberate effort over recent decades to attack the motives, competency, and utility of government.

Brooks argues that our nation needs more "good followers", those who "recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it". As stated, that's not unreasonable. If you are governed by a "just authority", you can no doubt find many admirable aspects, worthy of gratitude and emulation. The problem is that Brooks implies that the "just authority" we should be grateful for is that of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Mitt Romney. And through it all, while Brooks has no problem condescending to the masses for their failure to defer to those "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", one senses that Brooks has no trouble placing himself near - and perhaps even at - the apex of "others who are immeasurably superior to" you.

The Wright Way and the Wrong Way

I've read a lot of commentary on the silly notion of a bunch of wealthy right-wingers that it would be sensible to attack the President based upon the footage of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons - footage we all saw four years ago. Never mind that there's no evidence that the President endorses Wrights views or attended the sermons at which the contentious remarks were made. There is a pervasive myth that McCain somehow would have won the 2008 race had only he been willing to attack Obama on race issues, and the apparent idea is to run a "Who are you going to believe - me, or your lying eyes" campaign depicting the President as an angry black man who has spent a lifetime merely pretending to be the calm centrist you see before you.

A lot of the commentary on Romney's effort to shut down that proposed campaign argues that Romney wants to keep the election focused on the economy, or sees potential in alienating moderate voters who may well be offended by race-baiting ads. And perhaps both of those theories are correct. But I see little evidence in Romney's own statements that he wants to limit the debate to the economy - the focus on the economy seems instead to come from his inability to gain traction on any of the other issues he's raised, such as the confabulated "apology tour", the missile treaty with Russia, his incorrect prognostications on the auto industry bailout, and the like.

On the other hand, one thing Romney does not have working in his favor is his religion. Despite his making a strong effort to minimize the differences between Mormonism and Christianity, evangelical voters continue to have a problem with him. It's difficult to distinguish to what degree their problem arises from his having, in the past, been sympathetic to gay rights, taken strong pro-choice positions, and having otherwise endorsed positions at odds with those held by religious social conservatives, as opposed to his faith, but it is fair to say that it was discomfort with Romney that buoyed Rick Santorum's campaign despite his obvious weaknesses as a candidate.

Romney has wrapped up the nomination process, and the polls thus predictably show that evangelical voters are lining up behind him. (Who else are they going to vote for?) Let's just say, this would be an awkward time for Romney to effectively make it "fair game" to attack a candidate based upon what he may have heard in Church. Given the nature of the Mormon priesthood and Romney's personal family history, there is little doubt that he has been exposed to religious teaching and preaching that many Americans would find alien and that, strictly speaking, evangelical voters would regard as dooming the believer to hell.

Ross Douthat's Fantasy Primary

Ross Douthat defends the fact that Santorum is still afloat in the Republican primaries,

Even the elevation of Rick Santorum as the last not-Romney standing testifies to the Republican electorate’s relative sobriety. For all his follies and failings, Santorum is a more plausible presidential candidate than most of this season’s alternatives — more experienced than Cain and Bachmann, more substantive and eloquent than Perry, more principled than Gingrich.

Douthat's damning of Santorum with faint praise reminds me of the old joke, "In heaven, the food is French, the police are British, the engineers are German, the lovers are Italian...." Douthat would be making pretty much the same claim no matter who else was left in the race (except Gingrich). Douthat also reveals his dream candidates, purporting that other than Jeb Bush, whose disastrously incompetent brother "tarnished [his] (last) name", the only reason they're not running is that "the current presidential campaign arrived too soon for them to be entirely seasoned."

If the current race pitted Jeb Bush against, say, Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels, nobody would be talking about how the party has gone off the rails.

Why not? To borrow from Douthat's style book, Huckabee has all of the economic sense of Herman Cain, and all of the aptitude for foreign policy of Michelle Bachmann. Mitch Daniels seems to inspire all of the enthusiasm of Jon Huntsman - Douthat lectures, "Republican voters probably should have given Jon Huntsman more consideration", but fails to explore why they did not. Jeb Bush has what... two terms as governor in Florida in which he didn't mess anything up too badly and the family name? What's not to love.

If it were being held two years hence, and featured Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, the excitement on the Republican side would rival what the Democrats enjoyed in 2008. But those four, and others like them, decided they weren’t ready yet.

Although I understand why Douthat wants to fetishize those four as wonderful up-and-coming leaders, fantasy often collides with reality in a most unpleasant fashion. Rick Perry was a great presidential candidate, the guy who was going to clear the field of the weaklings, until he actually started a campaign:

As The New York Times's Ross Douthat said when Perry first entered the race, quoting a Texas competitor, "Running against Rick Perry is like running against God."

I suspect Douthat in part wants to build a Frankenstein candidate - Christie's bombast, Jindal's wonkishness, Paul Ryan's ability to spout absolute nonsense and be taken seriously, and Marc Rubio's assumed charisma. But had they run, I would not be half surprised if Douthat were writing the very same editorial, but damning Santorum with somewhat modified faint praise, something along the lines of, "For all his follies and failings, Santorum is a more plausible presidential candidate than most of this season’s alternatives — more experienced than Christie and Rubio, more substantive and eloquent than Jindal, more principled than Ryan."

Santorum's Mediocre Mind

Reading one of Dan Larison's recent posts on Rick Santorum, I was reminded of the Dunning-Kruger effect,

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which the unskilled suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

Santorum seems to be a man of average intelligence, but appears to sincerely believe that he holds the answers to every question of law, policy and ethics. Although unlike Newt Gingrich he does not have a habit of expressly stating that he has all of the answers, it's difficult to think of an issue upon which he won't speak with considerable confidence without revealing a fundamental ignorance of the facts or an implied disdain for anybody who holds a different opinion. I am astonished that he remains a credible candidate for the Republican nomination, but as with Newt Gingrich's undeserved double-bounce it's not a question of merit - with apologies to Ron Paul, as far as voters who don't care for Romney are concerned, he's the last man standing.

In an editorial aptly titled "Small Thinking", the New York Times highlights some of Santorum's recent platitudinous prattle on issues such as taxation, public assistance, jobs, education and religion. Referring to Larison's comments, let's not forget that he's also hopeless on military and foreign policy.

Santorum is, in effect, a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party. Santorum is viewed by a huge number of likely primary voters as a superior option to Romney, not because he has anything to offer as a candidate, not because he understands the important issues the country faces, but because he's a "social conservative". He passes the right set of litmus tests - the ones that the same voters fear Romney's lying about. But if you can't lie convincingly on those issues, the Republican Party has made it somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible to win the party's nomination. Can you even imagine an openly pro-choice Republican running for President? How about one who asserts the fundamental truth that in order to balance the budget we must not only cut spending, we must also raise taxes? Same sex marriage, climate change, immigration, health care... depart from the party's orthodoxy at your own risk.

I'm not going to argue that there is a huge list (or even a small list) of Republicans waiting in the wings who would be materially better than Romney, either as a candidate or as President. The "dream team" names that are thrown out by pundits often seem to include only candidates who are untested or who have significant flaws and deficits that would make their quest for the nomination as difficult as that of Romney. Or Huntsman. Or Gingrich. But "dream candidates" aside, pretty much everybody else who actually ran would be a superior alternative to Santorum.

Primary Season Quote of the Day

Josh Marshall on Mitt Romney:

[R]unning around the country in a long twilight struggle with Rick Santorum is just … how to put it? Inherently demeaning and diminishing. It’s like struggling to land a one pound fish or searching for the way out of a paper bag. People see you doing that and you just look weak and feckless, even pitiful.

You Can Choose to Be an Honorable Man

Or not.

You would think a man with a 0% chance of becoming President would be capable of showing the smallest amount of class during what's left of his campaign, but... no.

Lies and the Lying Liars....

Shorter Rick Santorum: Republicans are only supposed to lie about Democrats.

Santorum Skips the Light Fandango

Just to be clear, when Santorum compares Newt Gingrich to the President with a comment like, "We need contrasts, not just a paler shade of what we have", it's not because the President is a bla...ah person.

Romney's Inevitability

For those of us who have seen Romney as inevitable, pretty much from the time the candidate pool was established, answering the question, "How did it happen", has been easy: The rest of the candidate pool was not very good. Most of the candidates had serious flaws, baggage, or credibility problems that made it seem pretty obvious that they would fail. The fact that many within the party want an alternative to Romney has been obvious, also from the outset. But there are two problems: First, the various people who did not enter the race who have been ballyhooed as possible saviors of the party are also seriously flawed, and second, the number of litmus tests imposed on Republican candidates make it very difficult for a candidate to enter the race without seeming as empty-headed or two-faced as the candidates who are already running. Romney is in a unique position in that to the extent that he fails to meet litmus tests he is nonetheless a known quantity - he failed those tests four years ago.

Daniel Larison suggests,

Conservatives did not rally behind any one candidate to oppose Romney months ago because I think many of them expected Romney to falter or implode long before this, so they thought they had the luxury of time to choose from among the alternatives. Romney didn’t implode, and conservatives frittered away valuable time on various long-shot and incompetent candidates.

I think, more accurately, Jeb Bush chose not to run because he would still be dragged down by his brother's disastrous record, and he is young enough to wait four or eight years to try for the nomination, Rick Perry revealed himself to be a woefully incompetent candidate, and the rest of the names that get tossed out don't reflect candidates any better qualified or more appealing than the better half of those who were already running,¹ and some are just plain unelectable.

But there's more to the analysis than people being used to Mitt Romney, or pundits waxing romantic about how presidential he looks. If you examine his record it's fair to say that the man has no core beliefs, that he's willing to bend and compromise on anything in order to gain power, that he stands for nothing but himself. But that would be completely wrong. There is one issue for which Romney has been 100% consistent, as far as I can tell, from the day his daddy bought him his first copy of the Wall Street Journal: He's 100%, unequivocally on the side of Wall Street and the financial industry. Josh Marshall finds it weird that "Romney surrogate and former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu" has "suggested that the investor community might punish Newt-backer Sheldon Adelson for funding Newt’s anti-Bain Capital movie".

Does he think that people don't remember when you attack them and pay for the attacks in a primary, especially when one ever the parties receiving that attack is a party he likes to go to to finance his expansions?

The "King of Bain" movie may be an attack on 1980's style corporate raiders and leveraged buyouts, and it's certainly an attack on Mitt Romney, but it's only arguably an attack on Wall Street by proxy - when you go after their boy you go after them.²

I believe that concern about Romney comes from two directions:

First, from Republicans who believe that he cannot be trusted to hold to the party line on anything, given that he has a history of political compromise. Quite notably, the compromise that led to his health insurance program being implemented in Massachusetts reveals not only his support for a plan almost identical to the Affordable Care Act, it reflects how he will orchestrate a compromise bill that cedes a lot to his political opponents in order to position himself for his next anticipated election.³ That is, once in office Romney's concern will be to be reelected, and probably also to try to rank as a great President, and he knows full well that the gridlock and partisanship of the past few years will do nothing but tarnish his presidency.

Second, there appears to be a genuine concern that Romney will prove to be a wooden, uncharismatic candidate whose past waffling, and present advocacy for wealth and power, will lead to his self-destruction on the campaign trail. The Bain stuff is coming out now, some say too early. But he seems intent on maintaining his tax returns as a campaign issue - not wanting to disclose how much he earns as an "unemployed" person, the comparatively tiny amount he pays in taxes on his millions in passive income, or confirm that he exploits overseas tax shelters to further reduce his tax obligations.

Romney is subject to attacks on his personal integrity - and he doesn't do much to help himself on that front with his own dubious commitment to facts and truthfulness - and to political attacks from the right ("He's a phony, he will compromise with Democrats") and the left ("Why should we worry about President Romney? Sure, he'll fight tooth and nail to prevent reasonable regulation of the financial industry or steps to hold them accountable, and will bail them out in a heartbeat, but on pretty much every other issue he has at one time or another staked out positions to the left of President Obama.")

Concerns that Romney is not sufficiently in line with the religious right? As long as no third party candidate runs to draw off the most ardent of religious conservative voters, it will be Republican politics as usual: Say what it takes to get the religious right to come out and vote Republican, toss them a few bones once in office, talk a good game, but deliver little of substance. To a degree it's better to keep the religious right unhappy, because if their issues were actually addressed they might lose the fire in their collective belly and stop performing as such a reliable Republican voting bloc. But no danger of that - the Republican Party is personified by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum - public piety, perhaps in Santorum's case actually believed, but advancing an agenda that benefits wealth and power, and helps them obtain and maintain wealth and power once they leave office. it's called lip service - they should be used to it by now.
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1. Common suggestions are Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and John Thune.

2. (Added) Since I wrote this, it has been observed that Romney appears to have prepared to respond to attacks on his record by Democrats with childish, misleading name-calling - and he has not changed his tactics, so his hacks and proxies are now accusing other Republicans of being socialists or "sounding like" Occupy Wall Street.

3. The insurance reform he achieved as governor was supposed to be a cornerstone of his campaign for the presidency as the man who could bring a conservative, free market reform to the nation's health insurance market. The frenzied, reactionary opposition to the Affordable Care Act turned his success into something of a liability, but one to which voters have become accustomed - perhaps it was voter opposition to a Massachusetts/ACA-style reform that has proved to be overstated.

Rick Santorum's Inability to Articulate Good Policy

I recognize that I'm suddenly supposed to accept Rick Santorum as a serious candidate (just like every other bubble candidate who came before him), blame past coverage of his liabilities on unfair treatment by the media, and pretend that this time (just like every other time) he is resonating with the public not because voters are desperate for an alternative to Mitt Romney but because Santorum offers something that's truly different. Yeah, right.

Let's be honest for a moment: Mitt Romney's level of support has been pretty steady - not just in this campaign, but even in relation to five years ago. His level of support in Iowa were pretty much the same as it was four years ago. Other candidates have, for the most part, been able to obtain a much lower level of support from their respective bases, but have been sequentially buoyed by a series of bubbles. Each time we hear the same thing: This guy or gal could be the "real thing", and each time the bubble bursts - not because the media has previously been unfair to the candidate, but because the media has previously not taken the candidate seriously and thus spared him serious scrutiny.

The real difference this time is that those who really don't want Romney to get the nomination are out of options. They can pray for Rick Perry to have a miraculous comeback, they can pray for Rick Santorum to tread water long enough to keep Romney from locking up the nomination, they can even hope that Ron Paul continues to pull a significant "none of the above" vote, Ross Perot style, for a bit longer. But as much as some want to pretend that he's a serious, credible candidate, that "Tourette's Syndome" excuse is not going to carry the day, nor will he be able to credibly deny his more bizarre or inappropriate statements by claiming confusing followed up by dubious stories about what he "really said".

Some of Santorum's problems arise from the fact that, having not been taken seriously as a candidate, his past statements have not received much scrutiny. He's in the "success hasn't spoiled me yet" phase of his bubble - but he need look no further than Ron Paul to see whether his past statements and associations are likely to remain buried.

When you hear Santorum talk about foreign policy issues, it's clear that he doesn't understand foreign policy. It seems pretty clear as well that he doesn't understand the economy. So what does he understand? What's his saving grace? That he's a social conservative who opposes, in essence, feminism, reproductive freedom, equal rights for gay citizens, and... civil rights in general?

[Santorum] declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” And in this 2005 TV interview, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”

Or as Jonathan Rauch observed,

Though he is a populist critic of Big Government, Santorum shows no interest in defining principled limits on political power. His first priority is to make government pro-family, not to make it small. He has no use for a constitutional (or, as far as one can tell, moral) right to privacy, which he regards as a "constitutional wrecking ball" that has become inimical to the very principle of the common good. Ditto for the notions of government neutrality and free expression. He does not support a ban on contraception, but he thinks the government has every right to impose one.

I don't think that Santorum is a stupid man - he seems to be slightly above average in his intelligence - but he's not a thoughtful man. Despite being a career politician and campaigner, he either has little interest in or little aptitude for understanding some pretty basic issues.

Consider his recent statement on Palestinians - that there are no Palestinians and the occupied territories are actually part of Israel. From a "pandering to a reactionary base" standpoint, such a statement may have seemed right to Santorum, but would he actually proceed with that as U.S. policy? Not if he understands anything about the conflict and the fact that Israel does not want to transform the Palestinian population of the West Bank into Israeli citizens. Has he completely missed the entire discussion of a two state solution, and why Israel does not want to annex the West Bank and Gaza along with their Palestinian populations? Apparently so, but how?

Consider his statements on the military - predictably he does not want gay people to be able to serve, but he couldn't stop there:

Asked by a YouTube questioner whether he would try to reverse the policy allowing gays to serve in the military, Santorum responded: “Any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”

In his longer answer, the former Pennsylvania senator clarified that his objection to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was that it was an attempt to “inject social policy” into military policy.

When it comes to sex in uniform, Santorum said: “Keep it to yourself, whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.”

So it seems that Santorum wants our nation's soldiers to be celibate, and to give no hint to each other of their sexual interests, even if they're heterosexual. How can an anti-gay rights zealot like Santorum, who was in a position of national leadership during extensive debate of "don't ask, don't tell", be that clueless both about what it means, let alone think that you can expect enlisted personnel to be both celibate and completely discreet about their sexual preferences for their years of service.

As a guy who has made stupid comments in the past about gay marriage, leading to his so-called "Google problem", you would think he might have thought about what to say when the issue again, inevitably, arose. And apparently he did - but his new response is also vapid:

"Are we saying everyone should have the right to marry? So anyone can marry anyone else?" Santorum asked, according to a video by NBC News. "So anybody can marry several people?"

The former Pennsylvania senator was clearly on the defensive throughout the exchange, as he attempted to prevent the back-and-forth from becoming a free-for-all.

"We're going to have a civil discussion or were going to move on to another question," he said at one point. Confronted by one critic, he fired back, "What about three men?"

Clearly antagonized, Santorum continued, "If it makes three people happy to get married, based on what you just said, what makes that wrong and what you said right?"

While this time he didn't say that allowing gay marriage would be tantamount to "man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." But he did suggest that gay marriage is tantamount to allowing polygamy and, as he's never retracted the prior statement, effectively added polygamy to his list of things that are like "man on child, man on dog". He makes no effort to explain how polygamy becomes inevitable from allowing gay marriage, or why it's not the inevitable result of straight marriage. We could put it like this: Would Santorum, himself, be lobbying for polygamy if gay marriage became the law of the land? If not, why not - and why doesn't he believe that most Americans would share his values and continue to insist that marriage is between two partners? No need to drag pets, kids, or third parties into it.

I recognize that the Republican Party tries to portray itself as a party of the average guy, with the candidate you would most like to drink a beer with, and that past would-be nominees, nominees, and even incumbent Presidents have played down their intelligence in order to better connect with the presumed Republican voter. But this is important: Santorum's not playing.

Update: I won't attempt to determine if Gail Collins is offering excerpts representative of Santorum's book, "It Takes a Family", or if she's picking his most absurd claims, but her examples highlight Santorum's intellectual mediocrity:

Santorum looks at Clinton’s village and sees something like the evil mountain in “Lord of the Rings.” Everything the liberal elders do is for the worst possible motives. They don’t want to legalize same-sex marriage so that gay couples can have the right to commit themselves permanently and legally to each other. The liberals/gays don’t believe in lifelong commitments! They only believe in “a kind of cohabitation,” where you can pack up and leave any time you like, and now they’re trying to impose that on the poor, monogamous peasants.

I would say that I would love to hear Santorum explain how laws that allow people enter what even he might acknowledge to be the bonds of matrimony are in fact designed to break down family relationships. Up is down, left is right,and all that. But I can't say that, because honestly, after seeing some of his prior attempts to defend his poorly considered positions I don't want to listen to Santorum.

Bloggers to the Rescue of Santorum

Now that he's had time to read the blogs of his apologists review the video, Rick Santorum's memory has returned... sort of.

I’ve looked at that quote, in fact I looked at the video. In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn’t say black. I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — mumbled it and sort of changed my thought.

The questions:

1. Why did it take Santorum so long to figure out that he didn't say "black"?

2. If Santorum didn't mean "black", what word did he have in mind? (Palestinian?)

3. If he didn't mean to use a word, from what I've seen, Santorum's verbalized pause of choice is "Um". Can he point to another example from his speeches where a verbalized pause has sounded like "bla...ah" or something similar?

4. Why did Santorum even need to check - why did he offer a nonsensical excuse¹ about having recently watched "Waiting for Superman" rather than expressing, "That's ridiculous - I would never say such a thing."?

I don't think Santorum can be taken seriously as a candidate, so I don't want to give undue focus to a slip of his tongue, but here's the deal: The media should be asking him to explain his weak follow-up.

What if the shoe were on the other foot - not about something caught on tape, but about rumors of something inflammatory on a videotape that nobody could produce? I'll give Geraldo Rivera credit here,

But if a malicious rumor about a candidate's spouse got that much attention, why not press Santorum for a better explanation?²
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1. In the video linked above, Santorum states,

"I've seen that quote and I haven't seen the context in which that was made. And yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it, 'Waiting for Superman', which was about black children, and so I don't know whether it was response and I was talking after talking about that, so let just me say, no matter what, I want to make every lives [sic] better...."

2. The Obama campaign was able to respond, "No such tape exists. Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word".

Perhaps the Most Offensive Thing Named After Rick Santorum

Even though this time it's safe for work....

Creamed chicken? Is an allegory intended?

Campaign Songs for the Republican Nominees

Four years ago, I proposed a variety of campaign songs for the Republican and Democratic nominees. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney haven't outgrown my suggestions of that time:

• Mitt Romney– Everything To Everyone, by Everclear. A song about a habitual appeaser for a man who will say anything to get elected, even if he said something completely different fifteen seconds earlier. The song is about how appeasement leads to failure, and I suspect that it will prove to be on the mark.

• Ron Paul – Fool On The Hill, by The Beatles. There may be more to him than meets the eye, but few seems to notice.

The current crop of Republicans is not an inspiring bunch, but it's not too late - perhaps a campaign song is just the thing to transform Newt Gingrich from, um, okay that's not going to work. Let's see... To transform John Huntsman¹ into a serious contender. Meanwhile, Romney and Paul could use updated music, right? So here goes.....

• Mitt Romney: Stuck With You, by Huey Lewis and the News. "We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait; We thought about breaking up, but now we know it's much too late", doesn't that about say it all?

• Michelle Bachmann: Girlfriend, by Avril Lavigne. It's not entirely fair to her, but she had to have a pretty good idea of her job description when she entered the race: "Convince people to support you over Sarah Palin, then fade into the background." Really - has the right wing media paid her any real attention since Palin made it official that she would not be running?

• Ron Paul: You Won't See Me, by the Beatles. It keeps with the general Beatles theme and seems rather fitting, given how the media largely treats him as the invisible man.

• Jon Huntsman: Can't You See, by the Marshall Tucker Band. I suppose there are contexts in which being told, "Not if you're the last man on Earth" could mean, "Once she sees how flawed her other suitors are, and that I'm truly, objectively the smartest, most honest, most capable person in the bunch, she'll start to like me," but most of the time it actually means "Not if you're the last man on Earth".

• Herman Cain: Out Ta Get Me, by Guns 'N Roses. Because nothing says "I'm innocent" like a series of contradictory statements and conspiracy theories. He's going to go down fighting and won't give up until... every last copy of his book is sold!

• Newt Gingrich: Boy For Sale, by Lionel Bart. No, it's not an allusion to his appreciation for orphanages. I can't think of any genuine purpose for his campaign other than to remind us that he's the Ed McMahon of conservatism - if I were cynical I might say that if you give him "seven guineas... or thereabouts", before you know it he'll have half of the commentators on Fox complimenting his brilliance as an "idea man" for spewing your drivel on the air.

• Rick Perry: Rehab, by Amy Winehouse. A song that seems suitable due to his periodic incoherence, his odd effusiveness and... I forget.

• Rick Santorum: The Best Song In The World!!!!. You vote for this guy, you deserve to get rickroll'd. And the substance-free lyrics seem somehow fitting for a substance-free candidate in a substance-free race.

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1. You say John Huntsman can't be transformed into a serious candidate? Alright then, would you have preferred I say Bachmann? Cain? Santorum? Sure, some people take them seriously, and in the modern Republican Party you can simultaneously be a cartoon character and a frontrunner, but please.... Sure, not so long ago Bachmann was touted as a "top candidate", but as was Perry, but they're currently polling well below Gingrich, in what you might call "Ron Paul territory." "Stick a fork in 'em."

A New Version of Rick-Rolling

Dan Savage's latest jab at Rick Santorum - redefining "Rick".

I would say that the threat is tongue-in-cheek, but given the subject matter that might be misconstrued....