Brief Thoughts on Yesterday's Primary/Caucus Results

I don't have much time to blog now, but I wanted to just post a couple of quick thoughts on the outcome of the primaries and caucuses from yesterday. For those who haven't been following closely, Santorum won huge victories in the caucus in Minnesota and the primary in Missouri, and also pulled a shocker by upsetting Romney in the Colorado caucus as well. He ran the table, 3 for 3. Strangely, all three of these races were non-binding, which means Santorum did not win any actual delegates yesterday. But still, the results were a clear expression of dissatisfaction with the frontrunner, Mitt Romney. Romney actually finished 3rd behind Santorum and Paul in Minnesota, despite an endorsement from the state's former governor Tim Pawlenty.

Just a week and a half ago, I wrote a long post expressing my support for Mitt Romney as the best of the choices available to us. Since then, Romney has made some horrible gaffes ("I'm not concerned about the very poor") and has given conservatives more ammunition against him (among other things, by coming out in support of an automatic minimum wage increase tied to inflation). He has done a poor job defending his Bain Capital record and his 15% tax rate on his tax returns. His recent stumbles have called into question both his electability and his conservative credentials. (Obviously, many conservatives have questioned those things all along, but I am questioning them much more now than I was a few weeks ago.) The results yesterday confirmed the message also sent by South Carolina: Romney has a problem with conservative voters.

On one of the pro-Romney websites I frequent, some of the posters are attacking the "stupid" Republican base voters for supporting candidates like Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul who are "unelectable," accusing them of being anti-Mormon extremists who would rather lose an election rather than compromise their conservative purity. I find these attacks to be deeply misguided at best, and offensive at worst. The problem here is not with Republican voters. The problem is with Mitt Romney, who is doing an exceptionally poor job of getting conservatives to vote for him. Conservatives are not obligated to vote for the frontrunner just because the pundits say he is the only electable one. Candidates are not awarded votes automatically based on their resume and endorsements. They have to earn those votes.

Romney is sort of acting like he can just put it on cruise control and coast across the finish line. He seems to just want to play it safe, rather than showing real passion against Obama and his policies. He doesn't seem to be talking about issues that conservatives care about, except in very vague generalities. His super-PAC's are well funded and able to attack his GOP rivals, but he isn't convincing people to positively support him with his speeches and campaign activities. Republicans are angry about Obama and what he is doing to our country, and they want a nominee who is in touch with those concerns and who will effectively give voice to them. So far, Romney is not doing that. In fact, his cautious approach to the campaign is confirming the fears of many conservatives that he is a wishy-washy moderate who will say and do anything to get elected. It's not a coincidence that turnout is down in so many of these state primaries. Romney (and the entire field, for that matter) is not giving people a reason to come out and vote.

I badly want to see Obama defeated. I desperately want our party to nominate someone who is able to do that. On paper, Romney seems well-positioned to do that. He has a strong resume, executive experience, is a reasonably good speaker and debater, and appears to check all the right boxes with regard to the issues. I genuinely believe he is a social conservative and a man with morals and integrity. He seems able to appeal to independents and has raised a large amount of money. But his campaign up to this point is sending a different message. It suggests a man who is passionless, weak, cautious, slow on his feet, incapable of articulating voters' concerns, and less than fully committed to conservative principles on at least some issues. Can such a candidate defeat Obama? Not likely. If Romney doesn't improve significantly, he will do poorly both with independents/moderates and also with his base in the fall.

Santorum earned his victories yesterday. He campaigned hard, made a positive case for himself, and talked about issues voters care about, like Obama's HHS contraception/abortion mandate that Romney seems so afraid to bring up. His commitment to conservative principles is beyond dispute, and he seems ready to bring the fight to Obama. I question whether he can win a general election against Obama, but if Romney doesn't get his act together and start articulating a consistently conservative issue-driven alternative to Obama, then he probably won't win either.

I was very worried about Gingrich being the nominee, and that was part of the reason why I said that I would vote for Romney if I were a Florida primary voter. But now that Gingrich seems to be fading, and an opponent more worthy of being the conservative alternative to Romney is emerging, I am much more willing to see a good primary fight. Let Santorum and Romney fight it out for a while. If Romney can find his message and convince conservatives to support him, then he will be much better positioned for the fall campaign against Obama. If he can't, he doesn't deserve to be the nominee and would fail in a general election anyway.

Romney has nobody to blame but himself for his problems with the GOP base. And it's not the fault of Republican primary voters that all their options are so problematic. So Romney supporters had better stop smearing conservative Tea Party and evangelical voters as dumb, and start making a positive case for their candidate before it's too late.

If I Were a Florida Primary Voter Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is the Florida GOP presidential primary. The race has turned into a heated contest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul lurking in the background, hoping to become spoilers. Florida has a much larger and more diverse voting population than the states that have previously voted, and its primary is winner-take-all, meaning that its results will doubtless be critical in determining the party's presidential nominee.

If I were a Florida primary voter, I would cast my vote for Mitt Romney. The fact that I have come around to supporting Romney is a bit surprising even to me, as I opposed him back in the 2008 presidential primary when many conservatives were supporting him against McCain. As recently as a few months ago, I was deadset against him being the nominee. Even now, unlike many of his fans, I am fully cognizant of his weaknesses, both with regard to his conservative credentials and his electability. He is far from a perfect candidate and far from a slam-dunk against Obama.

My support for Romney boils down to two key points: I believe he is the only candidate left in the race capable of defeating Obama, and I believe he is essentially a decent man, a competent executive, and a reasonably conservative politician who would be an acceptable Republican nominee.

Two of Romney's three remaining competitors fail on both points listed above. I believe Ron Paul is a highly unelectable candidate, for reasons I listed in a previous post, and I also find his positions on certain issues (primarily related to his views on foreign policy and the war against terrorism) to be unacceptable policy positions for our party's nominee.

Newt Gingrich, who is apparently the nominee of choice for many influential conservatives including Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, likewise fails on these two points. Gingrich's personal negatives are high, especially among independents and women, and he consistently polls much worse than Romney in nationwide and state-by-state matchups against Obama. Many of the qualities that make him appealing to GOP primary voters -- his bombthrowing rhetorical style, his tendency toward grand but controversial ideas, his open contempt for the media -- are likely to be liabilities in a general election.

In addition to Gingrich's obvious electability issues, I find his personal character and past leadership to be deeply lacking. Anyone who believes that personal integrity and morality is key to effective leadership should have grave concerns about a President Gingrich. Not once, but twice, Newt Gingrich committed adultery and divorced his wife in order to marry his mistress. Other ingredients in these sordid affairs were delinquent child support payments by Gingrich, the fact that both of the first two wives were suffering serious health problems at the time he was cheating on them, and allegations by his second wife that he wanted an open marriage. It is especially distressing to me that so many Christian conservatives seem indifferent to these character flaws, and the hypocrisy of "values voters" voting in such large numbers for Gingrich in South Carolina is certainly not lost on non-Christians.

Of course, Gingrich's adulterous behavior is far from his only character flaw. His ego appears to be nearly as big as Obama's, and his leadership style is erratic and undisciplined. Although he deserves great credit for leading the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, he proved to be an ineffective Speaker of the House and was forced out of leadership by his own party after only two terms. Few of his former colleagues have endorsed him, and many of them, including Tom Coburn, Tom DeLay, and Bob Dole, have sharply criticized him as a bullying egomaniac who was perfectly willing to sacrifice principle for power. (See this link for an example from Coburn's 2003 book.) His lobbyist connections to Freddie Mac, his criticisms of Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to tackle entitlements, his recent socialist-style attacks on Romney's business background with Bain Capital, and his past positions on federal health care mandates, climate change, and amnesty for illegal immigrants -- all of these things call into question Gingrich's claim that he is the conservative alternative to Romney. If we are going to sacrifice electability to get the most conservative candidate, we should at least make sure that the less electable candidate we are selecting is a principled and consistent conservative! It seems to me that the perception that Gingrich is more conservative than Romney is based far more on style than on substance.

With Paul and Gingrich off the table, the only other alternative to Romney is Rick Santorum. Unlike Paul or Gingrich, Santorum is an acceptable nominee in my opinion, and I could cast a primary vote for him with a clear conscience. I believe him to be a decent and devout man and a consistent conservative. Unfortunately, I also think it is highly unlikely that he could win a general election contest against Obama. Santorum's blowout Senate loss in Pennsylvania in 2006, his heavy emphasis on issues like abortion and gay marriage, his tendency to alternate between whining and bragging in the debates, and his poor showing in primary polling and voting in every state other than Iowa, call into question his ability to appeal to the broad spectrum of Republican and independent voters needed to win the White House.

That brings us back to Mitt Romney. Romney clearly is qualified to be President. His list of accomplishments include running several successful businesses, turning around a financially-troubled Olympic Commitee, and getting elected as a Republican and successfully governing a state that is usually very hostile to Republicans. These accomplishments demonstrate both an understanding of the free market and substantial executive experience. He is personally wealthy, but his wealth is largely self-made rather than inherited. From the debates I have watched, he comes across as knowledgeable and reasonably eloquent, and his answers and opinions seem consistent with conservative principles to me. His positions on the issues seem to be unchanged from 2008, when Rush Limbaugh was touting him as the presidential candidate most capable of uniting the three main factions of the Republican party (social conservatives, national defense conservatives, and economic conservatives). He appears to support the free markets and capitalism, support decreasing job-killing regulations, support developing our oil resources, oppose illegal immigration, oppose tax increases, support a strong military, and believe in American exceptionalism. There is no doubt in my mind he would sign a repeal of ObamaCare as well as most other conservative legislation sent to him by a Republican legislature. He is not as outspoken about reforming entitlements and drastically reducing spending as I would like, but he is still far better than Obama and probably no worse than Gingrich and Santorum.

Although his positions on the issues clearly seem conservative to me, he has appeal to independents and moderates because he avoids using inflammatory rhetoric, presents himself as a practical problem-solver, and was forced to govern as a centrist while governor of Massachusetts (due to the state's overwhelmingly Democratic legislature). For these reasons, he polls very competitively against Obama and is far more popular than his GOP rivals among the critical independent voting bloc.

Although Romney has been consistent throughout this campaign and his previous campaign for president in his pro-life and pro-traditional marriage positions, many Christian conservatives remain suspicious of him because of the fact that he was once pro-choice and the perception that he is a typical liberal Massachusetts Republican. I found this letter, signed by numerous social conservative leaders from the state, to be very reassuring, and I would encourage everyone who doubts Romney's commitment to traditional family values to read it. It is clear that pro-life and pro-family organizations in Massachusetts considered Romney to be a rare friend and ally. Ironically, the very fact that Romney is a Mormon -- a sore point for some evangelicals -- reassures me even further that Romney's socially conservative beliefs are probably sincere. On other policy issues too, including RomneyCare, it is easy to fault Romney for not being a perfect conservative during his time as governor, but it appears that he accomplished as much as he could given the opposition he faced. Does anyone doubt that Massachusetts would have passed a government health care law, with or without Romney?

No, Romney is not a perfect candidate. He needs to do much better at convincing the GOP base that he is a conservative and is their ally. He can come across as emotionally detached and insincere, and his upscale background can make it hard for him to connect to working class voters. He has deviated from conservative ideology significantly in the past, although the most damning quotes are all a decade or more old. He needs to sharpen his attacks on Obama in the months ahead. But overall, Romney is an acceptable nominee and the best option that I see right now, since my candidates of choice Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels chose not to run. And don't underestimate the importance of choosing a nominee who can beat Obama. Every conservative should be able to agree that Romney would be a dramatic improvement over Obama, and having a "pure conservative" nominee like Santorum is useless if it only results in four more years of the most left-wing administration our country has ever had.

It has been a divisive primary, largely because of the weaknesses of the candidates running. The voters will have a chance to speak tomorrow in Florida, and in many other states over the next couple of months. I believe that Republicans voters should and will rally around Romney as the best of the available options. Once he is the nominee, conservatives everywhere should make it their top priority to get him elected to the White House. To fail to do so would be extremely harmful to our conservative principles and our country.

Jay Nordlinger Weighs In on Last Night's Debate

Jay Nordlinger's thoughts on last night's Republican presidential debate. Outstanding as always.

So There was a Presidential Primary Debate Last Night....

Some you have probably noticed that I haven't had much to say about the GOP primary race up to this point. The main reason for this is simple: I don't have a clear favorite in the race yet and I haven't had time to watch most of the debates. Tonight I got to watch about half of the Republican debate, which was aired only on the Bloomberg network. I watched small portions of the first hour during commercial breaks from NCIS (my wife's pick of what to watch!), and then watched the entirety of the second hour. Here are my impressions about the candidates based on the portion of the debate I watched. I deliberately did not read or listen to any other analyses of the debate before posting this, because I wanted to give my personal impressions without being influenced by the opinions of the pundits.

First, I did not think the debate was moderated impartially at all. The questioners grilled some of the candidates unmercifully while apparently giving a free pass to others. Perhaps if I had watched the entirety of the debate I would have a different perspective, but I doubt it. One of the questioners, Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post, seemed to "have it out" for Rick Perry. Twice during the debate she asked him "questions" that seemed to not be questions at all but simply statements attacking him. I did not observe similar treatment applied to any of the other candidates, and thought Romney in particular seemed to getting a real pass. I also thought the time was divided very unequally among the candidates. For example, Rick Santorum was barely given any time to speak at all during the entire second hour of the debate, which was very unfair. On the other hand, Mitt Romney seemed to talking all the time. And the candidate "introductions" shown on the network prior to the debate appeared to be simply intended as attacks on them. I only watched the first one relating to Rick Perry and then changed the channel. Bloomberg was literally running an attack ad against Perry and pretending it was news. Sad.

On to the candidates, starting with Mitt Romney. Every time I see Romney in a debate forum, I'm impressed with his poise and polish. He's a very smooth debater and comes across as very well-informed on the issues. I thought he deflected criticism well and gave some very intelligent responses, but I think that has less to do with his skill as a candidate and more to do with the weakness of his competitors. I continue to be bothered by his full-throated defense of RomneyCare, including his clear suggestion that candidates such as Perry who oppose it don't care about the plight of the poor. I thought that was a harsh and unfair attack -- something I would expect to hear from the Left but not between candidates in a GOP debate. (Of course, Perry did imply something similar about Romney with regard to illegal immigration policy in an earlier debate, but it wasn't as a harsh of an attack in my opinion.)

The bottom line is that I don't really like or trust Romney, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he is a Mormon. Romney comes across as a typically slick politician to me. He has flip-flopped on issues in the past and I don't trust his conservative credentials. He has refused to identify with the Tea Party movement. One of the things that disgusted me the most were his earlier vicious attacks on Rick Perry for stating the obvious truth that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Once again, this is the kind of political opportunism that I would expect from the Left -- and shows his willingness to put his own election before the good of the country. But as I watched the debate, I kept getting the sense that he is the only candidate (with the possible exception of Newt Gingrich who comes with his own set of problems) that is up to the herculean task of out-debating Obama in a general election.

I want to like Rick Perry. On paper he seems like a great choice: three times elected governor of the second-largest state in the country, an unabashed fiscal and social conservative, a likable, handsome guy who connects well with voters one-on-one. But he just doesn't seem up to the job, at least in the debate I watched (and based on what I read about other previous debates). Everyone from the moderators to the other candidates seemed to be piling on him, and he didn't seem able to fight back effectively. He did a poor job defending his record and didn't seem to land his blows against Romney. I think a lot of the attacks on Perry so far in this campaign have been very unfair, but that's the reality for anyone who wants to make a living in politics, especially a conservative. If he wants to get the GOP nomination for president he had better prove that he is knowledgeable enough and quick enough on his feet to fight back against those attacks and go on the offensive. He sure didn't prove that to me last night in the debate.

I have already written a positive post about Herman Cain, extolling his successful business background, his refreshing candor, and the work ethic that enabled him to work his way up from nothing. I didn't think Cain performed badly in the debate -- he displayed a great sense of humor and seemed confident in his answers. On the other hand, the debate did not include any questions about foreign policy which is Cain's greatest weakness. Maybe I have just been living too long in a suburban blue state enclave, but I think Cain comes across as a bit oversimplistic. His answers were repetitive and always seemed to come back to his 9/9/9 plan, which he touted as a virtual panacea for all economic ills. It would be easy for viewers to come to the conclusion (true or not) that Cain is a one-issue candidate that doesn't really have a lot to say beyond talking points about one specific economic idea. And by the way, I'm far from sold on Cain's idea to create a national sales tax.

For someone who has such a universal reputation outside the Republican base as a scary lunatic, Michele Bachmann actually performs pretty well in debates. As at other times, last night she seemed poised, intelligent, and relatively substantive, at least to me. Not to mention likable and far from crazy. And it's not like she's never accomplished anything in her life either -- her list of accomplishments include tax attorney, small business owner, foster mother of 23, state legislator, and U.S. congresswoman. It's a shame that the media is so unfair in their coverage that even many Republicans will only know her as the crazy Tea Party lady who's never done anything in her life. Still, there's no question she is about as conservative as you can get and probably too outspoken to be a winning general election candidate. I think she's a great leader in the U.S. House and should stay there.

Honestly, if I could pick my favorite candidate, regardless of his or her chance of winning the primary or the general election, I might pick Rick Santorum. Although he didn't get much air time last night, when he did speak he was effective. I thought he raised a great point about the danger of establishing a national sales tax in his question to Herman Cain. I also thought his answer on the topic of how to help people living under the poverty line was outstanding. He pointed out that one of the primary causes of poverty in the U.S. is the breakdown of the American family, noting that only 5% of children living with their married parents are under the poverty line. By contrast, a whopping 30% of children in single-parent homes live in poverty. Even in Republican circles, it's not very fashionable to talk about "family values," and I applaud Santorum for making this very important point. I also thought Santorum was most effective in challenging Ron Paul's somewhat wacky foreign policy views in a previous debate. I know that he is far behind in primary polls and is probably too outspoken about social issues to win a general election, but I am very glad that he is in the race and is willing to speak out on issues that the other candidates are too afraid to touch.

Newt Gingrich performed extremely well in the debate last night, in my opinion, which is consistent with his performance in other portions of debates I have seen. He has a solid grasp of domestic and foreign policy issues and definitely comes across as intelligent and confident. He seemed a bit less combative in regard to the moderators than he has been in the past, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, Gingrich's track record, both with regard to his personal life and his past political career, disqualifies him from being president in my opinion. I think he is a man with some severe moral failings and a good deal of arrogance who proved a poor leader the last time he was given a position of great authority, and I do not think he would perform well against Obama in a general election. However, I think he is a brilliant man who adds a lot to the debates, and I liked how he focused his fire on Obama last night and tried to unite the party by emphasizing that all the candidates on stage are much preferable to the Democratic alternative.

The debate last night was focused on economic issues, where I largely agree with Ron Paul, so I enjoyed listening to what he had to say and found myself mostly nodding my head. I think he, too, adds a lot to the debate and has a tremendous grasp of economics, but I could never vote for him. Among the shocking things I found about Ron Paul from previous debates, in addition to his extreme anti-war positions, his unwillingness to support Israel, and his belief that terrorists should be tried in civilian courts, are that he does not view Iran as a threat to the security of our country and that he does not believe that there should be any official recognition of marriage at any government level ("why do you even need a marriage license?"). The danger of Paul's benign view of Iran should be clear, now that we know that top government leaders of Iran recently plotted an assassination attempt on the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. right here in Washington, DC. I think Paul would make a good cabinet appointment to some purely financial/economic position, but he should never be president.

I saved Jon Huntsman for last because he is a candidate that I really don't like at all. He is generally acknowledged to be the most liberal candidate in the race, and the only one who has been outspoken in defending government regulation to help prevent man-made "climate change." Perhaps I could forgive some of his positions on issues if he didn't come across as such a snarky guy to me. One moment from last night's debate that made me truly angry was when Huntsman asked Romney a question. He started out by telling Romney he wasn't going to ask him about his religion (completely out of the blue -- no reason to even bring this up), then added as a sarcastic aside to Perry, "Sorry, Rick." I thought this was a really nasty dig, as to my knowledge Perry is not anti-Mormon and has not attempted to make Romney's Mormonism an issue in the campaign. He is not to blame if some of his supporters may dislike Romney's religion. It just reaffirmed the negative opinions I already had about Huntsman. Thankfully, he has no chance of winning the Republican nomination.

Perhaps this long post helps to clarify why I remain undecided about the GOP primary. Most of the candidates have strengths and weaknesses. Some of the candidates I like the best don't seem to be electable, and I don't trust some of the candidates that are supposedly the most electable and polished. I hope that the Republicans aren't pressured into coalescing around a single candidate too soon. I think that vigorous debate is what our party needs, and is the only way to ensure that we pick the best candidate to take on Obama next fall. The stakes for our country couldn't be higher.