What's Their Problem With Romney?

by Ann Coulter


As governor of one of the most liberal states in the union, Mitt Romney did something even Ronald Reagan didn't do as governor of California: He balanced the budget without raising taxes.

Romney became deeply pro-life as governor of the aforementioned liberal state and vetoed an embryonic stem cell bill. (Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich lobbied President George W. Bush to allow embryonic stem cell research.)

Romney's approach to illegal immigration in Massachusetts resembled what Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona is doing today, making her a right-wing heroine.

Romney pushed the conservative alternative to national health care that, had it been adopted in the 49 other states, would have killed Obamacare in the crib by solving the health insurance problem at the state level.

Unlike actual Establishment candidates, Romney has never worked in Washington, much less spent his entire life as a professional politician. He's had a Midas touch with every enterprise he has ever run, including Bain Capital, the Olympics and Massachusetts.

The chestnut about Mitt Romney being pushed on unsuspecting conservatives by "the Establishment" is the exact opposite of the truth. The Establishment, by any sensible definition, is virulently opposed to Romney -- and for completely contradictory reasons.

The entire NFM (non-Fox media) hate Romney because he is the only candidate who stands a chance of beating Obama.

Meanwhile, many of the pillars of the conservative establishment also implacably oppose Romney. Fox News is neutral, but its second-highest-rated host, Sean Hannity, is unenthusiastic about Romney, as is prominent Fox News contributor Sarah Palin, who has told Fox viewers she'd vote for Gingrich -- who has also offered herself up as a possible presidential nominee at a contested convention. (Wouldn't a former candidate for vice president on a major party's ticket be part of the Establishment?)

The No. 1 conservative talk-radio host in America, Rush Limbaugh, is critical of Romney, and another top conservative talk-radio host, Mark Levin, is adamantly against Romney -- though both Limbaugh and Levin supported Romney as the conservative alternative to John McCain in 2008, and Romney has only gotten better since then.

Purely to hurt Romney, the Iowa Republican Party fiddled with the vote tally to take Romney's victory away from him and give it to Rick Santorum -- even though the "official count" was missing eight precincts. Isn't the party apparatus of a state considered part of the Establishment?

I'm not sure what part of the Establishment supports Romney. Is it Romney supporter Christine O'Donnell, erstwhile tea party candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware? Am I the face of the Establishment? (If so, the country is going to be just fine.)

I would think that the pristine example of the Republican Establishment is Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor Bill Kristol. But he wants anybody but Romney, even proposing that we choose someone not running by means of a contested convention.

Who are we trying to get nominated in a contested convention, anyway?

Without having seen this mystery candidate in action, how do we know he won't be another Rick Perry? You'll recall that Perry was the dream candidate until we saw him talk.

In 2008, Romney was enthusiastically supported not only by Limbaugh and Levin, but also by Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and many others who now seem to view Romney as a closet liberal. This is especially baffling because there is no liberal candidate in the Republican primary this year.

Just four years ago, one Republican candidate for president was avowedly pro-abortion (Rudy Giuliani). One had opposed Clinton's impeachment and tort reform (Fred Thompson). One supported amnesty for illegals, restrictions on core First Amendment speech, federal laws to combat nonexistent global warming, and opposed Guantanamo and the Bush tax cuts ("tax cuts for the rich!") and called waterboarding "torture."

That last one was our nominee: John McCain.

This year, every Republican candidate for president opposes abortion, promises to repeal Obamacare, opposes raising taxes, and on and on. Only one candidate is strong on illegal immigration, which is second only to repealing Obamacare as the most important issue facing the nation.

That's the alleged liberal, Mitt Romney.

Conservatives scratch their heads wondering how the NFM can convince millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans paying $3.57 for a gallon of gas that the economy is improving simply by repeatedly saying so.

But then a large minority of those same conservatives are completely convinced that Romney is an Establishment candidate simply because they have heard that repeated so often.

As we say to dunderhead liberals: What we're looking for here is facts, not chants or epithets.

But instead of popping Champagne corks over our final triumph over Rockefeller Republicanism, some conservatives are still fighting old wars, rather like an old cold warrior prattling about the Soviet Union after the rest of us have moved onto the war on terrorism.

This strange new version of right-wing populism comes down to reveling in the feeling that you are being dissed, hoodwinked or manipulated by the Establishment (most of which happens to oppose Romney) the same way liberals want to believe that "the rich," the "right-wing media" and Wall Street Republicans (there are three) are victimizing them.

It's as if scoring points in intra-Republican squabbles is more important than beating Obama. Instead of talking about the candidates' positions -- which would be confusing inasmuch as Romney is the most conservative of the four remaining candidates -- the only issue seems to be whether "They" are showing respect for "Us."

Striking a pose as the only true fighter for real Americans may be fun, but this is no way to win elections. This is Sharron Angle on a national level.

The obsession with sticking it to the Establishment (which includes Christine O'Donnell, but excludes Bill Kristol) by voting for a loose cannon demagogue or a crusading Catholic who can't seem to move the conversation past contraception is as pie-in-the-sky delusional as anything dished by Democrats carrying on about "green jobs."

If saving the environment is the best way to create new jobs, then it could be true that being a hard-core environmentalist nutcase is the best way to appeal to the mass of independent voters.

Similarly, if reducing contraception use, lobbying for Freddie Mac and promoting huge government programs such as moon colonies and No Child Left Behind are the best ways to create jobs, then it could be true that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are our strongest candidates in a general election.

Of course, it might also be true that dousing yourself in fairy dust does not guarantee that you will find the perfect mate and get the perfect job.

We're being asked to hand Obama another four years in the White House in order to "send a message." To whom? And what message? That we're morons? Message received!

Meanwhile, Romney cheerfully campaigns on, the biggest outsider and most conservative candidate we've run for president since Reagan, while being denounced by the Establishment as "too Establishment."

And Now A Word from the Left...The Catholicization of the American Right

by Howard Schweber

In the past two decades, the American religious Right has become increasingly Catholic. I mean that both literally and metaphorically. Literally, Catholic writers have emerged as intellectual leaders of the religious right in universities, the punditocracy, the press, and the courts, promoting an agenda that at its most theoretical involves a reclamation of the natural law tradition of Thomas Aquinas and at its most practical involves appeals to the kind of common-sense, "everybody knows," or "it just is" arguments that have characterized opposition to same-sex marriage. There is nothing new about Catholic conservative intellectuals -- think John Neuhaus, William F. Buckley, Jr. What is new is the prominence that these Catholic thinkers and leaders have come to have within the domains of American politics that are dominated by evangelical Protestants. Catholic intellectuals have become to the American Right what Jewish intellectuals once were to the American Left. In the academy, on the Court, Catholic intellectuals provide the theoretical discourse that shapes conservative arguments across a whole range of issues. Often these arguments have identifiable Thomistic or Jesuitical sources, but most of the time they enter the mainstream of political dialogue as simply "conservative."

Meanwhile, in the realm of actual politics, Catholic politicians have emerged as leading figures in the religious conservative movement. Again, there is nothing new about Catholic political leaders nor Catholic politicians, although from Al Smith through John Kennedy they were more often Democrats than Republicans (Pat Buchanan is an exception). What is new is the ability of self-identified Catholic politicians to attract broad support from the among the evangelical Protestant religious right.

Rick Santorum is a case in point. Santorum's is a specifically Catholic form of faith. The recent flap over contraception is only an example of a much deeper phenomenon. As observers have noted, he talks frequently about natural law, but rarely quotes the Bible directly -- his arguments draw on a theologically informed view of the nature of the world, not a personal relationship with the text.

Indeed, in the past Santorum has been quite forthright about the fact that he does not look to the Bible for guidance, he relies quite properly on the guidance of the Church. There is obviously nothing wrong with that ... but it sits very curiously with traditional Evangelical Protestant attitudes.

It is important not to overstate the significance of Santorum's success. For all Santorum's recent ascendancy, here is the breakdown of actual Republican votes cast thus far: Romney, 1,121,685; Gingrich, 838,825; Santorum, 431,926; Paul, 307,975. The count of awarded delegates produces a somewhat different result: Romney, 99; Santorum, 47; Gingrich, 32; Paul, 20 (The difference among those numbers reflects what political scientists call "malapportionment.") But two facts remain: one, with 1,144 delegates required for the nomination this thing is nowhere close to a resolution, and will not be even after Arizona, Michigan, and Super Tuesday; and, two, thus far in the Republican primary campaign, a majority of the votes cast have been for Catholic candidates. It's not just Santorum; before him it was Gingrich, after all. At the national level, Catholic politicians have emerged as leading figures in the GOP... and evangelical Protestants are flocking to follow their lead. Why?

The answer is not that evangelicals have become any less Protestant. In a 2011 American Values Survey, 93% of white evangelicals say it is important for a candidate to have strong religious beliefs, versus 69% for Catholics saying the same thing. And 36% of white evangelical voters said they would be uncomfortable voting for a candidate who had strong religious beliefs that were different from their own, up from 29% in 2010, a change that may reflect the effects of a prominent Mormon candidate in the mix. In other words, evangelical voters care a great deal that a candidate's religion accord with their own... and they are supporting Catholic candidates. So what is going on?

To understand what is going on, we need to move from the role of Catholic individuals to a broader, more metaphorical idea of a Catholic style of political reasoning. "Catholic" in this exercise means responding to leadership; focusing on outcomes (think "doctrine of works"); and a Manichean view of the world in which the Church -- as opposed to mere churches -- stands as a bulwark against equally great opposing forces, so that outside the Church there can be only chaos. In this sense a Catholic Republican voter would be someone looking for a commanding general to lead Christian soldiers on a crusade, would care about a candidate's policies rather than his soul, and respond to a call to view the Republican Party as the last bastion of civilisation in a howling wilderness. Extending the metaphor, a "Protestant" conservative should reject the idea of leaders in favour of grass roots communalism; local self-direction in the congregationalist model; care about character and personal values more than specific stances or doctrines; and see the world as a mass of sinners who are to be judged individually by the quality of their soul rather than by their enlistment in one party or the other.

In this metaphorical sense, the "Catholic" political style is strongest among evangelical Protestant voters, not actual Catholics. The eagerness of Catholic bishops to jump into a fight over contraception, for example, does not reflect that attitudes of their parishoners, but it gets strong support from evangelicals. Similarly, in one recent poll more than two-thirds of Catholic voterssupported some sort of legal recognition of gay couples' relationships, with 44% favoring same-sex marriage; in very sharp contrast, an outright majority of evangelical voters said there should be no legal recognition of a same-sex relationship.

In political terms, the evangelical Protestant Right has become Catholicized. They do not see Catholicism as a religion very different from their own because it leads to the same positions on the battlefield, call it Fortress GOP. It is a political worldview that is singularly well suited to negative politics. Who cares whether your guy is actually a bit of a nut-case or has some sleaze in his history if he will defeat the forces of darkness? Liberals tolerate venality in their candidates if they believe they will do good; "Catholic" conservatives tolerate venality if they believe their candidates will defeat evil. (Ironically, all of this has moved the American religious Right in the direction of becoming more and more like a traditional European right-wing political movement, rather than a populist movement in the American Jacksonian tradition.)

In this metaphorical sense, the one person who did the most to push the Catholicization of conservative politics was Newt Gingrich back in the 1990s, long before his personal religious conversion. The most obvious illustration was the infamous GOPAC memorandum entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" that instructed Republican candidates to describe their Democratic opponents using words like "destructive," "sick," "pathetic," "they/them," "betray" and " traitors" (relying on the research of the almost incomprehensibly amoral Frank Lutz). That kind of rhetoric and the scorched earth, anyone-who-is-not-with-must-be-destroyed tactics that go with it has been the defining style of Gingrich's brand of politics ever since. And who Gingrich's man in the Senate in those heady days of unabashed viciousness? Rick Santorum. And not just as an ally -- Santorum was Gingrich's hatchet man, the one who did the "dirty work" as one Republican congressman put it. Or in the words of a Republican staffer at the time, "[Santorum] is a Stepford wife to Gingrich... If you took the key out of his back, I'm not sure his lips would keep moving." (These quotations appear in a 1995 Philadelphia Magazine article -- you can find a link to the pdf file here

Can this carry Santorum to the nomination? Probably not. There are already signs that Santorum is slipping, as the extremity of his religious dogmatism becomes evident to voters, which may eventually force evangelicals to recognize the differences between the tenets of his faith and their own. The fit with Tea Party conservatives is even more tenuous, as that movement is an expression of a deeply "Protestant" brand of politics that sit uneasily with the rhetoric and worldview of "Catholic" conservatism. And Santorum has yet to be called out for his role in the 1990s; if people really want to vote for Gingrich's old pet attack dog, why not simply vote for the owner? With time, Romney's claim to be the only electable candidate (and adult) in the field may regain its traction. Meanwhile, Gingrich is looking ahead to the South, and possibly even as far as Texas and California. It has been a campaign of suddenly arising candidates who flamed out just as quickly, and Santorum shows signs of being the latest in that line -- as I said, even after Super Tuesday there is going to be a long way to go.

There is the potential for deep divisions appearing in the GOP along an axis of "Protestant" versus "Catholic" religious conservatism. But regardless of what happens next, the rise of first Gingrich and now Santorum as the candidate of choice for the Religious Right is a profound sign of how Catholic the American religious right has become.

The Freda Legacy: Already Written?

Mike Freda's 2nd term is well on it's way. Freda has made it very clear that whatever mistakes in his first two years, will not be repeated during this one.

However has Mike's legacy as First Selectman already been written? So far we've seen three straight budgets with spending increases that results in tax increases. This is in contract to his predecessor who didn't raise taxes at all during her time in office.

But even with the increases in spending, you could argue that Town Hall is more professional and transparent then it ever has before and confidence has never been higher. We haven't seen any new litigation against the town, no grievances filed, so that's a plus as well.

So what is Mike's legacy right now? I'm going to say that his first term was clean up, not just for the McCarty Administration but also the lack of oversight and management from the Kopetz era as well. This term needs to be about growth and management. I think things are moving in the right direction but at some point Mike is going to need to control spending and hold the line of taxes. If he doesn't, the case against him in 2013 will only get better and better.

Arizona GOP Debate: Santorum Slips, Newt Rallies, Romney Benefits

by Guy Benson

Newt Gingrich won the debate, vindicating his team's "let Newt be Newt" strategy.  Gone was the angry, embittered former Speaker.  Sneering Newt was repealed and replaced by supportive, "cheerful" Newt -- eager to agree with his opponents when they were right, politely pushing back only when necessary, and tenacious in his determination to steer most discussions into critiques of President Obama.  His first crack at John King's contraception question was the best offering of anyone on the subject.  On occasion, Gingrich exhibits a special capacity to make conservatives -- even those who may not support him -- stand up and cheer.  One such moment came during that response, when he lambasted the media's propensity to ask questions designed to make Republicans look like social extremists.  He noted that Barack Obama never once fielded a tough challenge on his shameful opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois (and his subsequent lies) during his litany of 2008 debates.  A brilliant point.  Newt also delivered the clearest and most forceful answer on the auto bailouts.  Not every answer was perfect, of course.  At the end of a fairly solid soliloquy on foreign policy, Gingrich said that America's enemies were "secure" under President Obama.  The line drew applause, but if he'd made that claim in a general election debate, Obama would have offered a very efffective rejoinder along the lines of, "you'll have to ask Osama Bin Laden about that last statement."  I'd also add that promising specific gas prices is a very risky endeavor for any political candidate.  Overall, though, a strong night for Newt.  Impressive.

Mitt Romney was, as ever, steady and serious throughout the evening; he didn't piece together his finest debate of the cycle, but he did just fine.  As expected, he made many appeals to executive leadership, regularly listing his accomplishments in the private sector, his leadership in turning around the 2002 Olympics, and his tenure in the Massachusetts governorship.  At times, his answers seemed rote and forced, but they delivered the messages he wanted to convey.  His strongest moments came in the first round of responses to the "birth control" controversy, and during the foreign policy segment, when he came across as deeply prepared and presidential.  Although he resorted to the lame debt ceiling attack against Rick Santorum, Romney managed to knock his top challenger off balance during the debate's opening round, a scrap from which Santorum never seemed to fully recover.  The former governor also missed a big opportunity on the very first question of the night, which was about the national debt.  Unlike some of the other candidates -- and certainly unlike Barack Obama -- Romney has a bona fide entitlement reform plan.  He should have mentioned it.  That being said, he did a decent job of incorporating hisnewly-released tax reform package into an answer or two, winning kudos from Gingrich.  One answer that is still bothering me was Romney's response to the challenge that he'd implemented a similar conscience-violating mandate regarding the morning after pill for rape victims in Massachusetts.  Romney flatly denied the whole thing, which wasn't entirely truthful (the complicated facts are laid out nicely in this NRO report).  All in all, Romney did nothing to disturb his upward trajectory in the Michigan and Arizona polls.

Rick Santorum was tonight's clear loser.  Although he offered a few flashes of excellence, Santorum's stumbling illustrated the perils of running for president with decades of Congressional votes hanging around your neck.  The former Senator was forced to explain and defend his support for earmarks (Paul and Gingrich did a better job of this), his decision to endorse Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2004 (his justification delved into a discussion of the intricacies of Senate Judicial Committee power structures -- which, while plausible, reeked of insiderdom), and most damagingly, No Child Left Behind.  Regarding that vote, Santorum essentially shrugged and said he "took one for the team."  For a guy who summed himself up with the word "courage," that was a startling weak moment.  Rich Lowry summarized Santorum's core problem perfectly: "Rick Santorum’s night was defined by explaining why he voted for things he opposed."  That's a very tough sell, and played directly into the Romney camp's "creature of Washington" narrative.  Santorum's stall plus Newt's good night equals a happy Romney campaign.

Ron Paul was a devastatingly effective Romney surrogate tonight, pummelling Santorum on his go-along big-government conservatism during the Bush years.  Although Romney landed a few big blows (pointing out that Arlen Specter was the 60th vote for Obama was one of them), Paul bloodied Santorum up more than anyone else.  He was also less unhinged on foreign policy than usual, stressing that he opposes Iranian nukes -- that's been tough to tell at times -- making a less shrill economic argument against nation building that will appeal to a lot of voters, and underscoring the importance of gaining Congressional approval for war.

A Teachable Moment

Anthony Federico, the ESPN online editor fired Sunday for a headline about New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin, is a 2006 graduate of Providence College.

Federico, who is from North Haven, Conn.,expressed remorse in an interview with the New York Daily News for writing the headline "A Chink in the Armor."

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I think it's unfortunate that Anthony lost his job over this. It was a dumb stupid mistake and Anthony just happened to be working at a place where you can't make dumb stupid mistakes. Some might say that this is an example of "PC Policing", but not for nothing, when you use a derogatory term for Asians in an article about an Asian athlete, it's inexcusable. 

The High Priests of Eco-Destruction

by Michelle Malkin

Rick Santorum is right. Pushing back against Democrats' attempts to frame him as a religious menace, the GOP presidential candidate forcefully turned the tables on the White House: "When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones."

Scrutiny of the White House anti-science brigade couldn't come at a better time (which is why Santorum's detractors prefer to froth at the mouth about comments he made four years ago on the existence of Satan). It's not just big-ticket scandals like the stimulus-subsidized Solyndra bankruptcy or the Keystone pipeline debacle bedeviling America. In every corner of the Obama administration, the radical green machinery is hard at work -- destroying jobs, shredding truth and sacrificing our economic well-being at the altar of environmentalism.

--Take Obama's head of the National Park Service, please. While serving as the Pacific West regional director of the NPS, Jon Jarvis was accused of at least 21 instances of scientific misconduct by Dr. Corey Goodman, a high-ranking member of the National Academy of Sciences. Extensive information about Jarvis' alleged role in cooking data about a California oyster farm's impact on harbor seals at Point Reyes was withheld during the 2009 nomination process. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ignored complaints and follow-up from both Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Sens. James Inhofe and David Vitter.

The National Research Council determined that the NPS had "selectively" slanted its report on the oyster farm. The federal Marine Mammal Commission found that "the data and analyses are not sufficient to demonstrate a causal relationship" between the farm's operations and harbor seal health. In a letter blasting the NPS for bullying the small oyster farm, Feinstein -- normally a reliable eco-ally -- concluded earlier this month that the "crux of the problem is that the Park Service manipulated science while building a case that the business should be shuttered."

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