A political update

[drwex]

Huntsman is out. I agree with Scalzi that he decided to cut his losses early and is probably angling for a Secretary of State position in a Romney administration. IMO he has the experience, the balls, and the brains to be a good one.

Romney took several solid hits in the debate but sadly they were delivered by Gingrich. The evangelicals decided they were backing Santorum, which means the votes of the not-Romney bloc are going to remain divided. Gingrich's good showing in the debate comes at Santorum's expense and is a gift to the Republican power-brokers who can (and should) see a Romney->Gingrich->Santorum finish order as a clear sign of the weakness of the evangelical contingent in the party. Unless Romney continues sleepwalking (and maybe even if he does) I don't see Gingrich beating him in SC. A G-R-S finish is just barely possible if the debate goes very badly for Romney, very well for Gingrich, and the Tea Party throws its weight behind Gingrich. Much more likely is R-G-S in which case the question remains how much above 25% can Romney get.

On the longer view, Gingrich's biggest haymaker against Romney is still the financial/tax returns issue, which is a very poor strategic bet for him to make. He can't beat Romney this way.

Comments

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

I'd probably call Santorum the worse of the two. Paul's libertarian streak would have the government taken out of the public realm in may places, including such things as civil and gay rights law. (Removing government bullying is a lovely idea, but libertarianism attracts a passel of kooks and racists in no small part because removing government protection for minorities would advance their agenda nicely. There's a nice article on that here: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/liberty-of-local-bullies.html ) though that streak takes an inconveniently timed break when abortion comes up (as per the other comments here) at least Paul is anti-foreign-war and opposed to the surveillance state. Santorum would simply keep the foreign wars and surveillance, and add the awful social engineering of the Paul platform too. (Except where Paul would take government out of the picture and leave room for local bullies, Santorum as a dominionist would just have the government itself take over as the bully, with a nicely Christian cast.)

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Paul's libertarian streak would have the federal government taken out of the public realm in may places, including such things as civil and gay rights law.

FTFY.

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Thanks.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

It's one of the things I hate reading from a friend of mine: "RP wants the government OUT of the marriage business." AND "RP wants the feds to stop telling the states what to do" yet my friend cannot logically connect these two ideas, and their inevitable outcome.