Narcissistic- And Defeated


In retrospect (hindsight always being 20/20) it shouldn't have been a surprise.

The primary in New Hampshire, though it won't redound much to Mitt Romney's benefit in South Carolina, was a significant victory for the front runner.      Not only did he coast to victory but was rewarded by the voters who gave Ron Paul a second-place finish.

Paul, despised by the establishment of the GOP, finished ahead of Jon Huntsman, who is not despised by the party establishment- and probably, aside from Romney, would be its top choice.

But Huntsman was not the top choice, or even the second choice, of New Hampshire voters despite spending more time in the state in the past few months than any other candidate, as graphically depicted (immediately below) by Talking Points Memo.

And that, despite the far-right field and this earlier post of mine, probably speaks well of the individuals who went to the polls last Tuesday.          For no other candidate in a presidential debate of either party has regaled us with the Mandarin version of "He doesn't seem to understand the situation" (embedding of    video disabled by request).

We get it, Jon.   You're the smartest guy on the stage.     Not only can you speak a language foreign to the vast majority of Americans but in so demonstrating, you were able to charge that your rival doesn't "understand the situation."

Not wrong- and not, as is quite likely, insincerely exploiting the justified fears of Americans about the growing power and threat of Mainland China- but not aware of what Huntsman is aware.       Apparently unbeknownst to the former Utah governor and ambassador to China, getting elected President involves far more than demonstrating that you are the best educated and most traveled candidate of  them all, notwithstanding Barack Obama's ascension to the office.

Currency manipulation, prohibitive tariffs on some U.S. goods, cyber spying, rapid militarization, and threats to Taiwan all are of concern to this nation.     And to our people, even these pale in significance to the jobs that are being lost to the Mainland.      These, significantly, have been greatest as a share of total employment in- wait for it- New Hampshire.       The Economic Policy Institute (their map, immediately below) notes that from 2001 to 2008, 16,300 jobs (2.35% of total state employment) were ripped away from Granite State residents.      And that was as a result of trade imbalance, irrespective of Third World Chinese labor practices.

Into this, and in a nation still mired in a serious economic slump, the slow disintegration of the middle class, and declining mobility, steps Jon Huntsman and his impressive facility with Mandarin Chinese.       It was, admittedly, a fine slap in the face but nothing that qualifies him for the presidency.       To the 83% of New Hampshire voters who rejected the most worldly of candidates, congratulations; to that candidate himself, goodbye- and please don't come back in four years.  

Into this, and in a nation still mired in a serious economic slump and beset by the slow disintegration of the middle class and declining mobility, steps Jon Huntsman and his impressive facility with Mandarin Chinese.       It was, admittedly, a fine slap in the face but nothing that qualifies him for the presidency.       To the 83% of New Hampshire voters who rejected the most worldly of candidates, congratulations; to that candidate himself, goodbye- and please don't come back in four years.  




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The Victim Card, Again



Now we know why.

It was not one of George Will's stated reasons for considering Newt Gingrich "not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative," but it may as well have been.    During last Saturday's debate in New Hampshire,  ABC's Diane Sawyer asked the GOP presidential candidates about same-sex marriage.        Gingrich, in part, responded

I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry?

Three days later, as noted by Think Progress, Gingrich, asked by CNN's Soledad O'Brien about the claim that the Roman Catholic Church has been banished from the abortion business because it excludes gay couples, contended

No, that’s not true. That’s not true. There are states now, including the District of Columbia, which essentially adopt laws that say you can’t offer an adoption service unless you meet the secular standards of the state. They are in effect saying the secular standards of the state are more important than religious freedom. I think it is inherently anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. It is in favor of a secular model, that I think is wrong. And I think that it’s wrong for the government to impose its values on religion. That’s the whole point of the First Amendment, is to not have the government imposing values on religion.

Inconveniently for Gingrich, the First Amendment says nothing about "government imposing values on religion"- and Gingrich's suggestion otherwise hardly comports with the strict constructionism characteristic of conservatives.       Instead, it reads in relevant part "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."   Gingrich, incomprehensibly, argues that requiring a religious institution to adhere to the same regulations as secular institutions when they have a government contract is "inherently anti-Christian and anti-Jewish." More accurately, subsidizing adoption arranged by a Church entity if it violates federal guidelines would represent preferential treatment and itself breach that wall of separation between government and religion.

No one, and no government, is preventing Catholic Charities from providing adoption services consistent with their beliefs about same-sex relationships.      Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, inadvertently acknowledged that when, defending the Church, he stated It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract, but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs."

But that government contract is being denied not based on "religious beliefs" but the actions of the agency, which is free to believe whatever it wishes about whomever it wishes.         No institution, religious or otherwise, may be permitted to take the money of taxpayers (straight and gay, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, or of another faith) if it violates state or federal law.

As conservatives ought to understand, there is no constitutional right to a government subsidy.





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Erratic States


If you were to watch the GOP presidential debates and didn't know any better, you would think that the mean, old federal government has usurped the rights guaranteed to the states by the U.S. Constitution and rendered government inefficient and incompetent.

The truth is far different, however, as demonstrated by the nation's marijuana laws- all 50+ of them.       The Philadelphia Inquirer reports


Ed Forchion, who calls himself "NJ Weedman," will be allowed to act as his own lawyer at his drug trial in April as long as he doesn't argue that marijuana laws should be decriminalized, a judge decided Tuesday.
The longtime marijuana activist said he wanted to try to persuade a jury to reject the legitimacy of "New Jersey's goofy marijuana laws" while throwing out the marijuana charge against him.   But Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, sitting in Burlington County, said court rules did not permit the defense to put a law itself on trial.
In October, he ruled that Forchion could not represent himself, but he reversed himself Tuesday after Forchion reluctantly said he would limit his arguments.
I'm going to abide by your rules," Forchion said after a long pause.
Forchion, 47, a Camden County native, now lives in Los Angeles, where he ran a pot farm and a medical marijuana dispensary for the last four years. On Dec. 13, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents shut down his operations and confiscated his marijuana, he said.
Without revenue from his business, he said, he had to ask his mother to pay for his $600 plane ticket to New Jersey for the hearing.
"I didn't want them to issue a warrant for my arrest," he said.
While visiting family and friends in New Jersey in April 2010, Forchion was arrested in Mount Holly when a state trooper allegedly discovered a pound of marijuana in his car trunk during a traffic stop.
He was charged with possession of the drug with intent to distribute.
Forchion carries a card issued by California that allows him to use marijuana to help with pain from benign bone tumors in a leg and his shoulders, he said.
He had planned to argue at trial that New Jersey has conflicting laws about marijuana.
The state recently became the 14th in the nation to allow marijuana to be sold for the treatment of specific diseases and conditions while continuing to outlaw other uses.
Under New Jersey law, benign bone tumors are not eligible for marijuana treatment.



Forchion has been known in New Jersey as kind of a gadfly, and jury nullification is an issue for another day.     But... here we have a fellow running a marijuana farm and dispensary pursuant to the laws of the state, California, in which he resides.       Despite operating within the confines of the law- while providing a public service and perhaps making a tidy profit- Forchion gets arrested.

This would be a simple matter of an inflexible federal government encroaching upon the prerogatives of a state except.... the "perpetrator" decides to return to New Jersey for a visit. There, he is arrested for violating the laws of a state which actually has a medical marijuana law- but not one which does not authorize use for benign bone tumors.

California has an expansive medical marijuana law; New Jersey, under, and because of, the crude Chris Christie, has one that is very narrow.       Weedman isn't the only individual or group stymied by the proliferation of laws and practices in this field.      The Associated Press explains


In California, with the nation’s most permissive medical marijuana laws, 185 cities and counties have banned pot dispensaries entirely. In New Jersey, perhaps the most restrictive of the 17 states that have legalized marijuana for sick people, some groups planning to sell cannabis are struggling to find local governments willing to let them in.
Dispensaries have also been banned in parts of Colorado and have run into opposition in some towns in Maine.
Local politicians have argued that pot is still illegal under federal law, that marijuana dispensaries bring crime, and that such businesses are just fronts for drug-dealing, supplying weed to people who aren’t really sick.
Cities and towns are prohibiting dispensaries outright or applying zoning ordinances so strict that they amount to the same thing. The ordinances typically set minimum distances between such businesses and schools, homes, parks and houses of worship.



States can assume innumerable functions and issue regulations or issue laws to fulfill them. But even a relatively minor and ordinary policy such as pertains to medical marijuana may (mixed metaphor alert) run aground on the shoals of conflicting state laws.      The importance of national leadership, and with it regulations that apply throughout the nation, is demonstrated yet again.






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Issue Avoidance


Another day and another opportunity to blog about Rick Santorum, before his fifteen minutes are up.

The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky observed that, at the Meet The Press debate (transcript here) Saturday night, Santorum stated

had a good moment, I thought, with his answer to the question about how he’d react if one of his sons were to announce that he’s gay. Santorum: “I’d love him just as much as I did the second before he told me.” General applause to this. I’m not 100 percent persuaded that this is really and fully and completely true, in either Santorum’s case or the audience’s, but everyone knows it’s what you have to say, and he managed to say it with seeming conviction.

Andy Hiller, political director of a Boston television station, asked Santorum "What if you had a son who came to you and said he was gay?"     Santorum, not quite a political neophyde, shot back

I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it, and I would try to do everything I can to be as good a father to him as possible.

It now is notable that a GOP candidate for president doesn't jump at the chance to say that he would kick his son out of his house because of a sexual orientation he is born with.       Tomasky understands such an answer was unavoidable, given that both the left,  sympathetic to gay rights interests (ditto most members of the mainstream media), and the right  would be offended if Santorum responded "I would tell him to go back into the closet and await God's judgement."

But maybe Santorum was being sincere.     In substance (though not in tone) it differs little with his response in 2003 to a similar question, to which he replied "I would try to point out to them what is the right thing to do. And we have many temptations to do things we shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean you have to submit.”

Or perhaps he believes gay marriage and condoms should be banned everywhere but that it doesn't apply to his family, a kind of reversal of the old adage:     "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."      As often,  a liberal is a conservative who unexpectedly has found that life throws some curve balls even into the best, or most privileged, families.

Think Dick Cheney, a right-winger's right-winger who at least twice (more recently, here) has expressed support for gay marriage (video from earlier instance, below).        Just a guess- but that might be related to the situation of his daughter Mary, who is gay, which would make it either hypocritical or mere convenient pragmatism.     Quite common, really.

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones explains that the candidates could have been asked serious questions about gay rights rather than being lobbed softballs:

The questions were sufficiently devoid of any specific matters of gay rights that they allowed both candidates to garner applause lines. Romney said that while he opposes same-sex marriage, "if people are looking for someone who will discriminate against gays, or will in any way try and suggest that people [who] have different sexual orientation don't have full rights in this country, they won't find that in me."

"When was the last time you spoke out for increasing gay rights?" Hiller asked.

"Right now," Romney said to laughter and applause.

Hiller followed up by asking whether Santorum would be a "force for gay rights in his party." Santorum said he was opposed gay couples being able to adopt or get married. "Just because you don't agree with someone's desire to change the law doesn't mean you don't like them, or you hate them, or you want to discriminate against them," Santorum said after declaring his support for laws that discriminate against gay people.

"What if you had a son who came up to you and said he was gay?" Hiller asked.

"I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it. And I would try to do everything I can to be as good of a father to him as possible."

It was perhaps Santorum's finest moment in the debate—he didn't flinch, or wait a moment to reflect. He came across as entirely sincere. And that's part of the problem. In both cases, the Republican candidates were asked questions that were essentially about whether or not they "hated" gays. Those questions are easy to deflect with a measured tone. Instead of asking the candidates about their feelings towards gay people, they could have been asked about any one of the many pending legal issues affecting the rights of gays and lesbians. Do the candidates support ending the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy? Would they support extending the same military benefits heterosexual couples have to same-sex families? Do they think gay couples should be able to adopt (Santorum, to his credit, explicitly said no.) Do they think Lawrence v. Texas was rightly decided or do they think states should be allowed to criminalize sexual behavior by consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes? Do they support or oppose the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages?

Many of the candidates are on record on these issues, and an informed moderator might have asked the candidates to explain their positions, since Republican stances on gay rights issues typically clash with their stated principles on federalism or individual rights. Instead, the Republican candidates got softballs about how they feel about gay people, which allowed them grin and prattle on about tolerance and equality, even while supporting laws that deny gays and lesbians the same rights as everyone else. Grading on this bizarre curve, Santorum gets applause for not casting a hypothetical gay son out of his home as though basic human decency would demand anything else. Santorum wouldn't cast out his gay son: He just wouldn't let him serve in the military, get married, or adopt a child.

It shouldn't matter to the future of the republic how Rick Santorum would react even if any of his children were gay.      A President should not be judged by what his offspring are or even how he responds to their condition.      Sasha and Malia seem like fine young people.       But that really hasn't lowered the unemployment rate, tamed the rampant greed of Wall Street,  convinced Ahmadinejad to give up any pretensions to developing nuclear weapons, or even undermined the conviction of the American people that the nation is on the wrong track generally.








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Brazenly Dishonest


Despite flirting with deceit in Saturday night's debate in New Hampshire, Rick Santorum continues to display more candor than common sense- which, admittedly, is not difficult.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos raised the issue of contraception- it is, incredibly, an issue with this motley crew of Repub contenders- and Santorum commented

But I do agree with -- obviously we have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment. But that’s not what the Griswold decision nor the Roe v. Wade decision were about.
They created through a penumbra of rights a new right to privacy that was not in the Constitution. And what I’ve -- and that’s, again, I sort of agree with Governor Romney’s assessment -- legal assessment, it created a right through boot-strapping, through creating something that wasn’t there. I believe it should be overturned.

Somehow, Rick Santorum simultaneously finds a right to privacy in the Constitution and believes it inapplicable to a woman's reproductive freedom or the freedom to use artificial contraception.      It is an extraordinary conclusion, but perhaps unsurprising when one realizes that even among GOP voters, there is strong support for the idea that Americans deserve some privacy.     Hence:    support for the concept of privacy, just not with abortion or birth control.    Priceless.

Still, Santorum has made it clear that he would be pleased if individual states outlawed contraceptive use, as they were able to do prior to Griswold v. Connecticut. The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, however, refuses to believe.     She claims of Santorum
    
In particular, what fuels some of these Internet frenzies is that he told a blogger last October that, as president, he would talk about the “dangers of contraception.” But before you get worried that, if he’s elected, we’re in for a nationwide lecture, when he was pressed on what exactly this means, he made it expressly clear that he believes this is not an issue for the president to take on in any kind of legislation.

That blogger was the conservative Shane Vander Hart, to whom the former Pennsylvania Senator and Virginia resident commented

One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is what I think is the danger of contraception.   The whole sexual libertine idea that many in the Christian faith have said, well, it's ok, contraception's ok.   But it's not ok.

It's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.     It is supposed to be within marriage.    It is supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal and also unitive but also procreative and that's the perfect way that sexual union should happen.   When you take ay part of that out, we diminish the act.

If you can take one part out, if it's not for the purpose of procreation,t hat's not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women.     So why can't you take other parts of it out?     It becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure....

Almost as if to disabuse anyone of the notion that it is of mere academic interest or a subject of stimulating discussion, Santorum only last week told ABC News' Jake Tapper

The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.

Lopez herself finds Santorum's career "characterized by a mix of approaches, including using the levers of government (emphasis mine) and the powerful platforms available to those in the public square...."    He has publicly argued that states ought to be able to impose contraceptive bans and refers to sex for purposes other than procreation as "license"-  and Lopez believes he won't "take on any kind of legislation."

Notwithstanding his failure to level with the voters about the right to privacy, Rick Santorum has been forthright in stating his opposition to sex for pleasure and prevention of childbirth.   Can't Kathryn Jean Lopez take him at his word?

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Dead On


It would be difficult- difficult, not impossible- to ascertain the worst response to a question at the GOP presidential debate (transcript here) held last night at St. Anselm's college in New Hampshire.        But determining the best is a slam dunk.

When an answer is wise, constitutionally solid, historically accurate, and delivered as a rebuke to a fellow candidate, it stands alone and apart.         It began when ABC's Diane Sawyer, unintentionally channeling the "come home, America" of George McGovern in 1972, asked Mitt Romney "Governor, time to come home?"       The former Massachusetts governor responded

Well, we want to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can. And Governor Huntsman says at the end of 2013 the -- the -- the president and the -- the commanders are saying they think 2014 is a better date. We’ll get a chance to see what happens over the coming year....
And I would bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, of course, based upon my own experience there, going there, informing myself of what’s happening there and listening to the commanders on the ground. 

Asked if he disagreed, Jon Huntsman responded

I would have to tell Mitt that the president of the United States is the commander-in-chief. Of course you get input and -- and advice from a lot of different corners of Washington, including the commanders on the ground.
But we also deferred to the commanders on the ground in about 1967, during the Vietnam War, and we didn’t get very good advice then....

While the President's role as commander-in-chief is strictly limited, the question pertained strictly to Afghanistan.     If someone runs for the presidency, he (or she) ought to be willing to assume the responsibility of the office.      Strategic and even tactical decisions are in the purview of the President- and Article II of the U.S. Constitution accordingly specifies "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."      
A candidate should not be able to hide behind the uniform of a military officer.     Anyone not willing to accept- indeed, embrace- a critical responsibility of the office should instead push for a cabinet position or serve as a governor, run for Senator and President, and thereafter claim he is not a career politician.






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Rick Santorum Is Something


I served with Mike Huckabee, I knew Mike Huckabee, Mike Huckabee was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Mike Huckabee.

Rick Santorum is no Mike Huckabee (and Lloyd Bentsen probably never was a friend of Jack Kennedy, anyway), though none of the rest is true.        But it appears there are some in the media who are making Rick Santorum out to be the second coming of Mike Huckabee.         (Apparently, it's the second coming of someone else which is on the mind of the candidate himself.)

Blogging in the UK Telegraph, Dr. Tim Stanley, described as "a historian of the United States," calls Santorum a "working class hero" advocating "economic populism."       Charles Krauthammer says the Virginian  "participated in George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism."    Joe Klein refers favorably to "Santorum's brand of blue-collar populism."       The Daily's Reihan Salam, a regular on Up with Chris Hayes, argues "Santorum could shift the intra-Republican conversation away from pointless factional fights over border enforcement and the individual mandate toward the all-important subject of how to raise wages and household incomes."

And gushing after the Iowa caucus, CBN's David Brody summarized:     "And now here he is: The Mike Huckabee of 2012."

Huckabee once branded the Club for Growth the "Club for Greed," a characterization nearly as bold as it is accurate.       He is no genuine populist but may be, in a party devoted to the wealthiest 10% of the population, what passes for a rough approximation of a populist.   However, as for the newest heartthrob of many Repub conservatives, The New Republic's Simon van Zuylen-Wood explains

Since losing his Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2006, Santorum has used his connections to land a series of highly-paid jobs. Consol Energy, a natural gas company specializing in “hydrofracking” and the fifth-largest donor to his 2006 campaign, paid him $142,000 for consulting work. He also earned $395,000 sitting on the board of United Health Services (UHS), a for-profit hospital chain whose CEO made contributions to his Senate campaigns and which stood to benefit from a big hike in Medicare payments Santorum proposed in 2003. (Incidentally, the Department of Justice sued UHS for Medicare and Medicaid fraud during Santorum’s four-year tenure on its board.) Santorum also earned paychecks from a religious advocacy group, a lobbying firm, and a think tank. For pushing legislation benefitting UHS and several other companies, one ethics group named Santorum to its “most corrupt Senators” list.

Santorum has made his post-Senate career doing the sort of quasi-lobbying that helped sink Newt Gingrich’s campaign in Iowa. But in fact, while still in office, he was a central actor in an even more sordid venture: The K Street Project. Started in 1989 by GOP strategist Grover Norquist and brought to prominence by former House majority leader Tom DeLay in 1995, the K Street Project was a highly organized effort to funnel Republican Congressional staffers into jobs at lobbying firms, trade organizations, and corporations, while attempting to block Democrats from those same posts. From 2001 until 2006, Santorum was the Project’s point man for the Senate, while House Majority Whip Roy Blunt manned the House side.

In 2006, the K Street Project was effectively forced to shut down amid public outcry; the following year, an ethics reform law made such outfits illegal. But in its heyday, it helped create an unprecedented revolving door between the White House, Congress and K Street, blurring distinctions between Republican policy and corporate welfare. As Elizabeth Drew put it in a 2005 New York Review of Books piece, “Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result; business associations who hire Democrats for prominent positions have been subject to retribution. They are told that they won’t be able to see the people on Capitol Hill they want to see.” Nicholas Confessore, in a groundbreaking 2003 Washington Monthly expose of the Project, detailed the goal bluntly: “First, move the party to K Street. Then move the government there, too.”

At the center of all this was Santorum. According to Confessore, Santorum conducted weekly breakfasts with lobbyists, and occasionally Congressmen and White House staff, during which he attempted to match Republican Hill staffers with K Street job openings. As Confessore put it, “Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican—a Senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated.” The group refused to meet with Democrats, and threatened sanctions against lobbies that did.

Revolving door tactics, until then de facto lobbying policy, were formalized and transformed into a “pay to play” system by the K Street Project. In 2003, after the top post at The Motion Picture Association of America went to a Democrat instead of a Republican, House Republicans reneged on an impending tax break, hitting the movie industry with a $1.5 billion bill. After the Democrat was chosen, Roll Call reported that “Santorum has begun discussing what the consequences are for the movie industry.” (Santorum, though he often denies his involvement in the K Street Project, more or less confirmed his involvement in the MPAA flap.) Later that year, the Washington Postrevealed that the House Financial Services Committee pressured a consortium of mutual funds to oust a top lobbyist who was a Democrat in exchange for relaxing a pending investigation. After the smoke cleared, she was replaced by a Republican.


Quite the populist; quite the man of the people, and one who currently is in New Hampshire urging de facto cuts to Social Security.      He now is skimpy on details, but was not so when he ran (successfully) for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania (a state he later would go on to serve from suburban Virginia), when he advocated raising the eligibility age "to at least 70."       That move would further impede the opportunity of young people to gain employment, increase competition for scarce jobs,  and lower wages, a (sarcasm alert) fine objective for a candidate who, Salaam imagines, is interested in "how to raise jobs and household incomes."

If Santorum has become interested in raising jobs and household incomes, it would be a complete reversal from his days as a U.S. Senator, in which he was in the grip of a generous corporate donor, the down-home, worker-friendly, small business known as Wal-Mart.      Opposing Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage. proposing to allow companies to restrict payment of overtime, and supporting repeal of the estate tax on multimillionaires (to whom it applies), Santorum exhibited the kind of "compassionate conservatism" guys like Krauthammer can warm up to.

Give the candidate credit.     While it's difficult to ascertain what the GOP's leading presidential candidate believes about anything, we know Rick Santorum opposes abortion, gay rights, and artificial birth control, the latter to the point of supporting a right of a state to ban its use.      He is not a populist, but being a fanatic should count for something.






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