Failing To Learn From Europe

As President Obama meets with Congressional leaders to squabble on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling, I am amazed at how our leaders fail to learn the lessons of what is going on in Europe.  As we argue about the ramification of raising or not raising the debt ceiling, how much government spending we should have and what our tax rate should be, we act as if what is going on in Europe will not happen to us here. 

For example, France, Ireland and Italy have either had their credit rating lowered or are under threat of having their credit rating lowered by Moody’s Investors Service. Moody's isn't the only one lowering the credit rating of these nations. Other companies have lowered them too. For example, one company has lowered Greece to junk bond status.

Yet, we act like the consequences of the reduction in credit ratings felt by these countries won't happen to us despite the fact that Moody's and other credit rating companies have been threatening to reduce America's credit rating.  Moody warned us that it would reduce our credit rating back in January of 2011 and has just recently issued another warning. Having our credit rating would be bad news for America and yet we continue to ignore these warnings.

As as result of massive debt and a loss in credit ratings, many countries in Europe such as Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, France, Italy, Latvia, and many other European countries have enacted tough austerity measures in order to reduce their public debt. Yet, many of these countries are experiencing massive social unrest because people are unhappy with the austerity measures. Greece is constantly getting rocked by protesters who demand to keep the status quo. Spain is now experiencing protesters too. 

John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, has warned that the United States is on a path of insolvency much like Greece and Portugal are: 

To me—being in Europe for a few days—the plot in Greece and Portugal sounds an awful lot like the same plot that's going on in the United States. But the characters have different names," he said.

As the deadline for a budget agreement looms in Congress, Silvia told CNBC that the US must recognize that the moderate economic growth forecast by most economists for the country will fail to generate the tax revenue necessary to fund long-running government entitlement spending.

"We have to make some arrangements in terms of cutting back the promises that were made by prior politicians for these entitlements," Silvia said.

"(We've had) forty years of political promises to give people certain entitlements, certain benefits. And we've now come to understand that the United States is in a very difficult position than it was in the early post-World War II period. We're not the dominant economy. And our pace of growth has moderated. Our ability to finance this is all limited." 

Judd Gregg (R-Nh) is another voice who has raised concerns about the U.S. spending and how it contributes to the increasing U.S. deficit. He has stated that the financial future of the United States looks grim unless makes major changes in its spending habits:

Chief among Gregg's concerns is the massive deficit under which the U.S. is currently operating. Gregg says the economy is on an "unsustainable track" that, if continued at its current pace, "will double the federal debt in five years, and triple it in 10 years." Gregg compared financial problems here in the U.S. to those Greece is currently having, noting that while the U.S. is a "more vibrant nation, we are still on the exact same track" as the troubled country when it comes to finances.

Gregg insists we need to cut spending, especially as the nation gets ready to take on "70 million retirees" as opposed to the "35 million retirees" the U.S. is currently sustaining via Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher has issued the same warning as well stating that unless we make serious changes now, then the debate will revolve around when will America go bankrupt:

"If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent, the question is when," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said in a question and answer session after delivering a speech at the University of Frankfurt. "The short-term negotiations are very important, I look at this as a tipping point."

But what is going on in Europe will happen here, if we fail to take immediate action to fix our economy. We have the ability to avoid the problems that Europe is going through. There are many people who have been warning us that we are following down the same path as Europe. 

However, the President doesn't want to learn from Europe. He wants to emulate Europe by enacting expensive programs like starting new rail road projects, ObamaCare, and a host of other unfordable government projects. 

George Santayana famously said that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Unless we learn from the mistakes of Europe, then we are doomed to repeat it too. 

Time Magazine Is Wrong About The Constitution

Time magazine's main article, One Document, Under Siege which created quite an uproar among conservatives because the main thrust of the article was that the Constitution is a document that is no longer relevant because of changes in technology and culture and that it is an obstacle to political, social and economic progress. 

Almost every line in the article is absolutely wrong. here are just too many things that I would like to refute in the article. However, there is one claim in the article that I cannot restrain myself from blasting to pieces. Richard Stengel, the author of this article, asserts the reason that the Constitution remains the most powerful document in the world is because the American people love liberty and freedom:

A constitution in and of itself guarantees nothing. Bolshevik Russia had a constitution, as did Nazi Germany. Cuba and Libya have constitutions. A constitution must embody something that is in the hearts of the people. In the midst of World War II, the great judge Learned Hand gave a speech in New York City's Central Park that came to be known as "The Spirit of Liberty." It was a dark time, with freedom and liberty under threat in Europe. Hand noted that we are Americans by choice, not birth. That we are Americans precisely because we seek liberty and freedom — not only freedom from oppression but freedom of speech and belief and action. "What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty?" he asked. "I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it." 

While Americans do love liberty and freedom, that is not the reason why the U.S. Constitution remains the most powerful document in the world. In Timothy R.Clark's  Desert News article, What My Grandma Taught Me About The Constitution, points out that rampant corruption, which is how most societies operated throughout human history, prevents liberty and freedom from occurring:

The United States Constitution is perhaps America’s most important export. It has influenced the chartering documents of many nations, beginning with France and Poland in the 1780s. But the long-term results are not so good. Although a stack of constitutions has been erected after the American model, corrupt leaders almost always chew up and spit out the ink and paper of high ideals. Most attempts to imitate or reproduce the world's most important charter, penned by the then 31-year-old James Madison, have been dead on arrival.

Why? Because most societies are endemically corrupt. Like a cancer, corruption influences, alters or stops basic processes such as commerce, capital flows, the expansion and delivery of education and the making of public policy. It shuts down civil society.

Timothy Clark goes on to point out that the Constitution is only as good as its leaders and citizens: 

At root, civil society is based on preconditions of ethical leadership and public virtue. We believe in the rule of law, but the rule of law is only enforceable through the unenforceable support of private citizens — a line of defense that is easily swept aside when corruption becomes endemic.

A constitution is nothing but a set of institutional arrangements. Yes, there is genius in the arrangements of the U.S. Constitution. But they don’t hold themselves up. We do. It’s the character of the citizens. It is the unapologetic support of Judeo-Christian values. It’s equal emphasis on both rights and responsibility.

In his inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said, “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?”

In other words, society depends on the integrity of each and every individual. John Adams famously explained that the Constitution was made for a society that promoted and cherished the integrity of the individual:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Foreign Policy Magazine, in writing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, explains that the real reason the communist country fell in 1989 was because everyone was tired of the corruption that was rampant in society. They wanted a more moral society. Gorbachev's Prime Minster made the shocking admission that Soviet Union was not great because because it relied on corruption to maintain power: 

To Gorbachev's prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, the "moral [nravstennoe] state of the society" in 1985 was its "most terrifying" feature:

[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave bribes, lied in the reports, in newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another. And all of this -- from top to bottom and from bottom to top.

Although the Soviet Union fell many years ago, Russia is still struggling to figure out how to make freedom and liberty work. Many Arab nations are now  trying to figure out how to make freedom and liberty work in the Middle East. Why are they struggling to make freedom work in their own lands?
The reason why they are struggling is because they assume that freedom comes when you eliminate corruption in the nation's economic, social, and political institutions by revising the policies, programs of the various institutions or even rewriting the Constitution to mirror the American constitution. In other words, they think that if they make the institutions good and moral, freedom will come.  

However, the Founding Fathers wisely realized that it was the other way around. If you make the people moral, virtuous and religious, then the public and private institutions of society will be morally good and in turn, it will create a free, democratic and good nation.

I fear that we are in danger of falling for the same erroneous assumption  that freedom comes if we only can make the institutions of society good. When you look back in history of how governments used oppression and corruption to keep the state going, America is the exception to the rule. That is the idea of American exceptionalism.

In the end, The United States Constitution matters, not because we love liberty and freedom, but that liberty and freedom comes only if the individuals themselves remain good and virtuous.

Mitt Romney's Quest To Eliminate Corruption In Massachusetts State Senate

The recent arrest of James "Whitey" Bulger, a famous Irish Mobster who made a name for himself in the mean streets of Boston and manipulating the local FBI into assisting him in eliminating rival mob families. There are alot of articles out there highlighting his crimes, his shenanigans with the FBI and his 16 years on the run from the police authority. 

While many articles talk about the negative aspects of this man's life, there is a positive news article that talks about how Mitt Romney made it is mission to remove Billy Bulger, the younger brother of James Bulger, from the Massachusetts State Senate: 

The FBI’s arrest of Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger ended a 16-year-old hunt for a notorious career criminal who was immortalized by the Martin Scorsese film The Departed, loosely based on his story. But it should also remind us of one of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s finest hours.

Bulger was part of an extraordinary Irish-American immigrant family who represented the best and worst of the American experience. While Whitey became the head of the Irish mafia in Boston, his younger brother William went to college and became a lawyer before going into politics. Billy Bulger spent 35 years in the Massachusetts legislature, including 18 as the powerful president of the State Senate. In 1996, he was appointed president of the University of Massachusetts system, a position of enormous prestige and power.

It speaks volumes about the nature of Boston’s political life in that era that the brother of a crime boss could rise to the top of the state’s political system. Cynics could be forgiven for wondering whether Billy’s success was linked to Whitey’s activities, even though the politician publicly pretended not to know what his beloved big brother did for a living. But it’s just as possible Billy’s political power also helped Whitey and his Winter Hill Gang.

But the pretense Billy knew nothing about Whitey’s crimes was exploded once his brother went on the lam in 1995. After years of exploiting his role as an FBI mob informant that enabled him to both knock off criminal rivals and evade prosecution, Whitey was indicted. But, thanks to his FBI informant, he escaped capture. His brother, who was still the president of the Massachusetts State Senate, may have aided the escape of the man wanted in connection with 19 murders as well as drug trafficking. What we do know for sure is Billy spoke with his fugitive brother via elaborate procedures designed to evade police detection and made no effort to help the authorities bring him to justice. In 2003, Bulger was summoned to a congressional hearing to testify about the case. But even though he was granted immunity from prosecution, when probed as to his connections with his brother, Billy gave evasive answers and demonstrated selective memory loss.

That such a morally compromised person could continue as the head of a state university system was considered nothing exceptional in the world of Irish Democratic politics in the Bay state. Billy could, after all, count on the support of Senator Edward Kennedy, Michael Dukakis and a host of other Massachusetts power brokers. But neither Billy nor his friends counted on the determination of Mitt Romney to make good on a campaign promise to oust the UMass president. Romney conducted a relentless campaign of pressure on Bulger to resign his office. He finally succeeded in August 2003 when Bulger quit.

Now that Whitey has finally been run to ground, it is appropriate for us to recall this odd chapter of political history and give Romney his due. Mitt Romney has been rightly accused of being a flip-flopper who will shift his views depending on the audience to which he is speaking or seeking votes. But whatever else you can say about him, he refused to play ball with the corrupt crowd running Massachusetts for decades. In bringing down Billy Bulger, he succeeded where other well-intentioned politicians and law enforcement officials failed. Though he hopes to achieve greater things in the future, the Bulger case may have been Romney’s finest hour to date.

I strongly disagree with the author's claim that Mitt Romney is a flip flopper but that is my only complaint with this article. What this article shows is that Mitt Romney is no milquetoast when it comes to fighting political corruption or crime. 

There were scores of politicians and law enforcement officers who didn't have the courage to do what was right. They didn't have capability to take Billy Bulger down because they were either tainted by their own corrupt deeds, became too cozy with Billy Bulger or they didn't want to make waves with the the President of the Massachusetts State Senate.

Yet, Mitt Romney told the people of Massachusetts that he would take get rid of Billy Bulger and he kept his commitment both in word and in action. Mitt Romney could have pleased the political crowd and not gone after Billy Bulger but instead he choose to please the right kind of people--the people of Massachusetts.

When people think of someone who is a flip flopper, they think of someone who has no courage and convictions and will go with whatever is convenient for them. I think this episode destroys the idea that Mitt Romney will say and do whatever it takes for him to please the crowd.

Instead, it shows the true strength and character of Mitt Romney. He has and that he was persistent and relentless in his pursuit to remove a very corrupt man from Beacon Hill. He did the right thing even many power brokers and powerful law enforcement officials wouldn't or couldn't.

That's the kind of president we need. Someone who is persistent and relentless on what ever issue it is whether it be crime or corruption or the economy.

Why Mitt Romney Came Out As The Winner In The SBA Pledge Controversy

Mitt Romney has received criticism for refusing to sign the Susan B. Anthony List's (SBL) pledge on abortion. Here is the actual wording of the pledge:

I PLEDGE that I will only support candidates for President who are committed to protecting Life. I demand that any candidate I support commit to these positions:

FIRST, to nominate to the U.S. federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench;

SECOND, to select only pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health & Human Services;

THIRD, to advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions;

FOURTH, advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.

As a result of the uproar over not signing the pledge, Mitt Romney released a statement why he didn't sign the pledge:

I am pro-life and believe that abortion should be limited to only instances of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, because it is bad law and bad medicine. Roe was a misguided ruling that was a result of a small group of activist federal judges legislating from the bench.

I support the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. And as president, I will support efforts to prohibit federal funding for any organization like Planned Parenthood, which primarily performs abortions or offers abortion-related services. 

I will reinstate the Mexico City Policy to ensure that nongovernmental organizations that receive funding from America refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, as a method of family planning, in other countries.  This includes ending American funding for any United Nations or other foreign assistance program that promotes or performs abortions on women around the world.

I will advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion. 

And perhaps most importantly, I will only appoint judges who adhere to the Constitution and the laws as they are written, not as they want them to be written.

As much as I share the goals of the Susan B. Anthony List, its well-meaning pledge is overly broad and would have unintended consequences. That is why I could not sign it. It is one thing to end federal funding for an organization like Planned Parenthood; it is entirely another to end all federal funding for thousands of hospitals across America. That is precisely what the pledge would demand and require of a president who signed it. 

The pledge also unduly burdens a president’s ability to appoint the most qualified individuals to a broad array of key positions in the federal government. I would expect every one of my appointees to carry out my policies on abortion and every other issue, irrespective of their personal views.

If I have the opportunity to serve as our nation’s next president, I commit to doing everything in my power to cultivate, promote, and support a culture of life in America.

The group responded to Mitt Romney's statement by saying that Mitt Romney's refusal to sign the pledge raises more questions about him than it provides answers about him. 

The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, is that this whole affair raises more questions about the SBA. Why is the SBA so angry about Mitt Romney's refusal for signing the document but not others? Why did the SBA give contradictory interpretations of their pledge both publicly and privately? Did the SBA coach some candidates but not others on the meaning of the pledge? Why did the SBA refuse to rewrite their pledge after it was clear that the document was poorly written and very flawed? 

One of the reasons why the SBA is upset with Mitt Romney's refusal to sign the document is because he doesn't think that the SBA should be dictating who he should select and not select in his administration. Yet,  contained in SBA's response is an admission that they want to restrict the President's right to select qualified people who will serve in the "relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health & Human Services, and the Department of Justice." Here's their admission:

He seems to indicate that he wants the freedom to nominate pro-abortion candidates for key cabinet positions such as Attorney General or Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is precisely what we want to rule out and it is unacceptable. 

Given this admission by the SBA, signing the pledge is a lose-lose situation for any candidate. If he signs it, he'll get attacked by the left for being a candidate who is willing to take orders from an extreme right wing special interest group and how the social conservatives are imposing their religious views on the country. If he does sign it, he will make some social conservative unhappy if the signer of the pledge doesn't do exactly what they want. 

There's another reason why this is a lose-lose situation for any candidate who signs this pledge. Consider this: if a candidate doesn't follow the pledge, how will the organization enforce the breach of the pledge? 

The answer is that there's nothing they can do except use it as a weapon to attack the candidate if they don't go along with their views.

And that's what we're seeing in this dumb controversy with Mitt Romney.  Its not like he agreed to the pledge and then abandoned it. He didn't sign it and now he's getting attacked for refusing to sign it. 

Mitt's refusal to sign the document reveals how arbitrary SBA's criticism of 2012 candidates can be. Jennifer Rubin, writing for the Washington Post, points out that the SBA was quietly giving various campaigns interpretations on their pledge that was not consistent in their public interpretation of the pledge and as a result were being selective about which candidate they upset with:

I asked repeatedly during expansive back-and-forth e-mail exchanges on Saturday why Cain was excluded. After multiple inquiries in which other information was provided but my query about Cain was not addressed, a SBA spokesman e-mailed, “Cain disagrees on advancing a federal fetal pain bill.” That seemed to be fine with the group.

But it turns out that not all candidates were treated fairly. When I asked about these two issues, Rick Santorum’s spokesman said that his campaign got an “interpretation” from SBA that the funding language applied to only abortion providers, not other entities or affiliated entities. Was this in writing? No. Whom did the candidate talk to? No answer.

I asked SBA why it gave a different explanation of its pledge to only one campaign. A spokesman said, “ Campaigns who had questions got clarification.” But if the pledge was not interpreted the same for all candidates, would the group reissue it? Not exactly. An SBA spokesman said that with its clarification “Romney et al. can sign without fear.” But SBA is going to unleash its grass roots.( “Our grass roots will be encouraging them to sign.”) However, since SBA is not going to redo the statement, candidates would be expected to sign a pledge with language that doesn’t mean what it says. And did the group mean to include every executive branch appointment must be filled by a pro-life person or just Cabinet officials? Ya got me.

As a result, Jennifer Rubin realized that the SBA was not being upfront about the interpretation of the pledge to the media or to the various political campaigns who signed it. They deny that the pledge was poorly written and the language was too broad and yet the SBA was interpreting it differently when communicating with the various campaigns privately. But we now know that the SBA is arbitrarily interpreting its own pledge depending on which candidate they're talking to. 

One blogger thinks that the private communications that the SBA made with the other 2012 candidates was not just an innocent inquiry over the meaning of the pledge but that the SBA was intentionally coaching the campaigns on what the pledge was supposed to mean:

They even went so far as to give “tips” to the other candidates, explaining what the pledge’s verbiage “was supposed to mean,” as opposed to what it really said.  That sort of assistance that was never offered to the Romney campaign, according to what an SBA spokesperson told the Washington Post.

Regardless of how you interpret the facts, one thing is clear: the SBA was not being honest about how they were publicly and privately interpreting the language of their own pledge. 

This led Jennifer Rubin to wonder why the SBA choose to club Mitt Romney but not Herman Cain for not signing the pledge. Despite the SBA's denial that they purposefully targeting Mitt Romney, she couldn't get a credible explanation for why they were only irate with Romney:

I spoke to Dannenfelser by phone Sunday morning. Why did she issue a statement criticizing Romney but not Herman Cain? “No one asked about Cain,” she said. (The result, however, was that only one was the target of a pointed public statement.) But she assured me that both Cain and Romney would be the focus of grass-roots efforts to get the candidates to sign the pledge. She insisted that in conversations with Romney adviser Peter Flaherty she explained that the pledge — despite clear written language on defunding providers to the contrary — didn’t extend beyond abortion providers. In the end she said that the two sides “agreed to disagree.” 

As a reminder, the Tim Pawlenty camp also thought the language meant what it said: “Advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions” [emphasis added].

For some reason, the SBA is upset with Mitt Romney for not signing the pledge. They're also upset with Mitt Romney because he claims that they pledge would call for him to end all federal funding for thousands of hospitals across America simply because they are following the law with respect to abortion. Tim Pawlenty read the pledge and came to the same conclusion that Mitt did. 

The SBA denies that the proper interpretation of their pledge and they're angry with Mitt Romney for pointing it out but not angry at Tim Pawlenty for coming to the same conclusion. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the SBA is at least happy that T-Paw signed the pledge but are dismayed that Mitt didn't.

In the end, the only people who got hurt in this controversy is the SBA. The fact that Mitt Romney refused to sign the pledge shouldn't come as a surprise. The pledge was poorly written and could be broadly interpreted enough to have unintended consequences. 

They're also mad at Mitt because he doesn't agree that the SBA should have the ability to say who he will pick in his administration even though the SBA has admitted that is what they want. 

In comparing Mitt Romney's statement with SBA's pledge, Mitt Romney is a much better commitment to the pro-life cause than the SBA's. His pledge was clear, consistent, and restrained. The SBA's pledge has major flaws that should have been addressed before any candidate signed it. Instead, many of the candidates signed it despite the fact that the SBA hasn't been consistent about the meaning of their own pledge. 

The fact that some people signed this pledge without reading the fine print or verifying the significance of the terms of the pledge reveals that that the candidate is not only dumb for signing it, but that they don't possess the heuvos to come out with their own position on abortion. 

Unlike Mitt Romney who came out and stated what his beliefs are, all the other candidates will explain their position on abortion by simply point to the SBA pledge. They're stuck with the SBA pledge now. Any candidate who gives further clarification what their position on abortion is has to do it without contradicting or offending the SBA.  

Any leader who is willing to let a special interest group dictate who will or will not serve in their presidential administration is not a leader worth voting for because it boxes the candidate in both in on the campaign trail and in the presidency. By agreeing to this pledge, the candidate is essentially admitting that they are as rigid in their thinking and inflexible in their actions as the S.B.A. group.

The conservative website, Red State, which is no fan of Mitt Romney, has made this very same point:

Look, I understand SBA List’s motivation here but their execution was way off, in my opinion, and I think the candidates that rushed to sign this pledge, politicians all, have locked themselves into bad policy right from the get go… if they think this wont come back to haunt them, should they win the White House, they have another thing coming. Of course, they have the option of doing what most politicians do once they get elected and ignore the pledge but that’s not going to win them any points either.

The only loser in this stupid controversy is the SBA. They wrote a poorly written pledge and refused to redraft it. They look stupid since they can't even be consistent on the meaning of their own pledge that they put out for candidates to sign. Not only that, it doesn't look good for them if there is even a hint of suspicion or possibility that they're coaching some candidates but not others on the interpretation of the pledge. 

Furthermore, the SBA is attempting to have an influence on the decisions that the next President of the United States makes with regards to decisions about who they hire in their administration,  who they will select as the next Supreme Court justice and which laws they will support. The American people will not stand for a group with that much influence over a President nor will they allow such a candidate to ever enter office who is capable of being used by a special interest group in this manner. As a result, the SBA's influence has become diminished as a result of this stupid controversy that is of their own making.

In the end, Mitt Romney did the right thing by not signing the pledge. He gave the American people a more clearly written and better commitment to the pro-life cause that is unencumbered by special interest groups. Its his own personal declaration of his beliefs and positions about abortion. The American people now have a choice. They can either support a candidate whose positions on abortion is not their own but is that of a special interest group or they can support a candidate who beliefs are his own.

Which candidate would you choose to be a leader: the one who thinks for themselves or the one that lets others do the thinking for them?

How About a Romney/Bachmann Ticket!? I Say, Yes!

A while ago, I was quiet excited about the idea of a Romney-Cain ticket. However, after watching the CNN Debate, I think most Americans, such as myself, would really be really thrilled about a Romney-Bachmann ticket. James Taranto, writing for the Wall Street Journal, thinks this would make for a formidable team against Obama:  

A Romney-Bachmann ticket would be balanced in terms of ideology (he's moderate, she's conservative), governing style (he's technocratic, she's idealistic), religion (he's Mormon, she's evangelical) and, of course, sex.

This column has no brief for Romney, but strictly as political analysis, we'd say a Romney-Bachmann ticket looks more formidable than the McCain-Palin ticket that lost in 2008. Romney, unlike McCain, has executive and private-sector experience. He's in his mid-60s, old enough that his maturity makes for an attractive contrast with Barack Obama, but not so old that anyone will wonder if he's up to the job.

A Romney-Palin ticket would balance each other out well in other ways too: 

Like another Massachusetts governor who ran for president, Romney would promise "competence, not ideology"--although Michael Dukakis actually was an ideologue of the liberal left. But again, Romney looks better than McCain, who offered a lack of vision but no reason to think he was a competent administrator.

As for Bachmann, her biggest advantage over Sarah Palin may be that she is now running for president. That means that if Romney were to name her a year hence, she would be a far more familiar and media-savvy politician than Palin was in 2008. She would be much less vulnerable to both smears from the partisan media and unforced errors like Palin's disastrous interview with Katie Couric, whoever that is. For those who care about such things, the presence of a woman on the ticket might serve as an excuse to vote against re-electing the first black president.

No doubt, a Romney-Bachmann team is much better than a Romney-Cain ticket. Michelle Bachmann certainly outshined Herman Cain at the CNN Debate. She came across as more knowledgeable, confident and articulate than Cain did. In fact, she did much better at the debates than everyone else except for Mitt Romney. Not bad for a women on her first day as an official candidate for the 2012 election. 

The other reason why I like Michelle Bachmann is because she would absolutely slaughter Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debates. Herman Cain would have no problem debating Joe Biden on substantive issues. But when it comes to articulating his views in a debate format, he would have a hard time against the vice President. 

Personally, I'm sold on this idea. What about you?

Rick Santorum Thinks Christian Voters Can Look Beyond Romney and Huntsman's Faith

With all the news about Mitt Romney surging in the polls after the CNN Debate, I don't want Rick Santorum's comments about Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman's faith to go unnoticed: 

Social conservative Rick Santorum told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he hopes Christian voters can overlook Jon Huntsman's and Mitt Romney's Mormon faith.

Santorum, a devout Catholic, weighed in on the debate between evangelicals and Mormons during a Sunday television interview with moderator David Gregory.

Gregory asked the former Pennsylvania senator if Huntsman and Romney will have problems in the race as Mormons. Santorum answered, "I hope not."

He continued, "I hope that people will look at the qualities of candidates and look at what they believe and what they're for and look their records and then make a decision."

Santorum, a champion for social conservative issues, is the latest to weigh in on the contentious question, should Christians support a Mormon candidate for president.

As a Mormon myself, I appreciate Rick Santorum's comments. Catholics can understand the challenges that Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman faces because many people were unwilling to vote for John F. Kennedy merely because he was a Catholic.

I look forward to the day when people will stop refusing to vote for a candidate merely because they are Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, Evangelical, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Baptist, B'hai; or if they are atheist or agnostic. A candidate's religion, or lack there of, should not be an issue in any election in the future regardless if it is local, state or national campaign. 

People should focus on the candidate's political experience, values and positions. In other words, its all about a candidate's qualification, not his religion. There are a lot of great candidates in the 2012 election who have great resumes and who have conservative values. However, among the field of very qualified candidates, we're looking for the most qualified person for the job. We're looking for the best of the best.

As a result, the number one question of this election is this: who is the most qualified person to be President?

Facebook "Likes" Reveal Who Won Last Night's Debates: Mitt Romney!!

If you're still unsure that Mitt Romney was the winner of last night's CNN debate, Facebook gives a compelling indication that the majority of facebook users thought Mitt Romney was the winner of that debate:

Other than the extreme cases of one-on-one landslides, like John F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Richard Nixon, there is really no scientific method of determining the victor of a political debate, so why not use Facebook likes?

That was the approach taken by Likester, which analyzed Monday night’s debate between Republican presidential candidates by using Facebook like totals for respective candidates’ pages, as well as the number of likes added Monday night.

The winner of the debate, according to Likester: Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who leads the field with 955,748 likes (at the time of Likester’s post), adding 19,658 Monday.

Coming in second was Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), who ranks No. 3 in likes, at 335,457, adding 9,232 Monday.

Third place, according to Likester, went to Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), who places second in overall likes, at 390,945, picking up 8,717 Monday.

Likester awarded fourth place to businessman Herman Cain, who tallied the fifth most overall likes, at 136,904, with 4,036 from Monday.

The No. 5 spot went to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, whose 140,247 total Facebook likes were good for fourth on the list, and who added 2,888 Monday.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty avoided the cellar, placing sixth, with his 100,627 total Facebook likes also good for sixth. He added 2,362 likes Monday.

And finishing seventh and last, according to Likester, was former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), with just 21,067 total likes, also last, and only 679 added Monday.