I have been saying the Holy Rosary -- not to get my candidate elected, but to get Catholics aware of what is at risk in this election. Too many people are avoiding serious reflection on the candidates.

Obama before Hillary

I think I understand now what is at stake with preventing Hillary from becoming president in a way that I can articulate. I think her election would cement into the political landscape a way of campaigning which is cynical and contemptuous of the small -d democratic process. The idea is you win by any means necessary. I don't know if the origin of this is the old-line Bolsheviks or the spiritual children of Saul Alinsky but she is a practitioner of it and wrote her thesis on him.

Obama on the other hand is a "good" politician, kissing the babies, wearing the odd hats, making the backroom deals. He, of course, agreed with the National Democratic Committee with not seat delegates and not campaign in Michigan and Florida. Hillary won most of these delegates, so now they want to change the rules to include them.

If elected, as far as I see it, there would be no differences in what policies they would put forward.

What concerns me is the residual effect it would have on the Democratic Party to have been able to crush Obama in the nominating process regardless of total votes cast in the primaries, and votes of elected delgates.

This should end the inclusion of super-delegates. Let people like Charlie Rangel run on the ballot as regular delegates.

Sunset in American (2)

Where is the restraint on the movement of the country to the left now?

The brakes are off and we're likely to see the far left's ideas become mainstream, the mainstream becomes the right, and the right is written off as the extreme and on the margins of political life.

They may be correct as the numbers did not appear so on Super Tuesday.

It may even be time to assess how many conservatives are there, and how the conservatives can influence the culture while we are excluded from the government.

There are two models, Ronald Reagan who I mentioned in the prior post, and Winston Churchill in the 1930's who give us some hope of reversing this 4- or 8- year movement to the left.

It's enough to make one despair and believe that socialism and liberal fascism are the destiny of this country.

Team McCain's Talking Points

I don't buy common sense -- as in the positions we have are neither liberal nor conservative but just common sense policies for America.

This is nonsense. There really are distinctions to be made in these positions. Politics is the process of defining them and gaining popular support for them.

I don't like that McCain arrogantly defines the mainstream of conservatism to the margins. He can either engage them in a debate or just ignore them. What he seems to do is snipe at them with that half-laugh.

McCain just heaps his disdain for the movement conservatives, embraces the establishment Republicans who sat on the sidelines when it came time to confront the libs. Such as getting advice on judicial nominations from Warren Rudman.

I'm not talking the Ann Coulter position of vowing to campaign for Obama or Hillary, but I have if it were not the Supreme Court seats held by Stevens and Ginsburg, and Iraq and Afghanistan, I would be ambivalent.

The lesson for conservatives for 2012 is to unify behind one standard bearer before Iowa. We can't trust the primary process to identify the best conservative.

What's up with Peggy Noonan and Newt Gingrich?

I often think that she has harbored resentment that she wasn't brought into the inner circle in the administration of George H.W. Bush after her start as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan in the middle 80's and then out of the White House in 1989. Her bio starts at age 35 with getting to Buchanan's office and since 1989, it is almost she's been living three or four years over and over again. Does she ever direct that rhetoric in order to advance some elected officials who support the agenda she supports? Talk about shooting the wounded...

At some level there's a disappointment that no Republican has a triple crown of being right on national security, the economy, and culture/social issues. It is another thing to add the cry of despair that the without Reagan, Woe is us.

I am suspicious that the media still are building up McCain. McCain is electable but I think it's time (maybe past time) for McCain to tone down the maverick stuff and get on board with the conservatives. I have another clothespin labeled McCain ready for the general election in November.

Burning your bridges

I just wonder if the conservatives that I align with like Rush Limbaugh and the National Review are going to be burning their bridges with McCain and Huckabee should one of the get the nomination.

The more we learn about Huckabee, the more he seems to more like a Republican Jimmy Carter rather than a Ronald Reagan. Huckabee is simply unelectable. The country has more people who fear this evangelical than want him in the White House.

And of course we know how McCain disappointed us: interfering with the filibuster rules, McCain-Feingold (i.e. first amendment restrictions), and McCain-Kennedy (i.e. amnesty for illegal immigrants), the lawsuit against Wisconsin Right-To-Life, his frequent criticism of elected Republicans including the President and conservative leaders, his inconsistent support for tax cuts, and his pandering to the media to get the "Maverick" label. Some people always make a point that McCain called "waterboarding" torture when it doesn't physically harm the interrogatee. In respect for McCain's experience as a POW, I don't slam McCain for that.

Can the so-called movement conservatives embrace either McCain or Huckabee as their champions?

McCain cannot be counted upon to support pro-life

Andy McCarthy in the NRO Corner mentions something that I had only a retained a vague memory. It was this case it was "McCain (etal) v. Wisconsin Right to Life"

In June 2007 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (New York Times) that ads which avoided the explicit identification of candidates could run within the 60 day limit set by McCain-Feingold.

Correctly and ominously, the Times said the decision would hurt McCain's standing with conservatives. I add only if we remember seven months later.

Review: Iowa Caucus

I was surprised. It's all about demographics.

Democrats:

With such a small black population, it wasn't simply a case of winning the black vote. It was a generational issue as Dick Morris, Rush Limbaugh, and others have mentioned.

As for Edwards, he has no money, no organization, Iowa was his last stand.

The remarkable thing is how old everyone (except daughter Chelsea) was surrounding Hillary is. It really is a repudiation of that generation that came of age in from 1960 to 1980. I think the people born after 1960 who have been voting now for over 20 years are saying "You generation had your turn -- this is our turn." Hillary is 61. Edwards is 54. Obama is 46.

Republicans:

I was surprised Huckabee won. I thought that with the organization and focus that Romney would have pulled it off.

I think Romney's conversion to the pro-life cause is real. I know that several people I respect do not believe it. A good showing in NH/SC/MI is going to be necessary to keep his chances alive.

Could the field be reduced to McCain and Huckabee? That would be a big disappointment to me and others who believe that McCain has too often betrayed conservative causes. Huckabee, I am convinced in January is unelectable. Among non-evangelicals Romney won by a big margin.

I would take any of Romney, Thompson, or Giuliani over Huck-a-cain or McCain-a-bee.

Why I am not with Mike Huckabee: his campaign tactics

I think Huckabee realized that he didn't have to directly mention Romney's Mormon faith, he simply had to emphasize his own.

I think that Huckabee wanted to peel off evangelical voters and couldn't keep the genie in the bottle. Huckabee calculated that he could play the evangelical card, and the voters would follow. But he's not running for president of an evangelical convention but president of the United States. He thinks the Christian identity tactic is containable.

But the media is playing him -- acting as amplifier for every religious reference that comes up. Having mentioned religion, he can't escape it now in each interview. Even his denials are raw meat for the 24-hour news grinder cycle.

The media love characterizing this as religious war within the Republican party or the conservative movement. Everyone is talking about it.

So callers to talk radio have a new template:

Y'know the religious right is mucking up this campaign again -- making their number one issue who the better Christian is. We need to keep religion out of politics.

Intended or not, I blame Huckabee for giving callers like this plausibility and creating a big distraction, our political opposition is happy to exploit.

Iowa Voters

My copy of the Constitution doesn't say anything about Iowans getting the influence to pick the president which they currently have.

To the Iowa voters who have declared to pollsters: undecided

What is it going to take to get you to decide? Edwards started his campaign in Iowa in August 2005. That's 7 months after the second Bush inaugural, and that's 28 months ago.

Not only should you have decided by now. You should had petitioned to have held the caucuses months ago, so you could have a Christmas season in peace.