Erick Erickson's Blog, page 78

Not Romney

In an RedState exclusive, we've obtained a copy of the latest salvo in the GOP 2012 Presidential primary — "Not Romney".

The Gingrich campaign is leading the way, staying true to Newt Gingrich's view of an alliance shaping up. I hear other campaigns and possibly some outside groups will join in.

But this is the first salvo, a flier to be released by the Gingrich campaign and an accompanying website.

What A Big Government Conservative Looks Like

I'm rather tired of all the people who don't like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist.  I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney.

Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist.  He is.  You will have to deal with it.  He is a big government conservative.  Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state.  In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state.

I and some friends, none of us Romney fans, have set about exploring Santorum's record since Wednesday morning.  Here now is a non-exhaustive list of what we have found. It does not even include his support for No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, etc.

This is not the record of a man committed to scaling back the welfare state or the nanny state.

 

NEA
Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.

Bankruptcy
Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.


Defense and Foreign Policy

Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.

Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.

Voted for the START II Treaty
Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
Voted to ban antipersonnel landmines
Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.
Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyranical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
Voted to limit the President's authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea
Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions.   If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.
Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.
Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program

Nominations
Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture)
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge
Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN
Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge
Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit
Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge
Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge
Voted for James Brady to be District Judge

Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act
Voted against Real of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages
Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor
Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding
Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Voted for Job Corps funding
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization
Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
Voted to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws.
Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.

Guns

Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of "assault weapons" by those under 18.
Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.
Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.

Reform

Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
Voted twice for a Congressional payraise.
Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapits, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
Voted for the Specter "backup plan" to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
Voted for a McCain amendment to require State and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.

Immigration
Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens
Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.
Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.

Taxes
Voted against a flat tax.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
Voted twice for internet taxes.
Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.

Welfare
Voted against food stamp reform
Voted against Medicaid reform
Voted against TANF reform
Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion
Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000.  Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.

Waste
Sponsored An amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million
Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Project (WA)
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion
Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million
Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL)
Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry
Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state's highway allocation
Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%
Voted against transferring $20 million from Americorps to veterans.
Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.

Spending and Entitlements
Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies an new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.

Health Care
Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
Voted against a allow consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.

Education
Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.

Energy

Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.

On the Perry Campaign Shake Up

The window is closing for an effective, public shake up of the Perry campaign. What should have happened in the last 48 hours stretches on to the weekend news cycle.

I'm a firm believer that the shake up needs to be public and fill the campaign with new blood at the top of the campaign. I have no doubt the campaign hesitates because it only has two weeks. But in that two weeks it must convince South Carolina that there has been a true turnover recommitting Perry to victory.

One of the issues that I keep running into is my suggestion that the Perry campaign let Joe Allbaugh go. Joe is, objectively, credited with turning the campaign around. Lots of people both inside and outside the campaign say Joe is the man who saved it from being even worse.

I don't disagree with that at all. But I also know there are as many people internally and externally who disagree. And I am afraid that because the campaign broke into factions if one faction is removed completely and the other left to stay, we'll spend the next two weeks not having "Perry reboot" stories, but insider accounts of what went wrong.

I hate to suggest throwing a guy under the bus who many people cite as the savior of the campaign, but something needs to happen. A few weeks ago I questioned whether Allbaugh was being purposed right in the campaign. He is a genius when it comes to crisis management and response. He puts out fires better than anyone. He excels at reacting to events and dealing with them decisively.

But the Perry camp needs someone proactive, not just reactive and it is unfair to ask Allbaugh to do both. I don't think he can. And the criticisms of Allbaugh may very well stem from him having to be both the reactive crisis manager and the proactive political director of sorts. If Allbaugh stays, the Perry campaign needs to rapidly supplement him with a proactive political director who can call the shots moving forward and rely on Joe to make sure the crises that will crop up get responded to while the political director keeps moving the campaign forward.

The Perry campaign missed the Virginia ballot.

It underperformed polling in Iowa. A good campaign can come in higher than polling based on ground game. A mediocre campaign stays even with polling. A bad campaign's ground game underperforms polling and Perry's campaign was a bad campaign.

There needs to be a real and visible shake up if anyone in South Carolina is going to be expected to take him seriously. With or without Joe Allbaugh it is possible, but only if it is really visible with some more concretely defined roles between the proactive and the reactive sides of the campaign.

There are two weeks and the campaign needs itself fixed before the news cycle turns over Monday morning, which means there needs to be a plan in place today.

Morning Briefing for January 6, 2012

RedState Morning Briefing

January 6, 2012

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

1. From Governor Rick Perry: Stop Insider Trading Dead In Its Tracks

2. Nancy Pelosi: It Was Very Bold and Encouraging When Barack Obama Ran Roughshod Over My Branch of Government

3. 'Leaner, Agile, and More Flexible': Are Obama and Panetta Setting Out to Create the Military that Donald Rumsfeld Always Wanted?

4. The biggest news of the day for Mitt Romney

5. Another Awkward Rick Santorum Vote

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1. From Governor Rick Perry: Stop Insider Trading Dead In Its Tracks

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune ran a little noted editorial on the insider trading scandal plaguing Congress, calling out phony efforts to reform the rules and demanding that we finally put a stop to this outrageous and unethical behavior.

If you haven't read the editorial yet, I recommend you do because while the professional political punditry class is more interested in superfluous items like the political horse race and candidate attire, the reality is that members of both parties in Washington, D.C., are abusing their positions and ordinary Americans have had enough.

As the editorial notes, "'60 Minutes' reported that Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering from Visa in 2008, just as credit card legislation started moving through the House. The Pelosis bought 5,000 shares at the IPO price of $44 a share. Two days later, the shares traded at $64. The legislation, which was likely to cut credit card company profits, went nowhere that year. It passed two years later."

It's not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Nancy Pelosi: It Was Very Bold and Encouraging When Barack Obama Ran Roughshod Over My Branch of Government

Democrats generally tend to operate on the hope that most American voters can't remember anything that happened longer than about a month ago. Very often they can get away with it, especially on something as esoteric as recess appointments or filibusters. But it is worth noting the history of this particular sordid tale which culminated yesterday, in order to understand why, even in the normal give and take that is to be expected when two parties are battling for power, Obama's action yesterday truly was an unprecedented abuse of power.

Presidents have long used the recess appointment to fill vacancies caused by a racalcitrant Congress. Clinton used them very frequently when Republicans controlled the chamber. During the GWB administration, after the Republicans retook the Senate in 2002, the Democrats in the Senate – including one particular Democrat Senator named Barack Obama – upped the ante through the widespread use of the filibuster to block all manner of Bush appointments. It is quite rich for Obama to complain about Republican minority obstructionism when he participated in the inception of the program. In fact, in 2004, when the Senate was without question in an intra-session recess, Bush recess appointed William Pryor for a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of appeals. Senate Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, were so incensed that they unsuccessfully sued to prevent Pryor from being seated. Ultimately their suit was unsuccessful (although it never reached the Supreme Court) because a short recess is still a recess. Thus the Democrats were ultimately impotent to prevent Bush from thwarting their filibusters via recess appointment – until, that is, they took over Congress in 2006. Then the Congressional Democrats – again including Barack Obama – devised a scheme whereby the Senate never went into recess, thus preventing Bush from making further recess appointments. In other words, we are where we are today because of something the Democrats were doing themselves three short years ago.

Against this backdrop, Barack Obama is making the claim that since he has made relatively few recess appointments during his tenure as compared to Bush, it is completely okay for him to violate the plain text of the Constitution and spit on the separation of powers. One point should be made here – the main reason Obama hasn't had to make many recess appointments is that for the first two years of his three year Presidency his party controlled the House and also had a filibuster-proof rubber stamp majority in the Senate. The relatively small number of recess appointments is hardly evidence of any restraint on his part.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. 'Leaner, Agile, and More Flexible': Are Obama and Panetta Setting Out to Create the Military that Donald Rumsfeld Always Wanted?

President Obama, Secretary of Defense Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dempsey gave a brief press conference this morning on America's new defense strategy, crafted in the face of massive national debt and looming budget crises (actually, it would be more accurate to say that the latter two gave a press conference; the president gave a statement, and then departed without taking questions). Though the $487,000,000,000.00 in upcoming DoD budget cuts – which Panetta called "politically sensitive" – were repeatedly mentioned (particularly by Deputy SecDef Carter in the second part of the presser), the entire conference on America's "strategic turning point" (a.k.a. America's "historic shift to the future") was an exercise in generalities, with Panetta continually referring reporters to Obama's forthcoming budget for specifics. Whether he was asked about weapons systems or military health care, Panetta never strayed far from his standard line that "everything was on the table" and "the President's budget will have more specifics."

A key message that Panetta and Dempsey repeatedly hammered was that the overall force (particularly the Army and Marine Corps) would be undergoing a "resizing" that, while made necessary by budget imperatives, would ostensibly be prevented from leading to a reduction in overall capability by the accompanying defense strategy. While the "unique global leadership role of the United States in today's world" would continue to be recognized and acted on, Panetta said, a necessary part of this will be a stronger reliance on "alliances" and an effort to "find innovative ways to sustain US presence" abroad. Given the resource problems that have been demonstrated by our effort to engage in combat and nation-building efforts in two countries at once over the last decade (not to mention the contingency operations being conducted in several other locations worldwide), it's clear such deep cuts will have an effect on defense capability, even if America's military is reorganized and its strategy rewritten with the new budgetary reality squarely in mind.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. The biggest news of the day for Mitt Romney

With Iowa now under his belt there is some monumentally big news for Mitt Romney that no one has really noted yet today. Allow me to congratulate him.

For the first time since November of 2010, Mitt Romney has broken through the 25.5% ceiling that has been his maximum share of support in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

This is pretty significant as he has been on an upward trend since early December. But this is the first time he's gone above 25.5%. He is now at 26.6%.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Another Awkward Rick Santorum Vote

On February 14, 2002, Democratic Senators Joe Biden, John Edwards, Diane Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Robert Torricelli, and Chris Dodd amongs joined with every single Republican in the Senate including Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, and the rest to kill a measure that would have given felons, including rapists, drug traffickers, and arsonists, the right to vote.

The measure failed 63 to 31.

But while Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein were siding with the Republicans in the United States Senate, there were actually three Republicans joining 28 Democrats to support giving these felons the right to vote. One was Senator DeWine of Ohio who the voters would thereafter throw out of office.

The other two Republicans were Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Another Awkward Rick Santorum Vote

On February 14, 2002, Democratic Senators Joe Biden, John Edwards, Diane Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Robert Torricelli, and Chris Dodd amongs joined with every single Republican in the Senate including Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, and the rest to kill a measure that would have given felons, including rapists, drug traffickers, and arsonists, the right to vote.

The measure failed 63 to 31.

But while Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein were siding with the Republicans in the United States Senate, there were actually three Republicans joining 28 Democrats to support giving these felons the right to vote. One was Senator DeWine of Ohio who the voters would thereafter throw out of office.

The other two Republicans were Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Compassion in action I guess. Luckily they lost.

Interestingly, some Santorum supporters are under the impression that Santorum's vote was about federalism and letting states decide ultimately if felons have the right to vote. First, states already had that right. Second, this is facially not true.

Amendment 2879, sponsored by Senators Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, and Arlen Specter — the very amendment Santorum voted for — established a Commission on Voting Rights and Procedures to "to require States to meet uniform and nondiscriminatory election technology and administration requirements for the 2004 Federal elections" and provides felons the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General of the United States if they are denied the right to vote. (Note Senator Reid calls these people "ex-felons" instead of "felons")

Senator Harry Reid, one of the three sponsors of the amendment, said on the floor of the Senate, "Basically what this amendment does is ensure that ex-felons, people who have fully served their sentences, have completed their probation, have completed their parole, should not be denied their right to vote."

Senator Reid went on to say

Nonetheless, the amendment Senator Specter and I have crafted is narrow in scope. It does not extend voting rights to prisoners. Some States do that. I don't believe in that. It does not extend voting rights to ex-felons on parole, even though 18 States do that. It does not extend voting rights to ex-felons on probation, even though some States do that. This legislation simply restores the right to vote to those individuals who have completely served their sentences, including probation and parole.

Finally, this legislation would only apply to Federal elections, but it would set an example for the rest of the States to follow what we do in Federal elections.

Even though we have delegated to the States time, place, and authority, Congress has retained the ultimate authority with ample precedent to set qualifications for Federal elections. We did that with motor-voter registration and others.

As Senator Reid said, this law would apply to all federal elections in all states — President, Senate, and House of Representatives. States would only be able to exempt out state elections, but to do so would drive up the costs of elections in states as a practical matter. In other words, this is the federal government trying to impose uniform federal standards on states making them loosen the requirements on what it takes for felons to get their voting rights back after leaving jail.

For those who even want to begin debating the merits of this, please first explain how every single Republican except 3 were wrong and somehow Arlen Specter was right.

The biggest news of the day for Mitt Romney

With Iowa now under his belt there is some monumentally big news for Mitt Romney that no one has really noted yet today. Allow me to congratulate him.

For the first time since November of 2010, Mitt Romney has broken through the 25.5% ceiling that has been his maximum share of support in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

This is pretty significant as he has been on an upward trend since early December. But this is the first time he's gone above 25.5%. He is now at 26.6%. My guess is he may be around here for a while longer, plus or minus a percent, before we see if there is any impact on the coming attacks on him by his Republican opponents.

Newt Gingrich Shows He Can Throw a Directed Punch

The fear is that Newt Gingrich can not throw a targeted punch at Mitt Romney, that he is only capable of a crazy melee.

Today, Gingrich is proving his critics wrong.

One of the biggest knocks on Romney is his timidity in the face of Barack Obama. He won't use the word "socialist," etc. He won't be bold with his own plans, etc. Well, Gingrich is going straight to that weakness and I think it works.

By the way, this is also the perfect way to show why the other guy can't beat Obama while keeping the focus on Obama.

Morning Briefing for January 5, 2012

RedState Morning Briefing

January 5, 2012

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

1. A Blatant, Frontal Assault on the Constitutional Separation of Powers

2. Can Rick Perry Come Back?

3. This Won't Play Well In South Carolina

4. Gas Reaches Record High as Gas Hits Record Low

5. I was right and the polls were wrong about Ron Paul in Iowa

6. A Call for Sanity in the Anti-Romney Rhetoric

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1. A Blatant, Frontal Assault on the Constitutional Separation of Powers

The Senate's power to pass on all appointments of Officers of the United States is explicitly enshrined in the Constitution. The one and only exception to this Congressional power occurs when the Senate is in recess. Despite the fact that, according to the Senate, the Senate is most emphatically not in recess, and despite the fact that they have been meeting every two days even over the holiday, the Obama administration has taken it upon themselves to declare that the Senate is in fact in recess and has made recess appointments to both the NRLB and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Can Rick Perry Come Back?

If Rick Perry leaves the Republican race, there will not be a candidate in the field who authentically represents smaller government. While many conservatives don't mind activist government so long as the ends are conservative, the willful use of activist government for conservative ends leaves in place a government perfectly capable of activist liberal government when conservatives lose.

The only way to fully turn the tide of big government is therefore to support someone who is willing to scale back government. Unfortunately, the only candidate with both an agenda to significantly cut government and a record of actually doing so is the flawed candidate from Texas with a campaign no one can be proud of.

But can he win? Yes. And should he stay in? Absolutely. If Rick Perry leaves, conservatives who want Washington out of their lives will have fully ceded the field to other men, mostly conservative, who are not as committed to the idea of "making Washington as inconsequential in our lives as possible."

What would it take though to get voters to look at Perry again? I think the only way he can go forward is to have a full throated and honest reboot of his campaign. To do that, he must clean house with a full on purge of his political and communications staff.

David Carney, who I know and like, and Joe Allbaugh, who I do not know but admire, must both go. Ray Sullivan must go. Mark Miner must go. I would suggest even Tony Fabrizo, who just about everyone internally at the Perry campaign, regardless of faction, blames as the chief instigator of the recent Politico story must go.

Perry has to demonstrate he recognizes just how terrible his campaign is. And that means people at the top level need to go. A lot of the Politico story was deadly accurate. The Perry team initially treated his campaign as running for Governor of Texas. He was underprepared and ill suited for debates. His communications strategy was and is a mess.

Look no further than Mark Miner, his spokesman today, being asked about Governor Perry's tweet that he was in and, instead of saying "I'll get back to you," conveyed uncertainty. The headline went from "Perry Stays In" to "Perry's Staff Has No Idea."

But it goes much deeper than that and I would submit none of us can treat a Perry reboot seriously unless he actually does reboot. It goes much deeper than people. People is policy and this is ultimately about the policies Perry will champion indicated first and foremost by his leadership abilities to stop the suck in his campaign.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. This Won't Play Well In South Carolina

Rick Santorum has some pent up issues with Jim DeMint.

Just a few weeks before DeMint stood for re-election on South Carolina's ballot, Rick Santorum showed up in DeMint's neighborood to tell everyone Jim DeMint was wrong on earmarks. "Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said the Constitution gives Congress control of the purse strings and that he supported earmarks for port deepening while a senator – the opposite of the position that DeMint is taking. But former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said DeMint has shown "moral courage" in refusing to support any earmarks, including one that the State Ports Authority says is needed to study the deepening of Charleston Harbor."

Santorum went on John King USA on CNN tonight and again defended earmarks claiming "Jim DeMint did it too" without acknowledging DeMint repented and has since led the fight against earmarks. When asked about what he may or may not have said about black welfare recipients, Santorum defended himself by claiming he got earmarks for a black community in Pennsylvania.

Get ready for conservatives to have to refight this critical fight against the gateway drug to big government spending.

It's not just Rick Santorum knocking Jim DeMint (!!!) when not hiding behind DeMint to claim tea party bona fides, Santorum is also going to have trouble in South Carolina because of his voting record. He opposed National Right to Work legislation.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Gas Reaches Record High as Gas Hits Record Low

On an annual basis, retail gasoline prices hit an all-time high in 2011. The average price for all grades was $3.576 per gallon, vs $3.299 in 2008.

Meanwhile, the shale gas revolution has set the stage for declining prices per mmbtu of natural gas.

The chart above shows the price of natural gas per million BTU delivered to the Henry Hub, a large pipeline interconnection point in Louisiana. The current ratio of oil price per barrel to gas price per mmbtu is about 33:1 ($100/bbl to $3.00/mmbtu), a historically low value. The energy equivalency is about 6:1.

Before the impact of the shale boom, a normal ratio was about 10:1. On rare occasion, the ratio has been below 6:1 for brief times.

Transportation and distribution add significantly to the price of gas at the retail level, but even there the gas price is about a 40% discount to oil on the basis of energy content.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. I was right and the polls were wrong about Ron Paul in Iowa

According to CNN, both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are set to win 6 delegates thanks to their close 1-2 finish in the Iowa caucuses. Ron Paul fell to third place. He didn't win, and he fell further and further behind as the votes were counted last night.

Not one poll projected Ron Paul to drop to third, and PPP stuck to Paul being in first. I said those polls weren't predictive. They weren't. I was right.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. A Call for Sanity in the Anti-Romney Rhetoric

Let me just say up front that Mitt Romney is far from my first choice among the current field. I think both Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman would be far better general election candidates and Presidents than Mitt Romney and I don't really "get" the joke the state of Iowa has clearly foisted on the entire country by essentially voting for Santorum, but macabre humor has never been my thing. However, all objective evidence seems to indicate that the GOP primary electorate does not agree with me and that Romney has the clear inside track to the nomination, with only Newt posing a serious threat to his chances. While I certainly get that Romney as a candidate has many, many flaws, I honestly do not get the gnashing of teeth I am hearing today at the prospect of a Romney nomination. In my view, if he were to win the nomination, he would be our most conservative nominee since at least 1988.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

This Won't Play Well In South Carolina

Rick Santorum has some pent up issues with Jim DeMint.

Just a few weeks before DeMint stood for re-election on South Carolina's ballot, Rick Santorum showed up in DeMint's neighborood to tell everyone Jim DeMint was wrong on earmarks. "Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said the Constitution gives Congress control of the purse strings and that he supported earmarks for port deepening while a senator – the opposite of the position that DeMint is taking. But former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said DeMint has shown "moral courage" in refusing to support any earmarks, including one that the State Ports Authority says is needed to study the deepening of Charleston Harbor."

Santorum went on John King USA on CNN tonight and again defended earmarks claiming "Jim DeMint did it too" without acknowledging DeMint repented and has since led the fight against earmarks. When asked about what he may or may not have said about black welfare recipients, Santorum defended himself by claiming he got earmarks for a black community in Pennsylvania.

Get ready for conservatives to have to refight this critical fight against the gateway drug to big government spending.

It's not just Rick Santorum knocking Jim DeMint (!!!) when not hiding behind DeMint to claim tea party bona fides, Santorum is also going to have trouble in South Carolina because of his voting record. He opposed National Right to Work legislation.

In the 104th Congress Sen. Santorum joined all Democrats and a minority of Republicans in voting to filibuster the bill S. 1788, the National Right to Work Act of 1995. ("On the Cloture Motion (motion to invoke cloture on motion to proceed to consider S.1788)," Senate Bill Clerk, Vote Number: 188, www.senate.gov, 7/10/1996)

During that same congressional session, Santorum also voted to retain the 1930s-era Davis-Bacon Act that forces taxpayers to pay union wages in government-funded construction and gives Big Labor an unfair advantage over non-union companies and workers ("On the Motion to Table (motion to table Kennedy Amendment No. 4031 to S.Amdt. 4000 to S.Con.Res. 57)," Senate Bill Clerk, Vote Number: 134, www.senate.gov, 5/22/1996)

Santorum supported Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2004 helping Specter secure the nomination. Specter went on to cast the 60th vote for Obamacare and then lost, in 2010, to Pat Toomey. Toomey, now in the Senate, is con-sponsoring Jim DeMint's National Right to Work legislation — the very legislation Rick Santorum filibustered.

Santorum being on the wrong side of National Right to Work and Jim DeMint will do him no favors in South Carolina.

Can Rick Perry Come Back?

If Rick Perry leaves the Republican race, there will not be a candidate in the field who authentically represents smaller government. While many conservatives don't mind activist government so long as the ends are conservative, the willful use of activist government for conservative ends leaves in place a government perfectly capable of activist liberal government when conservatives lose.

The only way to fully turn the tide of big government is therefore to support someone who is willing to scale back government. Unfortunately, the only candidate with both an agenda to significantly cut government and a record of actually doing so is the flawed candidate from Texas with a campaign no one can be proud of.

But can he win? Yes. And should he stay in? Absolutely. If Rick Perry leaves, conservatives who want Washington out of their lives will have fully ceded the field to other men, mostly conservative, who are not as committed to the idea of "making Washington as inconsequential in our lives as possible."

What would it take though to get voters to look at Perry again? I think the only way he can go forward is to have a full throated and honest reboot of his campaign. To do that, he must clean house with a full on purge of his political and communications staff.

David Carney, who I know and like, and Joe Allbaugh, who I do not know but admire, must both go. Ray Sullivan must go. Mark Miner must go. I would suggest even Tony Fabrizo, who just about everyone internally at the Perry campaign, regardless of faction, blames as the chief instigator of the recent Politico story must go.

Perry has to demonstrate he recognizes just how terrible his campaign is. And that means people at the top level need to go. A lot of the Politico story was deadly accurate. The Perry team initially treated his campaign as running for Governor of Texas. He was underprepared and ill suited for debates. His communications strategy was and is a mess.

Look no further than Mark Miner, his spokesman today, being asked about Governor Perry's tweet that he was in and, instead of saying "I'll get back to you," conveyed uncertainty. The headline went from "Perry Stays In" to "Perry's Staff Has No Idea."

But it goes much deeper than that and I would submit none of us can treat a Perry reboot seriously unless he actually does reboot. It goes much deeper than people. People is policy and this is ultimately about the policies Perry will champion indicated first and foremost by his leadership abilities to stop the suck in his campaign.

Rick Perry has a reputation as a man who isn't a genius, but has a knack for surrounding himself with really smart people, the overwhelming majority of whom are intrinsically conservative.

But with the Presidential campaign, these smart people seemed out of their league. They were largely led by Dave Carney and Rob Johnson, both of whom I like tremendously. Things, however, did not work out as planned and Rick Perry brought in Joe Allbaugh who managed President Bush's campaign.

Unfortunately, but perhaps necessarily, Allbaugh created a shadow campaign team within the campaign and it became divided between the "Austin Team" and the "Shadow Team" with the Allbaugh led shadow team calling the shots and the Austin Team being resented. Carney left. Johnson went to Iowa. The Austin just is. And that is not a healthy dynamic.

The campaign had a split personality, neither of which could effectively serve Rick Perry. It festered.

Allbaugh is a good guy who many credit with turning the team around, but the situation has festered for too long. There are good people in the Austin team, many of whom are very close friends of mine. There are good people in the "shadow" team, many of whom are very close friends of mine.

What neither team has had is strong leadership. Things have spun out of control. I do not have confidence in the leadership team and without a change there I do not know that Perry can remedy things. It also seems clear to me that his advertising in Iowa may have held him steady, but certainly didn't distinguish him from the field. His messaging has been lackluster.

As much as it may pain him to do so, Rick Perry needs to thank Joe Allbaugh and let him go home. He needs to thank Ray Sullivan and let him, Mark Miner, and Robert Black go back to Texas to serve on the Governor's Team. Perry needs to find a new pollster too. He has some good staff in place who can lead a smaller, more nimble campaign team with a tight message, a couple of solid ads, and a focus on making this a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party — will be be a party of big spending or a party that devolves power back to the states and people.

A firm, clean, and complete reboot of the Perry campaign shows that Perry is in charge and that he has the leadership skills to switch gears from failure.

I think Rick Perry can reboot. I think he can start raising money again. I think he has the money to compete in South Carolina.

But he has to sharpen his conservative-populist economic message, sell his biography as a farmer/veteran/job creator, and he has to fight like hell.

The odds are long, but it is possible. Gingrich will destroy Romney, potentially hurting himself, and I do not believe Santorum will survive the vetting process. That leaves an opening for a genuinely repentant and rebooted Rick Perry to get one last look in South Carolina.