In his forthcoming book, Coming Apart, The State of White America, 1960–2010, Charles Murray writes about the perils of the upper-class elite setting policy that affects regular Americans, with whom these elites have little to nothing in common.  Because their bubble is so thick, the elites are vulnerable to making huge policy mistakes, despite their best intentions.

To help you determine how thick your bubble is, Murray has produced a quiz whose score will place you into one of the following categories:

• A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and moviegoing habits. Range: 48–99. Typical: 77.
• A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and  average television and moviegoing habits. Range: 42–100. Typical: 66.
• A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents. Range: 11–80. Typical: 33.
• A second- generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot. Range: 0–43. Typical: 9.
• A second- generation (or more) upper-middle-class person with the tele- vision and moviegoing habits of the upper middle class. Range: 0–20.Typical: 2.

Three of the Young Guns crew have thus far taken the quiz, and I was shocked to discover that with my score of 26, I have the biggest bubble.  When I protested to the group that Californians need a separate quiz, Meghan Clyne responded, "No, I think that's the point--to live in California (at least, northern California) is to have separated oneself from the mainstream of the rest of the country."  Touché.

Take the quiz here (questions begin on page 103), and report back with your score.
 

Obama is a terrible tech investor.  If the USA was a hedge fund, he'd be looking at a total collapse.  

First, he lost $500 million on a failed, foolish, and almost corrupt investment in Solyndra, the high-flying and high-overhead solar panel maker, run by some of his financial backers.  Talk about crony capitalism.

Now, he's lost another $100 million on something called Ener1.  From Heritage's excellent blog, The Foundry, a post by Lachlan Markay -- and if you're not bookmarking him, you should be:

After months of financial turmoil, an Energy Department-backed lithium ion battery company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company, Ener1, received a $118 million grant from DOE in 2010 as part of the president’s stimulus package. The money, which went to Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel, aimed to promote renewable energy storage battery technology for electrical grid use.

But despite generous federal support for the company, Ener1 was racked by problems last year. In October, NASDAQ delisted the company due to non-compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission filing requirements. A month later, the company’s president, chief executive, and top financial officer were fired.

And wait!  There's more:

Ener1 is not the first energy storage technology company to file for Chapter 11 after receiving significant stimulus support. Beacon Power, which manufactures flywheel energy storage technology, received a $43 million loan guarantee from the same stimulus program that funded Solyndra. Despite having used $3 million marked for loan repayment to continue funding its daily operations, Beacon filed for Chapter 11 in November.

It's one thing to lose money that investors gave you voluntarily.  Anyone who would voluntarily bet that a community organizer from Chicago with zero private-sector experience knows how to invest billions of dollars in the tech sector deserves to lose it all.

But it's your money he lost.  And not today's money, either.  He's lost money that you haven't even earned yet.  He's losing money you haven't even seen yet.  And he promises to lose more.  From Politico:

President Barack Obama isn’t letting Solyndra scare him away from pushing a green energy agenda.

Pivoting off a State of the Union address in which he vowed not to “walk away from the promise of clean energy,” Obama doubled down Thursday by highlighting incentives for windmills, solar panels and natural gas vehicles during visits to key battleground states Nevada and Colorado.

Obama's got the easiest job in high finance.  I'll bet fund managers and venture capitalists everywhere are green with envy.  He can invest in whatever he wants.  He can lose as much as he wants.  And his investors -- you and me -- just have to sit and watch him do it.

From First Read:

The primary has done damage to Romney. He cannot afford a long primary. If this thing goes to June, that would be very problematic. He’s already in a bad position. George W. Bush, John McCain, and Bob Dole were all in primary fights and ALL were a net-POSITIVE at this time in the election cycle. In the past 20 years in the poll, no one who went on to be the major party nominee of either party with a net-negative at this point – except John Kerry, and we all know how that turned out. Clearly, Romney is looking like he’s getting his momentum back, but he has fundamental problems for the general.

We are officially a homeschooling family now. The decision wasn’t easy, especially since I respect the principal at my daughter’s zoned school, and I truly believe the teachers were competent and caring.

I also knew I’d have to face a lot of puzzled moms—“Oh my Gawd! What HAPPENED?!”—as well as my own feeling that I was making a radical decision for my child which might dramatically alter her “normalness.” Whatever that means.

My husband, Matthew, writes about this today at FirstThings.com:

Opting out of the public education system feels a bit like jumping off a moving train. As you tumble down the side of the embankment and struggle to gain your footing, passengers on the still-moving train crane their necks and crowd to the windows to stare at you with wide eyes and slack jaws.

They jumped? What are they, nuts? This train is so nice.

As the locomotive puffs into the distance—it must, after all, keep to its schedule—you dust yourself off and begin to plot the rest of your journey on foot. Suddenly you realize you are alone in the wilderness. “Oh boy,” you think. “Maybe we’ve made a terrible mistake.” Then it hits you: The air smells great out here. The landscape, previously just a wooshing blur in the train’s window, is suddenly alive with colors and sounds.

So far, yes, homeschooling is an unqualified success. My daughter, 7, is healthier —mentally, emotionally, and physically. She actually eats her lunch now and spends at least two hours outside each day, unless the weather is dreadful and we can only bear an hour. We check on our blue heron friend who lives in the cemetery across the way. Then, we walk over to the brook to search for the skittish muskrat. We wave to “George,” the one-winged goose. We stare into the pond until the fish, settled so still on the bottom, suddenly become clear to our adjusting eyes; for a quick glance, their camouflage is too successful. It takes patience. And time.

But we can do it. We have jumped off the train.

I always wanted to be a governess like those I read about in my 18th and 19th century British literature classes. Now, I feel like one.

My daughter’s academic skills, especially in math, have leaped forward. We do daily editing exercises, brain twisters, handwriting, traditional grammar, and yes, the drill work—spelling, vocabulary, and math problems. LOTS of math problems.

We also learn about the ancient world and look at maps of Mesopotamia and Egypt. She knows the location of all 50 states and their capitals. She knows why we have seasons and weather. We studied the parts of a cell yesterday. Best of all, my daughter can curl up in her chair by the sunny window and get buried in her latest novel series. She reads about 250 pages a day of her own choice reading, outside of her school “work.” She tries out magic tricks. She makes potholders. Or engagement rings out of Hershey’s kisses and pipe cleaners (see below).

We go ice skating on Friday mornings, and we attend a monthly homeschool meeting where my daughter says her memorized poem in front of a crowd of 50+ parents and children. Oh yeah. And we also go to the grocery store and pick up Daddy’s dry cleaning.

My daughter still has playdates. Still plays soccer. And, she’s made a bunch of new friends through two homeschool networks in our area.

Is it perfect? No. Does my daughter whine about math problems? Yes. Are there days I don’t feel like teaching a new grammar lesson and nights I don’t feel like checking workbooks and planning? Sure. But it’s better for all of us. So much better. Is it for every family? Every kid? No.

In fact, our other daughter, 5, who has Down syndrome, remains in the school system. She, in stark contrast to her sister, truly thrives in school. Her biggest leaps come after a particularly good week at school. God bless her teachers and therapists. We don’t know for sure what we’ll do with the three year old when his time comes. For the next two years, at least, he’s home with us. 

Our friend Ann Coulter graciously sits in for Jennifer Rubin this week and yes, there's a lot of Mittversation. Later, Ann calls Mickey on the carpet for some of his lefty views and she does the full press on Speaker Moonbase, immigration, and offers a spirited defense of RomneyCare. Nonetheless, Mickey does get Ann to seriously consider (gasp) joining the new union he's starting to defend against a particularly onerous boss.  

Everyone can listen in below. Members, subscribe and get this podcast on your mobile device (and get the direct link) here. But do what we do and listen on Stitcher.

Thanks once again to the incomparable  EJHill for the illustration.

The story of Whittaker Chambers, a man “caught in a tragedy of history,” unfolds like Shakespearian drama. His masterpiece, Witness, is a tale of suffering and redemption, of Communist turned anticommunist, which crystallizes what was at stake, morally, in the West’s struggle against Communism (“You have not come back from hell with empty hands,” Andre Malraux told Chambers in 1952, two years after Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury). Witness‘ “Foreword in the Form of a Letter to my Children” is worth the cost of the book alone (it’s worth much more than that), and here is an excerpt from it:

Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom . . . The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God . . . Communism is the central experience of the first half of the 20th century, and may be its final experience–will be, unless the free world, in the agony of its struggle with Communism, overcomes its crisis by discovering, in suffering and pain, a power of faith which will provide man’s mind, at the same intensity, with the same two certainties: a reason to live and a reason to die.

In its sweeping and gloomy analysis of the state of the West, Witness offers an entire world of wisdom that is relevant to our culture today. But sadly, it largely remains an unread book, even among conservatives.

But maybe that will soon change. Conservative cultural commentator Mark Judge, one of my favorite writers on the scene, is behind a forthcoming documentary called, The Whittaker Chambers Story. The spark behind the project was the power of Chambers’s story: “The story is so so incredibly dynamic and lends itself so well to film that I knew it could be great,” Judge explains. “But it’s very expensive to do, and Hollywood isn’t going to do it. But I decided to do it anyway—the technology has largely leveled the playing field where we can do these things.”

According to its website, the film will be,

a feature-length documentary about Whittaker Chambers, whose book Witness is a political and spiritual classic. Chambers had insight into the human condition that transcended his time. He was a member of the communist party in the 1920s but after years of secrecy revealed his past – and fingered Alger Hiss. The Chambers-Hiss case was the trial of the 20th Century; the story had espionage, revenge, thrilling escapes and even a subtext of homosexuality. More than a simple spy story from the 1950s, the Chambers story touches on humankind’s quest for utopias—and the role of suffering in triggering fanaticism. 

“The story of Chambers,” as Judge tells me, “is essentially a religious story, the story of a soul.” Judge, working with director Paul Moon and executive producer Stana Benesova Kimball, hope to create a film that captures “the poetic and spiritual energy” of Witness.

Here’s a sneak peak of the documentary.

The Whittaker Chambers Story | Teaser from H. Paul Moon on Vimeo.

Though a release date has not been set, the trio hope to finish the film by the end of this year. Judge says, “We’re all doing this pro bono. . . we can gripe about Hollywood or we can do it ourselves and support our own. Find us as whittakerchambersfilm.com.”

The Sixth Circuit ruled today (in Ward v. Polite) that the First Amendment prohibits a university from expelling a student because it doesn't agree with the student's speech and faith. That might sound like a no-brainer, but in fact, the Sixth Circuit was reversing a lower court decision that had summarily dismissed a lawsuit filed by Julea Ward, a student in Eastern Michigan University's graduate-level counseling program. Ed Whelan at NRO Bench Memos summarizes the gist of Ward's lawsuit:

Ward’s Christian religious beliefs prevented her from counseling clients in a manner that would affirm same-sex or extramarital relationships. When the university asked Ward, as part of a student practicum, to counsel a gay client, she asked either that the client be referred to another student or that she be permitted to begin counseling and to make a referral if the counseling session turned to same-sex relationship issues. The university’s ultimate response was to expel Ward from the graduate program. (Emphasis mine.)

Not that the university has anything against counselors making referrals, in general.  It has rules allowing referrals for all sorts of reasons, including "values." But referrals based on religious belief, evidently, are beyond the pale. Bizarrely, the university expelled Ward on the grounds that she was trying to impose her beliefs on others, when she had been scrupulously trying to avoid a situation in which she might be tempted to do so. 

The district court granted "summary judgment" to the university -- in other words, the court said that Ward had no First Amendment case even if she could prove all of her allegations. So it stopped the case from even going to trial. Now, the Sixth Circuit did not say that the university definitely did violate Ward's right.  But the Court did say that Ward's case deserves to go to trial because if she can prove her allegations, then she will have a valid First Amendment claim. 

Or, on the other hand, maybe not:

If you've got about a minute and a half, it's worth watching this video of Slovakian violinst Lukas Kmit, who manages to work with that irritating Nokia ringtone.

Over the past several weeks we've seen the Republican presidential race increasingly framed as a fight between the GOP establishment and conservative insurgents. Following that development, a number of thoughtful critics -- some of them here at Ricochet -- have wondered aloud whether an "establishment" really exists or whether it's just a clever way of caricaturing one's opponents within the party as insufficiently conservative. That was the note that Jeb Bush sounded to Time Magazine when he recently told the publication, "I don't know what the Republican establishment is. I haven't learned the secret handshake, and I don't know where to go for a membership card."

While it's true that there's no shadowy cabal meeting in a safe room under the Lincoln Memorial, anyone who doesn't think there are party grandees trying to impose their will on primary voters is deluding themselves.

I say this by way of introducing a bit of information I received yesterday from a very well-placed source. A veteran member of the House Republican Caucus recently received a phone call from within the RNC (it was not disclosed to me who placed the call) soliciting his help in convincing Newt Gingrich to step aside and clear a path to the nomination for Mitt Romney. Whoever cooked up this idea was not exactly firing on all cylinders, since (A) the member in question, despite considerable seniority, is far from influential and (B) attempting to stand athwart Newt Gingrich's ambition is like sticking your head in a howitzer.

Remarkably, the member actually agreed to place the call. Gingrich's response? Well, it was a three-word phrase that began with "go" and ended with "yourself." I'd say Newt's insurgent bona fides are still intact.

One of the things I remember about Rick Santorum's performance last night was when he said something about how he'd never fallen for the global warming hoax, unlike Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. The global warming lobby does not like it when people deny that global warming is a problem requiring expensive and ill-conceived solutions. Immediately the media attempted to rebut Santorum's comment by arguing that everyone knows global warming will kill us all within 3 years (or something).

Sixteen scientists discuss the "growing consensus" against freaking out over global warming in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. Some excerpts:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed. ...

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

Sounds reasonable enough. Particularly when compared to the claims of global warming hypers.

Yes, the main loser I have in mind is Bob Dole – aptly (and cruelly) described long ago by Newt Gingrich as “the tax collector for the welfare state.” And, yes, yes, you remember it right: Dole was the fellow who was always trying to raise taxes back in the days of the Reagan administration. But keep in mind: Dole is not alone in his preferences. John McCain has in this contest endorsed the same candidate.

Dole was, if you remember, the Republican standard-bearer in 1996, and he ran a lackluster campaign worthy of comparison with the two campaigns of Thomas E. Dewey, the election campaign of Gerald Ford, the re-election campaign of George H. W. Bush, and the campaign of John McCain. His aim was to be Democrat-lite; he came across as the living dead; and, like these other fellows, he lost.

A while ago, Dole endorsed Mitt Romney, the proud father of the model for Obamacare. Yesterday, he re-emerged to lay into Newt Gingrich, and it is clear that he blames the Speaker of the House for his loss in 1996:

In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.

The Democrats are spending millions of dollars running negative ads against Romney as they are hoping that Gingrich will be the nominee which could result in a landslide victory for Obama and a crushing defeat for Republicans from the courthouse to the White House. Democrats are not running ads against Gingrich which is further proof they want to derail Governor Romney.

When a guy like Dole loses, you see, it is always someone else’s fault.

There is, of course, a case to be made against Newt Gingrich – and Dole makes it with considerable force:

Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.

Gingrich served as Speaker from 1995 to 1999 and had trouble within his own party. By 1997 a number of House Republican members wanted to throw him out as Speaker. But he hung on until after the 1998 elections when Newt could read the writing on the wall. His mounting ethics problems caused him to resign in early 1999. I know whereof I speak as I helped establish a line of credit of $150,000 to help Newt pay off the fine for his ethics violations. In the end, he paid the fine with money from other sources.

Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with President Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics like shutting down the government helped to topple Gingrich in 1998.

Dole’s attack on Gingrich is self-serving. It is intended to provide an excuse for his own fecklessness as a candidate. But this does not necessarily mean that it is wrong. I am hard-pressed to deny what Dole says in these paragraphs. I have spoken with a former House member who was close to Gingrich, and he confirmed the outlines of this tale. “You never knew what he was going to do,” he told me, laughing and shaking his head.

None of this, however, means that Dole’s final statement is reassuring:

In my opinion if we want to avoid a sweeping victory by Obama in November, Republicans should nominate Governor Romney as our standard bearer. He could win because he has the requisite experience in the public and private sectors. He would be a president in whom we could have confidence and he would make us proud.

Here you need to read that statement twice to get the gist. Dole does not say (or think) that Romney will win. He is in his enthusiasm as tepid as tepid can be. He says (and perhaps thinks) that with a lot of luck the proud father of Romneycare might just eke out a victory. After all, he implies, one never knows.

What Dole is willing to assert with some measure of confidence is that Romney will avert “a sweeping victory by Obama in November.” Dole has identified the former Governor as a good loser – who will not do all that much harm to the Republicans running for the Senate or House.

If I thought that Dole was wrong in this last assessment, I would announce my preference for Gingrich. But let’s face it, folks, the criticism he directs at Gingrich and that which I and others have directed at Romney are equally sound.

Mitt Romney is now and has from the start been the only serious candidate in the Republican race, and he is not a man that any sane conservative could be excited about supporting. His record is that of a managerial progressive; he has been elected to office only once in his life; and his conduct in office ruled out his seeking re-election. He is neither a conservative nor a likely winner.

This makes Romney the ideal Republican nominee. He is a losers’ loser – the sort of fellow who will warm the cockles of a loser’s heart. His victory in the party sweepstakes will confirm once again the hegemony within the Republican Party of the managerial progressives, and his loss in the general election will reaffirm within the nation democracy’s soft despotic drift. That is the disposition of things that best suits the Thomas E. Deweys, the Gerald Fords, the George Bushes, the Bob Doles and the John McCains of the world. It was not within the capacity of these men to imagine that one might be able to roll back the administrative entitlements state.

I wrote these words last night before the debate, then stored the draft, thinking that it would be more timely after the event. I would amend it now in one particular. In the previous debates, Mitt Romney came on like a CEO speaking to the board of a company he heads. The tone was managerial; the aim was to demonstrate a mastery of the details and genuine expertise. When speaking to their company's employees, CEOs tend to do the same thing. I was on the receiving end of a fair amount of this sort of rhetoric when I taught at the University of Tulsa. Each new President had an initiative, and in explaining it he droned on and on. It never got anyone excited in the slightest.

Nor did Romney as a candidate. He seemed competent but boring, and he was utterly uninspiring. Forget anger. He lacked fire. It was as if he was putting himself to sleep as he reeled off the spiel that he had memorized in anticipation of addressing the question put to him. He was bloodless, lifeless, and lacked luster. Almost never did he touch anyone's heart. Like your run-of-the-mill CEO (or college President), he left you wondering whether he even had a heart.

Newt Gingrich may not be presidential timber. He is almost certainly a loose canon. But he did Mitt Romney no end of good by bloodying him and defeating him handily in South Carolina. For, last night, for the first time Mitt Romney showed fire. Thanks, no doubt, in part to Michele Bachman's debate coach, thanks in part to desperation, he demonstrated a capacity to get his act in order that we did not know that he possessed. Anger is not prequisite. Spiritedness is. No candidate who fails to take the fight to his rivals can succeed in politics. Romney's record is that of a loser. We have repeatedly witnessed what it is that he lacks. Last night, however, he showed that he may be reluctant to do so but he really can learn from his mistakes.

I hope that Rick Santorum surges and beats Romney in Florida. It will, I think, take at least one more thrashing for the man to learn his lesson. If he does not relapse, however, if he abandons CEO-speak once and for all, if he learns from Gingrich how to frame issues and address them forcefully and succinctly, if he masters the art of speaking directly from the heart to ordinary human beings not in the manner of a business-school professor but as a profoundly concerned fellow citizen, he might actually win -- and in articulating the requisite arguments, he will find himself inexorably drifting further and further to the right. You could see it happening last night.

National Journal reports that Newt Gingrich leads 41-20 among Florida tea party voters. Among those who do not support the tea party, Romney trounces 47-24. I know that anything could happen in the next couple of days, but with Romney's fantastic debate performance last night, and with all of the early voting he'd locked up back when he was inevitable, this should be an easy win for him in Florida.

Now, I'm an original Gingrich critic -- I have often joked about how bad so many of his ideas are. I also struggle with Romney and everything you need to know about why was said -- by him, no less -- in one sentence last night. I was hoping against hope that somehow we could get to a brokered convention. And yes, I realize that it was always an almost impossible dream.

But I am interested and possibly worried in how Romney is winning this nomination. And it's not even Romney so much as those around him. The establishment really did flip out over the possibility of Gingrich winning the nomination and winning the presidency. I was at one of those D.C. cocktail parties on Wednesday night (an awesome bash with people from all over town) and people really were just openly mocking the idea of Gingrich. I'm fine with that but wondering why people aren't more critical of Romney.

Even little things. Today we learn that Jeb Bush has told National Review that it's "ridiculous" for Gingrich to point out that Romney's Florida operation includes folks who worked for Charlie Crist. But did Jeb Bush think it was "ridiculous" for Romney to criticize Jon Huntsman for working for Obama? Why not? More importantly, what in the world is ridiculous about pointing something like that out?

Now, Romney has a wonderful operation, an airtight campaign with the discipline of Obama's 2008 campaign. He is to be commended for this. But I wonder if the establishment are thinking about how they're going after those portions of the party that aren't enthused by Romneycare and Obamacare. What will the downticket effects be? Am I worried over nothing? Will opposition to Obama simply carry the day?

Jonathan Martin of Politico tweeted a link to an article yesterday with this nugget:

Mitt adviser on why some downmarket Rs can't warm to Mitt: "They like preachers"

Ah yes, we cling to our God and our guns, basically.

I'm elated that Mitt Romney is learning how to debate more effectively. He had a great first half of the debate last night. But I'm wondering how we downmarket types will view this over the long run. In other words, does it help Romney or hurt Romney that he was most passionate and articulate and effective when debating the conservatives' pick but stammering through debates otherwise?

I'm really just thinking this through -- which means I should probably think some more before posting on this. But what do you think the long-term effects of a Romney nomination victory are? Is there something he could do to reach out more to conservatives and independents who don't love the establishment? Do you see those downmarket activists who like their preachers coming out and helping him and other establishment favorites on the road to November?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I believe we saw the most competitive portion of the Republican presidential primaries end with the  debate in Jacksonville, Florida tonight. Coming into the evening, Mitt Romney had regained the lead in the Sunshine State, up eight on Newt Gingrich in the most recent polling from Rasmussen. Newt needed one of his patented  knockout punches to stay in this thing. Unfortunately for him, the former Speaker was the one who ended up with his back on the canvas.

This was certainly the most lively debate we've seen so far, though Wolf Blitzer wandered off course a few times as moderator (allowing the discussion of space policy to take up nearly 20 minutes, asking the candidates why their wives would make good first ladies). I'll dispense with an analysis of Ron Paul's performance, as even he now seems to realize how irrelevant his candidacy will be to the outcome of this campaign.

The best performance of the night belonged to Rick Santorum, the one man on stage not named Ron Paul who seemed to have the courage of his convictions. Santorum had grace notes throughout, whether making a space policy very similar to Newt's seem reasonable by comparison (particularly elegant was his reference to America as "a frontier nation"), waxing poetic about the people of Latin America's God-given right to liberty, or using the vapid first lady question to paint a genuinely touching picture of his family as one whose love has only been strengthened by adversity.

Most remarkable, however, was his offensive against both Gingrich and Romney on their health care apostasies. Santorum clearly managed to get under Romney's skin with his relentless attacks on the Massachusetts healthcare reform law, leading to a moment that will stick in the craw of the Romney resistance for a long time to come: when the former governor brushed aside Santorum's criticism of Romneycare's individual mandate with a dismissive "it's not worth getting angry about." The governor -- particularly when attempting to cultivate votes -- ought to remember that's not a decision he gets to make.

Apart from that exchange, however -- and a smattering of his trademark plasticity throughout -- this had to score as Romney's best debate performance over the entire course of the campaign. He reportedly had a new debate coach helping him out prior to this performance. Whatever he's paying the man isn't enough. Gone was the stammering, parsing technocrat, replaced by a candidate who had just enough of Newt Gingrich's fire but none of his brimstone.

Romney was ready for every one of Newt's attacks. Whether the Speaker was targeting Romney's "investments" in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his immigration policy, or his personal finances, a fascinating pattern emerged: Romney would disassemble the argument, present it back to Newt, and then Gingrich would either concede part of Romney's point or seem flummoxed as to how to follow up. This Newt looked like someone the Newt from December would have eaten for breakfast. Even his hallmark tactic of castigating the media fell flat (which should have been predictable given that Newt chose to employ the practice when Wolf Blitzer brought up the topic of Romney's tax returns -- an issue that Newt himself brought front and center in the run-up to the South Carolina primary).

Apart from a spirited defense of Israel towards the debate's conclusion, Newt was phenomenally bad, particularly by the standards of his usual debate performances. Throughout the evening, he looked petty, petulant, and weak. And if you are one of those people who has been considering him because he is such an ironclad debater ... well, he also started to look like a bad investment.  

Romney, who had renewed momentum coming in, finished well. Gingrich, whose stock was already in decline, faltered. Santorum, though at the peak of his powers, came off as Romney's most deft critic rather than as a serious electoral threat. Need I draw the conclusion for you from there? Next week is starting to look very good for Romney; which means every week thereafter is starting to look very dim for everyone else.

I missed the exchange, but, after reading Mollie's post below, I went looking for it--and found that it had already been put up on YouTube.

Why I still can't support Mitt Romney:

Liberty--liberty--"not worth getting angry about."  That would have come as news to certain residents of Massachusetts, including John Hancock, John Adams, and, come to think of it, all those who participated in the very first tea party.

Missed the first 15 minutes of the debate (family duties), dipped in for 15, as those who participated in our live chat will know, but then had to scoot (a certain fourteen-year old had to be driving to school for a basketball game). 

Paul Rahe?  Troy Senik?  Bereket?  JamesOfEngland?  Somebody help me?

What'd I miss?

Update at 7:40PM Pacific: While I was typing this, Mollie put up a post of her own on the debate, immediately below.  I hereby (sheepishly) withdraw my plea for help, asking folks to post in Mollie's comment thread instead.  Will educate myself there.

What were the moments you remember from tonight's debate? For me, it was when Mitt Romney responded to Rick Santorum's rather effective breakdown of some of the flaws in Romneycare. Among other problems that he cited with what became the blueprint for Obamacare was the individual mandate:

 “In Massachusetts, everybody is mandated as a condition of breathing to buy health insurance,” Mr. Santorum said. “And if you don’t, you have to pay a fine.”

 Mr. Romney sought to brush back his opponent, saying, “It’s not worth getting angry about.”

Up to that point, Romney was having an amazing debate. He recently hired Michele Bachmann's old debate coach and boy did it show. He was passionate and knowledgeable. He was pummeling Newt Gingrich to a bloody pulp. He did say a few things that were incorrect (he said he hadn't put out a particular ad, he said he never voted for a Democrat when he could have voted for a Republican and he said his Fannie and Freddie investments were in a blind trust), but overall he was doing great.

But not only do I know that issues of liberty are worth getting angry about, I want my presidential candidates to know that, too. That Romney doesn't is a huge flaw, even if destroying Obamacare weren't the one issue that unites much of the country.

What were the moments that stuck out for you?

Marco Rubio cannot be Vice President.

That's, at least, what this latest Reuters hit piece would like you to believe.  Following on the heels of the Washington Post's invented story about Marco Rubio's "embellishment" of his family history, Reuters claims a presidential candidate wouldn't dream of selecting Rubio as a running mate because of his embarrassing financial history and his contempt for Hispanics. 

The only problem with Reuters' narrative is that it depends on a string of completely fabricated statements.  The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis has done the yeoman's work of debunking the story here.  He counted seven—seven!—errors in the story.  We editors found an eighth.  Reuters claims:

He also voted against Obama's healthcare overhaul, which is popular among many low-income Hispanics.

"He's on the wrong side on every issue that matters to Hispanics," said Fernand Amandi with Bendixen & Amandi, a political consulting firm in Miami that has been retained by the Obama campaign. "He's going to have to answer to those positions."

While we're certain Marco Rubio would have voted against ObamaCare if he could have, the fact of the matter is that Marco Rubio became a Senator on January 3, 2011. ObamaCare—the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"—was passed in the Senate on December 24, 2009 and signed into law on March 23, 2010.

The takeaway: If media hit pieces must rely on false dirt with which to smear Sen. Rubio, there's probably no real dirt out there.  He'd make for a pretty ideal VP pick.

This is something of a departure for us. Well, not something of one -- it's a total departure, but we think you'll love it.  James and British DJ Eddie Temple Morris play and discuss some of their favorite tracks of 2011. Delingpole as Ricochet's Dick Clark? Groovy, man. 

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Thanks,  EJ.