What makes you think that Romney wouldn't be persuaded by an ideologically strong and passionately supported Conservative Congress?

Get the right people in Congress and then it doesn't matter if our President is a little wishy-washy.  I would prefer a strong conservative, but that might not be an option.  I'll take the guy who can be motivated by loyalty to those who elected him over a guy who seeks to reshape our country.

Right on!  Brown found a new revenue stream.  Tuition hikes!  Maybe he can link that to increased Federal Funding for Student Loans.  

This is why we have primaries.  If you don't think Mitt is the best representative for Conservative views, then vote for another candidate in the primary.  I just hope that the candidate you vote for is genuinely conservative...well, except most of the actual conservatives have left the race.  Santorum seems like all that remain in that camp -- you really have to be just anti-Romney to actually believe Gingrich is a heart felt conservative and not an opportunist.  

The fact is that the Supreme Court is a big deal.  So is Obamacare.  If we have a conservative Congress and a Romney, they will be able to pressure his selections and spur on the repeal of the law.  Bush saw what happened when he tried to nominate a "moderate," Romney would get the same.  

If Obama is re-elected, things will be much worse.  He has already demonstrated that he will use Agency authority to override Congress.  If one assumes Ds and Rs have equal registration, Rs actually lag, a vote for a 3rd party or a non-vote amounts to a 1/2 vote for Obama.  The truth is worse.

To not vote is to vote Obama.

The greatest weakness that has been used against the Republican party historically is when they argue for legislation or actually legislate in ways that exceed Constitutional authority in order to advance socially conservative ends.  The use of government force in the War on Drugs, or attempts to use the congressional pulpit to regulate content in entertainment, are only some of the ways that the Republican party has continued to contribute to the power creep of the State.

If the Republican party truly values the republic established by the Founders, and holds Natural Right doctrines to be valuable, then they need to become more libertarian in legislative practice.  

It has been too long since the people have had a major party fight for a truly limited government, and it is direly in need of one.

I admire those who make their opinions clear and support the candidate that most matches their preferences.  That is what this process is all about. 

Rebecca manages to share why she prefers Newt over Romney in a very thoughtful manner.  In fact, though I favor Romney over Newt, I admit that her concerns are legitimate.  

I like Romney on a number of issues, but Romneycare is a concern.  Like Rebecca, I don't necessarily trust the man who created Romneycare to fight furiously to repeal Obamacare.  But I don't think this comes down to just the Presidential race.  We need a Tea Party fueled election that brings into power a strong conservative Congress.  This Congress will have the influence to persuade Romney, he seems to respond to constituent pressure historically.

The Tea Party of Florida gave us Rubio.  Thank heaven for them.  The Tea Party of Nevada gave us Angle and Sandoval... Nevada's Tea Party is batting .500.  

I advise Rebecca, and those like her, to advocate Newt strongly during the primary.  Support him and vote for him.  Then vote against Obama regardless of candidate in the fall -- down the whole ticket.  

My prayers are with Santorum and his family. What a blessing children are to a parent's life. Santorum is right, "they are worth every tear."

Mothership Greg,

Thanks for linking the Hayward piece.  My favorite quote:

"No, we need a Congress that will repeal Obamacare; the President cannot do so all by himself."

Those who hate Romney and/or Newt should keep this in mind.  This election is important.  It is about getting a more conservative president that Obama, sure, but it is also about maintaining and increasing the size of a conservative legislature.  

Hayward also mentions a book that one of my mentoring professors, John Marini, edited which adds a "lessen opposition due to positive association" weight to his arguments for me.  

I think I've written this before.  If California still matters by June, I'll vote for Mitt -- baring some major changes.  But I'll vote happily and passionately for Gingrich against Obama.  All of Gingrich's failures toward the left are significantly diluted by his overall conservatism.

Romney has moved right over his career and is at a place I like.  Gingrich has fluctuated erratically, but he seems to have a firm conservative Polaris that he keeps returning to.

It's interesting to see some people's reactions to the questions and score.  Particularly interesting are those who view a low score as a "good thing."  Certainly, education and a successful career are good things, but to have those at the expense of an understanding that those things are rare seems to be a bad thing.  One cannot understand the plight of the average citizen, if one doesn't understand the plight of the average citizen -- with real experience and not by reading "pop non-fiction books" about them.

I tire of those who write about the evils of TV.  It is so staid.

As for Jimmie Johnson...given that he is the Michael Schumacher of NASCAR, I'm surprised how many people have never heard about him.  

Knowledge of him and Junior Johnson (who you can read about in this Esquire article by Tom Wolfe) are required in my extended family...as is a love of grits and ham hocks.  

71 -- I grew up in a working class family who came from the South, but moved to the Western United States.  I worked in construction supply to pay for my undergraduate education, watched most of the movies and tv shows, have wanted to visit Branson, have a wide variety of friends, and know a great deal about NASCAR.  I am also in the first generation of my family to go to college and my father, grandfather, uncle, and great uncles served in various branches of the military.

I asked earlier for names of those in "the establishment."  This is partly because I believe who one considers to be in the establishment depends on where one wants the party to go and who is preventing the party from going in that direction.  Your post did nothing to change my mind.  According to your "the establishment" consists of at least:

"A veteran member of the House Republican Caucus" and someone who gave them "a phone call" who is in turn "within the RNC."

So... is Reince Priebus, who says the Gingrich-Romney war is a good thing, a member of "the establishment?"

How can a former Speaker of the House not be a member of any said establishment?  Especially when he was not only speaker, but one of the most influential faces of the party and still makes a career in punditry?

In a general, I'll vote for Newt over Obama.  I'll do so with fire and passion.

I do not want to do so, as I find Newt wanting as a primary candidate.  I am nowhere near the establishment.  People like Peter Robinson and Troy Senik, other here as well, are much closer than I.

Like Austen Murray, I too was in a fraternity -- Sigma Pi.  And like Austen and Fred, I find the story Lohse is telling to be incredible.  By which I mean utterly lacking in credibility.

I'm not saying that there was no "hazing" in my pledge period, just that what Lohse describes is absurd. 

The only person here who seems to have a genuine complaint is Aubart.  The fact that a fraternity had members arrested for drug use isn't a particularly noble thing and ought to have led to a loss of charter and action from active alumni, not the ostracizing of a young man doing the right thing. I'd like to know more of Aubart's story and not Lohse's.. 

I'd like to read some of the comments by women who work in the media here.  While there aren't many women "behind the camera" in TV in comparison to men, is this because they are excluded or because young women don't typically view this as a real option for them.  In other words, is the recruiting pool for female directors small due to self selection?

So I guess I can just throw out that idea of making a board game based on the wanderings of the Rus people.  Man.

"I think there are lots of people who have been woken up to the essential evil of abortion by the moral passion of those who "cry aloud and spare not"."

I don't know how many people have been awoken by the moral passion of those who "cry aloud and spare not."  I imagine it is more than one and less than everyone.  I don't denounce those who use holocaust imagery as using it inappropriately in the sense of inaccuracy of scale.  Certainly that is true.

Where I think it fails is that it is an argument that cannot overcome the very problem in our culture, the nihilism of those who don't value life.  The cult of amoral non-empathy cannot be persuaded by a righteous indignation for something they don't recognize.

They don't see the unborn as living.  They aren't thinking in a teleological manner.  There is no-thing there at all.  How can you convince someone that the killing of a non-thing is the same as systematic murder of sentient beings?  You cannot.

The key is to overcome the apathy and non-empathy.  To create a culture of Life! 

Katievs,

I wanted to highlight this quote because it is exactly what I was saying.

"To me it's not the "affirmative hatred" that's the essence of the evil of the holocaust; its rather the de-humanization of a whole class of persons."

What I call nihilistic absence of malice is your dehumanization of a whole class of persons.

Nihilistic absence of malice is, to me, horrifying.  To be able -- even for a moment -- to have no ability to induct to the Teleological ends of the act of conception is unfathomable and inhuman.  How can one not immediately imagine the life story of a growing child? 

To be able to deny that a fetus is a child...  To remove any capacity for empathy for the unborn... is to be the Last Man.  One must have no true capacity for love, save maybe for the self.

Some can be tricked into this state for a time, but I don't think that can last if a person has any capacity for empathy.

I have always felt that comparisons of the horrible consequences of abortion to the holocaust fall flat rhetorically. Those who perform abortions and those who defend the "right" to kill the unborn don't do so out of some affirmative hatred of the unborn. There is little rhetoric (outside of the Zero Population Growth movement) asserting that the unborn are a virus, a cancer, or are vermin.

No, the greatest tragedy is that the killing of the unborn is done with a nihilistic absence of malice. There is a genuine amoral and apathetic lack of empathy for the unborn. When I found out that my wife was pregnant, I knew I was a father and I loved that child instantly. I imagined his/her future immediately. I empathized with something that had just begun to live. This isn't true of those who advocate abortion or perform it.

They are not holocaust deniers, they are the Last Man.

"Lo! I show you the Last Man.
 "What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" -- so asks the Last Man, and blinks."