Well, however tonight turns out it appears Rick Santorum is being given his chance. I particularly liked the analogy that makes the boyish Santorum Luke Skywalker, but whether the X-Wing takes down the well-coiffed Death Star Santorum’s doggedness and convictions appear to be paying off. And for those of you who comment at FrumForum even David Brooks is now on board! Only a month later than your humble scribe.

If Santorum wins Iowa his lack of money and the make-up of New Hampshire mean a loss there. But South Carolina and Florida are different matters. South Carolina is a manufacturing state, as well as a social conservative state. His message may do very well there, if Perry, Newt and Bachman are out, and he ought to have the resources to get that message out. Florida however requires money for television advertisements. You can’t shoe leather your way to victory in the Sunshine State.

Whatever the result there are few more gratifying spectacles than clean living, hard work and commitment to principle being rewarded somewhere.

Vaclav Havel has died. I did not spend time on his plays but read his essays avidly. He was a great hero of the free. One of the things I admired about him, as noted in this piece, is his disregard for his own crowd’s leftist pieties. He never ceased to criticize Castro and Cuba for the elimination of human rights and self-government. He also supported the removal of the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

His greatest impact is on Central Europe. Not only did he become the last President of Czechloslovakia but the first of the Czech Republic. The Velvet separation of those two slavic nations contrasts vividly with the Yugoslav experience. It is rare that poets succeed in statecraft but the transition from Communism to freedom, from one Republic to two, and from the Warsaw Pact to Nato was not easy and was more likely to go awry than to succeed. He had a hand in each. Of the greatest champions of free men in the 80’s only Walesa and Thatcher yet live. There were giants in those days.

I have not commented on the recent Tom Edsall piece on the Democrats abandoning the white working class but Michael Barone does so here. An interesting nugget in that article is that Obama won a greater share of the vote than all but three Democratic Presidents but:

[H]e did it without capturing the vast middle of the electorate. He won with a top-and-bottom coalition, carrying voters with incomes over $200,000 and under $50,000 and losing those in between. He carried voters with graduate school degrees and those with no high school diplomas and ran only even with the others.

What this means is President Obama is uniquely situated to benefit from both those in Occupy Wall Street and, well, Wall Street. By running up huge numbers in the under $50,000 a year bracket, and bringing in donations and support from the highly influential over $200,000 demographic he does not need to actually win the broad middle class upon which most Presidents have had to rely for victory. This means that when income and wealth discrepancy’s become greater Obama wins. Further, when the middle class shrinks (to be fair) by either increasing the wealthy or the poor Obama wins.

Now, obviously he is going to get many votes from the broad middle class but that is not where his margin of victory lies. A question for Democrats is do they want to be, and can America afford to have, a political party that wins specifically by running up large totals in those alienated from American life by poverty and insulated from it by wealth? It seems to me that all past Democratic Presidents would emphatically say no. How about this one?

Ok Axelrod, whatever the Mormon Mitt Romney may be, it’s not a member of a Martini Party.

Walter Russell Meade captures something about the current moment that can be overlooked to easily. Ron Paul and Barack Obama are forces for Americas that don’t and can’t exist anymore. The America where 90% of the people farm is not coming back.

But less acknowledged is that the post-war America that dominated manufacturing, could spend on social programs and where most people trusted the Government and large institutions to solve problems, and had many more young people than old, is not coming back either.

President Obama tried to stir up a little Teddy Roosevelt in Kansas (not Texas as he apparently thought) but when Teddy Roosevelt gave his speech Government spending was about 8% of GDP, now its about 40%. It’s as if he called on Roosevelt’s ghost to warn about the growing power of Czarist Russia.

The world has moved on and the Federal Government’s main contact with Americans is not the post office as it was in Roosevelt’s day. There was no income tax in 1910. There was no social security. No medicare. The peacetime military was tiny. Thus 75% of the budget items we now have barely existed then. And we were a young country. Demographically there were many workers for every “retiree” (a concept that barely existed then). The Federal deficit in 1910 was eleven million dollars and the next year would be a surplus larger than that.

It is one thing to call for more federal spending and power when there is virtually none and another to call for it when it is choking off American prosperity. I don’t think Hamilton would be a Hamiltonian now. The Republicans are not for spending more than we have forever. The Democrats are. The Senate has not produced a budget in two years. President Obama produced one that projected deficits forever and was voted down practically unanimously.

I don’t think Mitt Romney is going to address this problem in any concrete way and I don’t think Newt Gingrich has the steadfastness to do so even if he were to be elected. Whatever is going to be done-if anything is before disaster strikes as it is striking Europe-must come from Congress. That is not a prospect that cheers.

Here is an update my article on Catholic University and same-sex dorms.

Via Ed Whalen at Bench Memos I have learned that the D.C. Human Rights Commission has rejected the claim that Catholic University can not have same-sex dorms. While not the last word on the law the DCHR is highly influential in the DC Courts on this topic. Its a win for religious freedom and common sense.

Well the punditry has pretty much come down to determining that Republican choices are Gingrich or Romney. Here’s the big Kahuna of Conservative Commentary on that very subject.

In my quest to avoid voting for Romney I have pretty much picked through the remainders of announced candidates this year. In that piece I ruled out Perry and Huntsman and my criticisms are only more justified now. The best candidate for my money left early. In that piece I dismissed Bachman as unelectable and so she remains. I left Herman Cain before he claimed to be a man who, unbeknownst to his wife, paid the monthly bills of a woman he never slept with. Newt is not my guy either. Paul is obviously not for me.

But I never came back to Rick Santorum.

Senator Santorum, after a successful run in the House knocked off Harris Woford in a Senate race in 1994 to represent Pennsylvania. Woford had upset a former attorney general two years earlier to give a boost to the health care Democrat-style. The ruin of Hilary’s plan was his ruin. In domestic and foreign policy Santorum is easily the closest to the views I hold and has been fearless in fighting for them despite vitriol and slander that would cow other Republicans (see Romney, Mitt).

Pennsylvania is a state where President Obama is not doing to well, even with Scranton’s own Joe Biden at his side.

Senator Santorum has done well in debates. He is articulate and can defend conservative positions well—and he actually appears to hold those positions from conviction. He is excellent on foreign policy and on the threats this nation faces. He has an impeccable family life and walks the walk on marriage and family. As David has pointed out he has a good message to the Republicans who don’t sit in board rooms.

Why is he not the perfect Republican antidote to RomGrich? Sure, he has no obvious executive experience but neither do many on the stage. The real reason is because he lost his last run by double digit figures and because he is no longer a happy warrior. That run was the perfect storm against a Republican. It was 2006 before the surge worked in Iraq. He was pledged to reform social security in a state with more seniors than most. He had supported Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey alienating conservatives, and, in Bob Casey he was running against the son of a pro-life legend in Pennsylvania. George W. Bush was in his 6^th year.

When Santorum ran against Woford he was young and charged up. In these debates he seems annoyed and peevish. When you are going to make a long shot campaign for President as a conservative Catholic you have got to have a spring in your step. In comparison I give you two Irishmen from opposite ends of American life. Pat Buchanan, who entered a primary against a sitting President, discovered middle class grievance and had the time of his life. A far as politics goes you’d be hard pressed to find an angrier politician than Buchanan but when he went into a fordoomed race his joire de guerre was palpable. It was also infectious.

On the other end of Hibernian politics is Senator Chris Dodd. He ran a quixotic campaign for President where he camped out in Iowa and had a ball. He thundered in patented Irish liberal style against the malefactors of great wealth, laughed in town halls and restaurants and seemed pleased to be taking a flyer in the big leagues even if he was never going to get a ticket to Manchester from Des Moines.

Whatever happens in Santorum’s life he has a big family, people who love him, and he’s fought the good fight for his country and his Church. When you do that, even if it is the “Long Defeat” you don’t have cause for sourness. Politically he has nothing to lose and can make a difference for those things he believes in. A glimpse of the glee of Newt Gingrich even when he was written off, or the joy of Herman Cain when he was known by no one would give Santorum a shot at lightening in a bottle in Iowa. They say there are three tickets out of Iowa. Whose to say Rick Santorum shouldn’t have one?

The head of a major union lauding a model where striking gets you shot?

Lord I miss George Meaney and Lane Kirkland.

Michael Barone points out the three big tax deductions which are hard to eliminate: the charitable deduction, the home mortgage interest deduction, and the state and local tax deduction.

I agree with him that elimination of the charitable deduction is wrong for Republicans. Home mortgage deductions could be eliminated for loans over $500,000 without eliminating middle class home ownership. (Though it would affect the building trades). But the real gold and political opportunity for Republicans is in State and local taxes.

As Michael points out, the highest earners who benefit the most from this deduction live in New York and California and vote Democratic. The most powerful and demagogic politicians from those states include Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer (millionaires all!). Other states with high tax state and local taxes are New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts. The tax foundation calculates that the state’s with the highest tax burden are New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Hawaii. Not coincidentally, not one Republican Senator exists in those states.

The long term economic benefits of such a move are obvious. First, it creates incentives to keep state tax burdens low by, for instance, paying state workers market rates. It lowers the deficit and makes federal receipts less dependent on state tax decisions. It creates incentives for people to move from high tax areas to more productive low tax areas.

The political benefits for Republicans are even greater. Imagine the arguments of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank opposing this proposal. They would either have to adopt Republican arguments (strengthening those arguments on the nature of taxes) or accept Republican proposals(fracturing their own base). The reduction or elimination of such deductions would set the “gentry liberals” and the government unions-natural Democratic allies-at each others throats.

The gentry liberals are often the high earners in democratic states most likely to be affected by the elimination of such deductions. The government unions are those who benefit when states are more insulated from the consequences of high cost government. The removal of the deduction would put pressure on those unions as states tried to cut costs. Moreover, for states that did not get the message, the movement of population away from them and towards states that did would accelerate the strengthening of Republicans in the House.

The best move for Republicans would be a gradual move to reduce the deduction. At first eliminate the deduction of state and local taxes for millionaires. Then work down from there. The issue would be alive for many election cycles-sapping Democratic strength each time. Those who pay no federal taxes would wonder why the Democrats were spending so much energy defending the rich. Democrats in the Far West, South, and Midwest would have to cast unpopular votes to support filibusters or votes protecting Hollywood fat cats and Wall Street denizens like John Corzine.

To the extent it was implemented it would create more synergies for Republicans. High earning liberal democrats would note they were paying even a more disproportionate share of the federal and state budget. Some might move to Republican states bolstering the tax base. In order to keep them, liberal states would be pressured to lower taxes and the size of local government.

No possible other proposal could so cause “confusion to the enemy” as the reduction or elimination of the state and local tax deduction. It would create stresses on the Democrats nationally by splitting Coastal from Western and Southern Democrats. It would put stresses on the Democratic coalition within states by severing the gentry liberals from the government unions. And it would also be a hard sell to the Democratic constituencies that pay no taxes. The more time the Democrats spent on defending the deduction the more alienated the non-taxpayers would be. Democrats have promised this part of the coalition “free money” for years. How can they explain cutting off a source of such “free money?”

This is a golden opportunity to 1) make the worst Democrats look bad 2) demoralize and divide the Democratic coalition nationwide; 3) demonstrate the rightness of the Republican view of taxes and incentives from the very mouths of its opponents; 4) tax liberals, 5) and to create a long term engine for lower taxes among the states. Even Grover Norquist should see the beauty of this, especially if it allowed a reduction in marginal rates.

It was November 1994. I was in Greece at the Temple of Delphi. As I walked the grounds of the ancient pagan oracle I saw a news kiosk. Approaching it, I spied the International Herald Tribune. Across its pages was the monumental news that after 50 years the Republicans had taken the House!

I vaulted into the air with a yell. Finding no drachmas on me (in that pre-Euro age) I cajoled my liberal democratic friend to give me the means to buy the paper. He hesitated. “Well, ok if we abide by a 24 hour gloat period and that’s it.”

I then eagerly read the news and the triumphant march of the former back bencher who had made life hell for the go-along-get-along-sing-along Bob Michaels, and Speakers O’Neal and Wright. Only the advent of Reagan and a Republican Senate in 1980 could have matched that. Taking the House, until then the Impenetrable Fortress Democrat, was in many ways a greater achievement.

That moment would not have happened absent Newt Gingrich. He was its instigator, General and true believer. The House fulfilled its promises and voted on all the items in the Contract with America. I obtained a “Friend of Newt Card”, common among young conservatives in Washington. So shell-shocked were the Democrats that a rattled President Clinton had to explain that the “President was still relevant.”

From that Republican take over came the boom years and balanced budgets of the Clinton Presidency. The last budget of the Democratic House posited “deficits as far as the eye could see.” By 1998 it was in virtual balance. Welfare reform-which had to be passed three times by Gingrich and the Republicans before a Dick Morris influenced Clinton to sign it is with us. It is perhaps the greatest conservative reform in 30 years. And that is Newt’s too.

But then there was the rest. Newt always talked apocalyptically. Jennifer Rubin notes Andy Ferguson’s review of Newt’s books and Lord help me if its not always 1860. Moreover, the pollster Frank Luntz did some work shaping the Contract with America and had taught Newt some words that worked well. He has never dropped them. “Extraordinary.” “Frankly” “Transformative.” Even now they pepper the debates and delineate the inimitable Newt style.

He allowed Clinton to blame the Government “shutdown” on Republicans and did not effectively counter that he was passing budgets and the President was vetoing them. He refused to understand that the Speaker of the House is not the Chief Executive and can not command the bully pulpit quite as well. He also seemed to want Clinton to like and respect him. During the shutdown he allowed a dispute on where he sat on a plane to become an issue.

His subalterns, including John Boehner, and the estimable Vin Weber could never know exactly what Newt was up to or what he had promised. Then came impeachment. I do not believe that the impeachment “was about sex” as the liberals love to say. President Clinton was the Chief Magistrate. He was a defendant in a legal case strengthened by a law he had signed. The oath matters or it does not matter. We can not be a nation of laws if the Chief Magistrate can lie under oath to defend his pocket book. The Judge in that case, a Democrat who Clinton had taught at law school, sanctioned him. He is disbarred to this very day. Clinton is the only man of whom it can be said he lacked the honesty and good character to be a lawyer but had enough to be President.

Be that as it may, public perception is public perception. That Gingrich had a wandering eye I knew from direct observation. Moreover, his present wife went to school with the crowd I ran with and the gossip from that small school meant we knew more than was in the papers. The story that he sprung divorce on a surprised and dying cancer stricken wife has been denounced as bunk by his children (and that wife is still alive). But conservatives particularly do not admire incontinence in personal life.

Then there are the wild gyrations of policy. I went to a conference once where the then Republican Arianna Huffington and Newt Gingrich appeared. It was all futurist twaddle that at minimum is in tension with conservatism. Early on he posited heating up farms with mirrors to increase crop yield but then switched to a belief in man made global warming. And yet… he still speaks and fights like no living Republican. I would watch Newt Gingrich talk about positronic farming before I would listen to virtually any other Republican candidate talk about anything.

But it’s not enough. George W. Bush has a famous story of how he stopped drinking and was a changed man after forty. That gave some confidence in him they had not had previously. He demonstrably lived his life differently. Newt converted to Catholicism but it does not seem like it has changed him. The bill at Tiffany is more Imelda Marcos than Mother Theresa. He seems like the same, eloquent, flawed visionary he was when I carried his card in my pocket.

I was for Pawlenty because this election has to be about Obama and his policies. If Newt is the nominee, it wont’ be. So I am still without a candidate.