David Frum argues that a “A Romney-Santorum contest is not much of a contest at all.” He’s probably right about this. Romney beats Santorum hands down in resources, organization, discipline, and support from GOP elites. But there’s one wild-card that could make things interesting: Santorum may somehow learn to master the art of retail politics.

Consider the way things worked: Santorum surged late in the campaign on the strength of a low-budget, high-effort campaign that brought him face-to-face with thousands of Iowa Republicans. Romney, although not possessed of the elitist vibe of George H.W. Bush and, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama, doesn’t give off that “I want to be his friend” feeling of true masters of the art of retail politics like Bill Clinton. But Santorum, who I’ve seen campaign up close and got to know casually while working in the Senate, didn’t either last I saw him.

If Santorum is something other than the “flavor of the week,”–and he may well be–it may be because he’s somehow learned new, almost unteachable skills and managed to increase his already decent personal charisma. And that could make things very interesting.

University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom has gotten a lot of well-deserved criticism for an error-ridden piece in The Atlantic that’s sets new records for academic elitism, distain, and distate for just about everything about his adopted state. Much as I abhor Bloom’s style–it represents just about everything that drove me away from my parents’ uber-left views–I think that his point that Iowa’s role in the presidential nominating contest is overblown has something to it.

At least on the Republican side, the nature of the Iowa process tends to give far too much power to forces and figures that do no good for the GOP or its cause. A closer look, however, shows that the real problem seems to have nothing to do with the Iowa voters and a lot to do with the way Iowa’s GOP runs the elections.

The election results don’t lie: even though plausible nominees have always finished on top, fringe figures like Pat Robertson (25 percent to eventual nominee George H.W. Bush’s 19 percent in 1988), Pat Buchanan (23 percent to eventual nominee Bob Dole’s 26 percent in 1996) and Alan Keyes (a surprisingly strong 14 percent third-place showing in 2000) have done gained credibility and power in Iowa that they simply couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. Whether he wins outright or finishes a strong second–one of the two seems inevitable–Ron Paul seems almost certain to join this motley role call. Giving more power to angry, bigoted, unelectable, conspiracy-minded types does any good for the GOP or the conservative movement in general.

That said, Iowa–a middle-American state with very good public education, a strong mix of different interests, and a political culture where neither party is utterly dominant–sure looks like a pretty good place to hold early primaries on the surface. Its elected officials from both parties tend to be sober-minded men (it has never sent a woman to Congress) near the center of their parties.

So what gives? The problem may really lie in the oddball “secret ballot caucus” that the Iowa GOP uses. People who want to make their voices heard in the GOP nominating process have to show up at local caucus meetings meetings, listen to an hour or two of speeches from locals who support candidates and then write the name of the candidate they favor on a blank sheet of paper that others (at least in theory) can’t see. Absentee voting isn’t allowed.

That process is a dream come true for fringe candidates. Because takes a long time on a school night, people with business, travel, and family commitments–hard-working, family-oriented people who make up the great bulk of the electorate that the GOP says it wants to target–often can’t be bothered to show up.

On the other hand, the secret nature of the ballot (most other caucuses, including those of Iowa’s Democratic Party, use an open ballot) means that nobody who casts a vote for a fringe candidate has to answer for it in front of their neighbors. The result is that people who don’t work, don’t have families at home, but are committed to wacky political theories are much more likely to caucus. Furthermore, the lack of true ballot-booth-type privacy in most settings means that peer pressure of whoever screams the loudest may well impact some votes.

The simplest answer to all of this would be for Iowa to switch to an election-like traditional primary where voting takes only a few minutes. If Iowans really can’t abide this, however, the GOP should at least consider switching to the less fringe-friendly open ballot caucus system that gets used everywhere else. In any case, the Iowa GOP would do itself, its state, and the Republican Party a favor if it changed the way its members select candidates.

As 2011 comes to a close, FrumForum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. Here is Eli Lehrer’s observation on the GOP leadership.

I’m not the first to make this comment, but the current debt limit debate shows what the Tea Party movement (which I once basically supported) really values: being a jerk. Speaker Boehner has a close-to-perfect voting record on conservative issues, is not terribly warm in person (heck, Newt comes across better) and has proposed a good, tough spending cut plan. But he has also demonstrated a modicum of willingness to work with the president and appears to want to bring the debt ceiling crisis to a close.

Eric Cantor—who may well become speaker before the end of the year—does not disagree with Boehner on any major issue including the debt plan but, unlike Boehner, Cantor is basically a jerk who is willing to work against his own Speaker, the President, the financial interests that have traditionally supported his party and, indeed, just about everyone else so long as it keeps him in the media. I’m disgusted.

For at least some of the Republican candidates, I don’t doubt that the position that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest and the mother’s life stems from sincere, deep moral conviction.

But Iowa front-runner Ron Paul’s position that states should outlaw abortion even in these “hard cases” but the federal government should not extend any rights to the unborn ought to be more disturbing to the pro-life movement than even an outright pro-abortion position.

Let’s start with the pro-life problem with Paul’s position. If abortion truly takes a human life, then there’s a very clear governmental interest in preventing abortions in cases–late term abortions–where there’s little room for scientific doubt that the fetus is a viable human life. If the federal government has any function at all, furthermore, it has a clear responsibility to protect life when the states are unable or unwilling to do so. This is why the federal government provides for national defense and why its failure to prevent lynching in the Jim Crowe South ought to be considered an enormous moral failure.

Pro-choicers, even radical ones who believe that post-delivery infanticide is justified in certain rare cases don’t reject the idea that the federal government should enforce some standards. In fact, they almost all believe in current federal case law that supports legal abortion and then elevate some values–sexual freedom, free choice in general, reduction of overall human suffering–above the value of human life itself.

Many pro-choicers, furthermore, point to the difficulty of determining when when human life begins and have sympathy for the very difficult situations faced by many women who seek abortions. And, thus, while millions of Americans (me included) have pro-life views, hardly any pro-lifers actually feel that abortion should be treated in the same manner as murder and most see some cases–hard cases–where abortion ought to be permitted anyway.

Paul’s position, like a pro-choice position, places another value (a less powerful federal government) above the value of human life. In so doing, it implicitly leaves room for states to allow things like mandatory abortions of the genetically “defective” children, the (theoretical) practice of “farming” fetuses for organ transplants, and taxpayer subsidies for abortion that involve federal dollars. These practices are, for obvious reasons, a lot more problematic than the “hard case” that abortions Paul wants to prohibit and, at least in the first two cases, most pro-choicers would probably find common ground with pro-lifers in believing the federal government should step in to prohibit them.

But Paul’s desire to diminish federal power leaves tremendous room for them. And that’s why it’s morally even more troublesome than a pro-choice position.

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich’s mutual failure to qualify for the Virginia ballot raises lots of questions about their long term viability, funding, and organization. But it isn’t that surprising at all for one simple reason: neither has run for President before while the two candidates who qualified, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, both have.

Indeed, since 1964, every Republican nominee except George W. Bush has previously contested the party’s nomination and Bush, of course, had his family’s political network and, probably, a boost in early polls from people who thought he was his father.

Nearly every part of the Republican primary process and, indeed, the party’s overall structure gives a massive advantage to people who have run before. The lack of super-delegates (ex officio convention delegates), for example, means that simply becoming well-known in the national media and among national figures conveys much less advantage than it does in Democratic contests. Republicans’ relatively greater reliance on low-dollar direct mail donations, likewise, means that having a well-tested list from a previous run for office conveys a fundraising advantage. Even the structure of grass roots groups on the Right conveys an advantage to those who have run before: the single greatest source of on-the-ground manpower on the Left, unions, are national organizations with top-down structures while the churches, community organizations, and tax reform groups important on the right are rarely centralized. And some right-of-center groups that have central structures–Americans for Prosperity, for example–don’t directly engage in electoral politics.

Paul and Romney, by virtue of having run before, had everything they needed to get 10,000 signatures in Virginia. The others didn’t.

The result: whatever the bumps in the road he runs into along the way, Mitt Romney remains the overwhelming favorite to secure the nomination. Quite simply, it’s his turn.

The death of Kim Jong-il and the succession of Kim Jung-un to the state’s throne raises the possibility of some sort of opening for the North Korean hermit Kingdom. The possibility of significant reforms–more open markets, freer travel for North Koreans, even elections and a free press–have to be considered. (So, of course, does continued repression and saber rattling from the North.) Reform of any sort leads towards the Korean reunification that both Korean governments and nearly all other powers say they want.

Any honest look at the facts about the two Koreas, however, reveals a deeply depressing truth: reunification of the Koreas, if it ever comes, will probably take generations. Under the rule of the Kim family, North Korea has fallen so far behind the South that it may never be able to catch up.

The problem isn’t simply that North Korea is, as Christopher Hitchens once put it, A Nation of Racist Dwarfs: there’s little reason to doubt that, given time, North Koreans could overcome the pablum of propaganda and live successfully in the South. (Thousands of refugees already have.) Rather, it’s that the world’s longest-lived truly totalitarian regime has so wrecked the economy that reunification is very likely impossible.

Consider: South Korea has a per capita GDP of about $30,000, pretty close to the average for the European Union. North Korea’s economy produces a GDP of about $1,900 per capita. Put differently, South Koreans are roughly as wealthy as Italians while North Korea is pretty similar to Bangladesh. Mexico, by comparison, has about a quarter of the United States’ GDP per capita.

Official statistics are probably too kind to North Korea. About half of the country’s GDP currently goes to support a military that would have to be demobilized almost entirely following any reunification. Furthermore, the handful of countries that appear poorer on world charts are mostly places with central governments that don’t control the entire nation and/or have very large subsistence agriculture sectors that economists can’t really measure accurately. (North Korea has a large subsistance sector too but the government’s periodic crackdowns on markets mean that it produces well below capacity.)

Furthermore, the North Korean government’s economic mismanagement has destroyed much farmland and tapped out many natural resources. South Korean experts have put the cost of reunification at something like $1 trillion. But even this figure, a little over $40,000 per North Korean, seems pretty low given that North Korea has just about no use productive infrastructure.

The result, sadly, is that no amount of economic reform could, in the short term, make North Korea even close to a peer of the South. Unlike East Germany, which had the highest standard of living in the communist block prior to West Germany’s absorption of it, North Korea is so different from the South that, given the chance, nearly everyone capable of moving from North to South would do so. There’s literally no way the South (population about 50 million) could handle a sudden influx of all 25 million North Koreans. The 62 million people living in the western portion of Germany, indeed, had a hard enough time absorbing the relative handful of their 16 million eastern kin that moved west.

Even if everything goes right, even if the new North Korean leaders turn out to be willing to make reforms, it appears that the two Koreas just aren’t going to become one nation anytime soon.

Journalists need good, shocking examples of the country’s still serious unemployment problems and one offered itself this past weekend when people filled out more than 16,000 applications for about 750 positions as a new Cleveland casino. The deluge of applications made for good TV and appeared on dozens of websites.

Only one problem: dramatic as they are, the long lines of job seekers for a hotel are meaningless for a hotel or big casino are meaningless. (The Cleveland operation has no hotel as such but does offer hundreds of hotel-like jobs.)

Although Cleveland has surely seen better days, the strength of its medical and education sectors in particular have carried it through the recession pretty well. The 7.1 percent metro-area unemployment rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds, is actually a point and a half below the national average. So, yes, there are a lot of people out of work in Cleveland but it’s actually one of the few rust-belt metro areas that’s doing well relative to the country.

In fact, no matter what the economy, new hotel openings will always produce massive numbers of applications. Large hotels are one of the few business enterprises that have jobs appropriate for almost everyone: there are lots of not-so-skilled (but, in many cases, decently paid and unionized) jobs cleaning rooms and serving food. Skilled craftspeople like carpenters also have a place in hotels. And not all hotel jobs are blue collar either: white collar conference planning/junior management jobs pay decently, will often train on the job (conference planning isn’t rocket science) and offer quicker advancement than most other entry level positions with big companies. Finally, casino dealer jobs pay really well despite not requiring any serious formal education: a personable dealer working a table game can easily take home $80,000 a year.

Unlike other similar “job for everyone” institutions like universities and hospitals, new hotels open rather frequently and need to staff up all at once. Large hotels, furthermore, are almost always purpose-built structures in prominent, central locations that lots of people pass by; their mere construction is a huge advertisement for job seekers. Even in the buoyant late 1990s economy, new hotels attracted far more applicants than they had jobs for. (Dozens more stories like that one.)

The bottom line is pretty simple: in any economy, a brand new hotel opening will be deluged with job seekers since it’s one of the few places anyone can work. Even in a full-employment situation, a fair number of people who are simply dissatisfied with their jobs and decide to apply for hotel jobs. Is 16,000 applications for 750 jobs a lot? Yes. Would there be fewer in a better economy? Yes. But around-the-block lines for jobs at a new hotel will materialize in any economic situation. Dramatic as they are, they really aren’t news.

Mitt Romney’s proposed $10,000 bet with Rick Perry has earned a lot of criticism for the candidate. Given that it was a rhetorical device (albeit a clumsy one) rather than an actual bet and given that a $10,000 is not really a lot of money for a presidential campaign, I’m personally inclined to give Romney a pass.

That said, another story that got much less media attention at the time it happened does really seem to show that he is out of touch on financial issues. Here are the basics: during a campaign stop, a small boy offered Romney a small bird he had folded out of a dollar bill, Romney glanced in his wallet and, at first, the Washington Post reports, could only find a $100 bill. (He eventually found a $5 to give to the boy.)

Here’s why it shows him to be out of touch: everyone I know gets money out of ATMs and, except in casinos, I’ve never seen an ATM that dispenses $100 bills. Such bills, furthermore, are hugely inconvenient in real life: its difficult to make change for them and , because they’re so rarely passed, merchants will often give them a once-over. And, in any case, since most that operate on a cash-only/cash mostly basis–parking lots, taxi cabs, newsstands–sell things that cost well less than $100, nearly all $100 bills get “broken” into smaller denominations very quickly.

This leaves two major reasons why an ordinary American outside of a casino would have a $100 bill in his or her wallet. First, the person is poor or unsophisticated or involved in the underground economy, does not deal with banks, and thus needs to pay major bills like rent in cash. Obviously, none of these things describe Romney.

Second–and this is my point–that person doesn’t actually dirty his or her hands by purchasing anything but, instead, has a staff that picks up restaurant checks, drives him everywhere, arranges for private planes when a car won’t do, and fetches the large cinnamon dulce lattes from Starbucks. Thus, when the person sends a staffer to the bank to get “walking around money” the $100 bill that comes back just sits in the wallet for weeks. The later very probably describes Romney and, more than his bet with Perry, it indicates that he’s out of touch.

Steve Moore and Walter Williams’ proposed “Millionaire Subsidy Elimination Act” , floated in today’s Wall Street Journal, surely has a lot to recommend it. People who make a huge amount of money surely don’t deserve any true individual benefits from the state.

Nice as it sounds on paper, however, making the idea work in practice seems to present a lot of practical and logistical hurdles. None seem insurmountable but all would have to be dealt with in some way. Here are four:

1) Timing of benefit loss: While nobody who realizes a $1 million yearly income is poor, a fair number of people who earn very high incomes do so only for a few years or, quite often, one year. A married couple of reasonably diligent savers earning a good-but-not spectacular income of say $100,000 combined and sell a paid-off house while realizing capital gains from 401(k) asset sales can easily have an income of $1 million in one year. Such a couple, however, is almost certain to continue to rely on Medicare and, to a lesser extent, Social Security to live in retirement.

Do they give up benefits forever? Just for the year? This could make a large difference. If they have a strong reliance interest on the benefits but have to pay out of pocket for similar services (or, say, remain enrolled in Medicare but have to pay the full cost) during the year that they earn an unusually high income, then isn’t that really just a surtax on wealth for some people? If they lose benefits forever, then it’s a huge invitation to shelter income in various ways.

2) Unless all subsidies for everything are eliminated, the eliminating subsidies for the wealthy alone could end up actively punishing achievement: Plenty of heavily subsidized activities–energy production, education, farming–are obviously worthwhile. Receiving subsidies gives individuals and firms an advantage. Cutting them off to only firms/people with incomes over $1 million could actively discourage growth beyond and risk taking beyond a certain level.

3) Unless all subsidy programs are actually cut, the plan won’t save money: The way a great many subsidies are structured, narrowing the range of people eligible for them won’t actually save a dime. The actual budgets of the subsidies would need to be cut at the same time as it was eliminated. This would require a lot more than a single law and would require significant political tussling. And, of course, program budgets could always be brought back up to their previous levels.

4) By Grover Norquist’s definition, the plan is probably a tax hike: Many subsidies are provided through the tax code. If wealthy individuals are denied these tax benefits, then they will pay more taxes and whatever negative consequences come from hiking taxes on the well off will take place anyway. If these benefits aren’t denied to the well off, then the plan will produce less savings than promised.

Eliminating subsidies for millionaires is a good idea but presents logistical and ideological hurdles. It’s worth study and investigation but, in reality, it probably can’t save anywhere near the $200 billion that Moore and Williams say it would.

Rebecca Wodder, President Obama’s nominee to serve as the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks will be a topic of discussion in the business meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Thursday. And many Republicans on the committee are sure to raise tough questions about her.

Wodder, the former CEO of the environmental group American Rivers, holds a number of positions that conservatives largely disagree with. But if they actually believe that frequent (and true) conservative refrain that big government damages the environment, she deserves enthusiastic support from Republicans on the committee.

In fact, she is, by far, the best nominee Obama has selected for a significant environmental job.

Insofar as she supports the Obama administration’s positions on a variety of issues–she favored the huge tax increases found in administration-backed climate change bills and supports federal regulation that might end up kneecapping efforts to develop natural gas–there’s reason enough to raise concerns.

But, the positions she holds that are most objectionable to conservatives simply echo those of the Obama administration and, whatever one thinks, are shared by a number of thoughtful, smart people. Should the administration really be expected to select nominees who oppose its positions?

The real reason Wodder is controversial, has little to do with positions she shares with almost the entire Democratic Party: rather, it’s the yeoman’s work she and the group she headed did to oppose a variety of boondoggles that spent public money to benefit a handful of powerful interests.

More than any other single environmental group, American Rivers has fought to cut back on Army Corps of Engineers water development projects, remove river-destroying dams, end subsidies to destroy wetlands, and open more wild areas for human use. (Anglers compose a large portion of American Rivers’ grass roots membership.) These activities, understandably angered lots of shippers, developers, and residents of areas that would have (or used to) benefit from government subsidies but they also jibe perfectly with the “government hurts the environment” message that conservatives embrace in public.

If the Republican Party stands wants to prove it is not simply the collection of special interests that the Democratic Party has become, its members ought to stand up in favor of Wodder’s nomination. It’s the right thing to do. The Wodder nomination needs to move forward.