I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
Romney Wins the Nevada Caucuses
With 45% of the caucus vote in, Romney rolled to an easy win, capturing 42.6% of the vote to Gingrich's 26%; Ron Paul got 18.5%; and Santorum placed last at 13%. Once again, Romney outpolled Gingrich and Santorum combined, exposing Gingrich is wrong about Santorum's presence costing him the victory.
In fact, I was very fascinated by the entrance polls:
- Gingrich's support was inversely related to education level (from 24% to 12%)
- Romney won more than half of the Catholic vote (and a plurality of every other religious group), over Catholics Gingrich (19%) and Santorum (11%)
- Romney won 49% of the very conservative vote, 50% of the Tea Party vote, 51% of the moderate or liberal vote, and 61% of the somewhat conservative vote, even though only 5% consider him a true conservative
- Romney and Paul got the lion's share of support from moderates and independents; what's particularly interesting is that Paul won a clear plurality of voters whom considered him to be the true conservative
And, most tellingly, nearly three-quarters consider Romney as most likely to defeat Obama. I should also note that Nevada has a large Mormon population, and they supported Romney in a proportion similar to what blacks back Obama (9 to 1).
Although one should never overgeneralize from one election, it's clear that Romney hasn't convinced the GOP base that he is a "real" conservative, but conservatives seem to think he's "conservative enough". Nevada is the third purple state that Romney has won with a strong plurality. Right now the only state I see where Gingrich as possibly winning is his home state of Georgia, but Romney does better than he does in his own home state against Obama.
Next up: Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, the last a nonbinding primary: the latter 3 on Tuesday. Romney's superior organization should serve him well in the caucuses. The last numbers I've seen indicate if Gingrich has a shot at any of these, it's most likely Minnesota. Then we go through a slow period with month-ending primaries in Michigan and Arizona, both favoring Romney at this time and then we go through Super Tuesday. But the bad news for Gingrich is that Romney is beginning to close the sale across every category of the GOP electorate.
Kathleen Parker,
"Komen, Catholics and the Cost of Conscience":
Thumbs UP!
I have held my tongue over the past week on the two matters Ms. Parker discusses here: the first involves a kerfuffle over a defunding of Planned Parenthood by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's largest breast cancer nonprofit foundation; the second involves the Obama Administration's unconstitutional meddling in the internal affairs of Catholic institutions, using the corrupt Democratic Party health care law in an attempt to force them to provide certain health care benefits (e.g., birth control, "morning after" medications, etc.) against the consistent moral teachings of the Church.
Komen (and the US government, for that matter) should never have funded a polarizing advocacy group like Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the United States. Planned Parenthood over the past year has been involved in a related controversy involving Indiana's April decision to defund Medicaid services by Planned Parenthood. (The states and the federal government split program costs.) The case is currently under court review.
I will point out: (1) this blog is strongly pro-life (I am Catholic, but my position was based on the scientific fact that human life begins at conception and was formed before I ever knew or researched the Church's position; in fact, Jesus never spoke about abortion in the Gospels, but the Romans practiced abortion and infanticide; the Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents, specifically condemned both practices (2:2); also note that the original Hippocratic Oath, which preexisted Christianity, also forbade abortion); (2) money is fungible (this is one of the favorite sayings of this blog): I agree with the state of Indiana's argument that if Planned Parenthood wants to serve as a general health provider, it needs to spin-off its abortion services; (3) from a first principles approach, I believe in decentralization of authority and the traditional regulation of health services at the state level; (4) Planned Parenthood is NOT entitled to funding from US or state governments--or other charities; it should recruit money for its morally repulsive services from its own donors instead of trying to capture funding from taxpayers or other charity donors whom do not want to indirectly or directly subsidize the unconscionable practice of killing preborn children.
It didn't surprise me that US Senate Democrats would fall behind their crony interest group of feminist ideologues and try to intimidate an independent organization into funding organizations which, if anything, turns off potential Komen donors. Komen shamefully caved under morally outrageous high-pressure tactics and agreed to restore funding. Those hypocritical protesters should put their money where their mouths are and support Planned Parenthood directly instead of demanding Komen fund an organization that many of its real or potential donors consider morally unacceptable. I'm calling on Komen to return or release from pledges any pro-life sympathy donations made in good faith in response to Komen's earlier change in policy. In the meanwhile, I recommend those empathetic to the breast cancer cause consider worthy alternatives to Komen.
There is a second reason I do not support Komen, and it goes back to a kerfuffle dating back to annual breast cancer exams; the Democrats beat back scientifically-based recommendations based on harmful effects of false positives (not to mention the fact that in some cases treatment can be counterproductive). Consider the following discussion from a Wikipedia article:
[Komen's] response to scientific evidence that the indiscriminate nature of screening mammography for all middle-aged and older women, regardless of each woman's individual risk of developing breast cancer, results in overtreatment of some women whose cancer would regress on its own or would grow so slowly that it would never harm them—for every one woman whose life is saved by screening mammography, between two and ten women will receive completely unnecessary and toxic treatment for a harmless growth, 250 to 500 women will be wrongly told that they might have breast cancer (false positives), and 125 to 250 will have biopsies performed—is to "keep hammering away at our basic message, which is, early detection saves lives".What the Obama Administration is doing to the Catholic Church--in a blatant violation of religious liberty and freedom of conscience--reminds me of stories I came across in researching the People's Republic of China during high school: not only did the Communist government ruthlessly execute certain family "criminals", but they would subsequently bill the victim's surviving family members for the bullets used to kill him.
Parker writes:
[ObamaCare] requires nearly all employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception, including in some cases abortifacient drugs, [forcing Catholic institutions] either to forfeit their most fundamental beliefs or to face prohibitive penalties — or to close hospitals, schools and other charities, with catastrophic consequences for millions who depend them. For perspective, one in six patients in the United States is cared for in a Catholic hospital.I fully expect ObamaCare's individual mandate to be held unconstitutional, but I think that the Catholic Church should appeal this unconscionable Obama Administration decision to SCOTUS. There is NO WAY this survives a First Amendment challenge, especially after the recent Hosanna-Taylor v EEOC decision; it would not surprise me if we get another 9-0 vote. [Note to nominal Catholic VP Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: this is an [expletive deleted] big deal.]
To fellow Catholics: if you think Obama is this ruthless BEFORE his reelection attempt, just imagine how he'll be in a second term, unaccountable to the voters. It is a lot easier to vote him out of office this fall than to impeach him.
Political Potpourri
Gingrich's burnt earth campaign against Romney is having a telling effect on both candidates; his populist attacks against Romney and the party infighting is raising unfavorable ratings for both candidates. Now, if and of itself, infighting doesn't imply an issue: witness, for instance, the 2008 battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And there's little doubt that Obama's approval ratings are correlated to perceived issues with the general economy, and Romney has had "foot in mouth" disease as I've mentioned in a prior commentary. But one of the polls over this weekend showed Romney going from an advantage of 3 over Obama at the beginning of December to a 10-point deficit in New Hampshire, one of the true purple states in New England.
[I'm not sure I believe that NH poll: nationalpolls.com shows Obama's approval rating in NH under 50% since at least September 2009 and Obama's national numbers are in the mid-40's. I would expect to see a more consistent approval of Obama across the board, without NH being an outlier. But there's no doubt the populist attacks against Romney, not to mention Romney's self-inflicted gaffes, are taking a toll, more recently cycling between a small lead for Obama and ties).]
Romney's post-Florida surge is continuing to widen his national lead over Gingrich, now to 11% in the Gallup tracking poll.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Guess Who, "Undun"
