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[Thad]

"I really like Michigan, the trees are just the right size."

The bizarre thing is HE KEEPS SAYING IT.

I don't know why Romney is so goddamn nervous in Michigan, considering he is from Michigan. I don't even know why he's bothering to campaign there. The state is such a solid slam dunk for him that he'd be better served spending his resources elsewhere.

...for those of you just joining us...

I can't see Romney winning Michigan again after that "Let Detroit go bankrupt" talk.

Doubling down is probably the best option he's left himself (he can't ignore it and if he tries to back off it'll just feed into the flip-flopper narrative) but it still won't do him any favors.

Heard him on the radio ranting about UAW and unions in general.  At a rally in Detroit.

...is this guy actually from Michigan?

Because I've never actually BEEN to Michigan, but it strikes ME as a bad idea to rant about the autoworkers union in Detroit.

Santorum has been running in a dead heat with Romney in Michigan for weeks.  He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in 2008 titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt".  That is not a paraphrase, it is not a misquote, it is not a sentence fragment taken from somewhere in the middle of the article.  It is the actual title of a thing that he wrote and had printed in the biggest paper in the country.  Since everybody voting in the Michigan Primary is aware of this, he has been forced to constantly defend the op-ed and repeatedly restate why he thinks Detroit should have been allowed to go bankrupt.

If Romney DOES manage to pull Michigan out, it is a combination of three factors:

1. Yes, he WAS in fact born there and his father was governor;
2. The same reason he's been the frontrunner all along: because every other person running is completely batshit fucking crazy;
and 3. Because yes he HAS been aggressively campaigning there, which he needs to do in order to save his bacon and not lose his own damn home state.



...anyway.  Let's take a look at my predictions:

Ugh.  Now we have to pretend this is a two-man race at least through Super Tuesday.

I was actually referring to Gingrich, but I guess this one technically still holds.

Coming races are going to be boring.  Mostly Romney - Gingrich - Paul - Santorum.  That's certainly how I expect Arizona to go, short of Gingrich crashing and burning hard enough to fall behind Paul.

Well, clearly I was dead-nuts wrong on this one; I thought Santorum's fifteen minutes were up and Newt's weren't yet.  And that the hardcore Paul vote would keep him out of last place.

Anyway.  Per this coming Tuesday:

Romney will win Arizona handily.  Michigan is too close to call; I'm still inclined to call it for Santorum because seriously, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt"?  But Romney could still pull it out; the latest polls show him up a few points.

Super Tuesday?  Dunno, haven't been paying attention; don't even remember who votes in it offhand.  But hopefully it'll finally winnow the race down to Romney and we can stop talking about fucking Santorum.

[Shinra]

I guess Romney forgot why McCain lost michigan's primary in 2008?

[Mongrel]

"I really like Michigan, the trees are just the right size."

The bizarre thing is HE KEEPS SAYING IT.

I keep watching him saying that line. It's fucking mesmerizing.

Not to mention an absolute SCREAM.

[Ted Belmont]

It almost sounds like a line out of a folk song.

[Brentai]

Wow.  Wow.

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," Santorum said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

He was referring to a 1960 speech by then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy on religion and governance, which Santorum said "makes me throw up."

"Because the first line, first substantive line in the speech says, 'I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "You bet that makes you throw up."

...wow.

[Thad]

I guess Romney forgot why McCain lost michigan's primary in 2008?

In fairness, Michigan actually WAS a slam-dunk for Romney in '08.

Wow.  Wow.

Yeah, this isn't the first time he's said that stuff, either.

I must once again acknowledge my grudging respect for the man's honesty.  His views are absolutely abhorrent, but unlike half the people he's competing against he's not a liar.

[Brentai]

No, and a quick Google search (would have told) you that, but it's another thing entirely to get right up on a stump and explicitly disagree with a founding tenet of the nation.  He's thus far avoided that, as evidenced by the fact that every result for "santorum separation" is now less than 6 hours old.

(I'm also not sure if the third page results for that term would have been completely political 6 hours ago.)

Historically people have been terrified of actually getting up and saying that, you know, two of the clauses of the First Amendment make them want to "throw up".  The implications are staggering.  Either he's going to go down in flames immediately or we'll have at least one party that has implicitly agreed that the Bill of Rights is no longer sacrosanct (instead of just acting like it).

...unfortunately I also don't think he actually knows what "separation of church and state" actually means, since he follows up by saying that it implies a violation of itself.

Santorum said Kennedy "was trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you."

[Shinra]

Wasn't the entire point of Kennedy's speech to convince Americans he wasn't going to run the country as an extension of the Catholic Church?

It's funny how much they talk about old fashioned values, but when we go back to the actual days of Santorum's youth the big issue in the country was that people were afraid religion was going to take over the government. I'm pretty well convinced that these people have forgotten what the country was actually like in the 60s and are just recalling it from memories of old TV shows.

[Ted Belmont]

Wasn't the entire point of Kennedy's speech to convince Americans he wasn't going to run the country as an extension of the Catholic Church?

It's funny how much they talk about old fashioned values, but when we go back to the actual days of Santorum's youth the big issue in the country was that people were afraid religion was going to take over the government. I'm pretty well convinced that these people have forgotten what the country was actually like in the 60s and are just recalling it from memories of old TV shows.

Really, they were afraid a non-protestant religion was going to take over the government.

[Thad]

No, and a quick Google search (would have told) you that, but it's another thing entirely to get right up on a stump and explicitly disagree with a founding tenet of the nation.  He's thus far avoided that, as evidenced by the fact that every result for "santorum separation" is now less than 6 hours old.

(I'm also not sure if the third page results for that term would have been completely political 6 hours ago.)

Historically people have been terrified of actually getting up and saying that, you know, two of the clauses of the First Amendment make them want to "throw up".  The implications are staggering.

True, but this didn't happen suddenly; it's been building around the fringes for years now.  Remember Christine O'Donnell's "Show me in the First Amendment where it says 'separation of church and state'" bit?  Everyone treated her like she was stupid (and she was), but no, that's part of an ongoing, concerted effort to say that the establishment clause does NOT indicate a separation of church and state.

Deemphasizing Jefferson in the Texas curriculum is part of the same effort.

They're not simply trying to throw out the Bill of Rights.  They're trying to push an interpretation of it that says they're actually respecting it and it's the past 230 years of case law that's wrong.

Either he's going to go down in flames immediately or we'll have at least one party that has implicitly agreed that the Bill of Rights is no longer sacrosanct (instead of just acting like it).

Eh.  I still don't think Santorum's a viable candidate; he's just the latest Not-Romney to come up on the Not-Romney Wheel.

And...well, it's possible this will be news to some of his supporters, since I really DO think some of them are just voting for him as a Not-Romney, but really I think most of the people who legitimately want to see Santorum as President are already theocrats.

That said, if he somehow gets the nomination he will go down in flames.  Hard.  Goldwater-level hard.  Forget Romney having trouble carrying his own state; Santorum will have trouble getting the majority of the vote among his own PARTY.

...unfortunately I also don't think he actually knows what "separation of church and state" actually means, since he follows up by saying that it implies a violation of itself.

Santorum said Kennedy "was trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you."

No, that's another of the typical Bizarro World fundamentalist canards that Santorum and the rest have been pushing for ages.  A few pages ago someone quoted him on it on gay marriage, as if passing gay marriage is discriminatory against Christians.

Wasn't the entire point of Kennedy's speech to convince Americans he wasn't going to run the country as an extension of the Catholic Church?

Yes.

[Ted Belmont]

Bringing the topic back to Romney, the other day he was doing an photo op at Daytona, trying to bump up his Just Folks Street Cred; when asked if he was a Nascar fan, he replied that he wasn't really, but that he had "some great friends that are Nascar team owners."

[Brentai]

Should I be this relieved that the ugly aristocratic side of conservatism is beating out the ugly theocratic side?

[Thad]

It depends.

A Santorum nomination would, as I said, lead to an epic smackdown come November, which I believe would set the religious right back significantly.

A Romney nomination...well, if he actually became President, that would be less of a stinging rebuke of the religious right, but it would at least uphold the notion that moderate candidates win elections.

A Romney nomination followed by a defeat in the general, however, could make the fundamentalists even stronger -- when a moderate Democrat loses an election, the Democrats decide he wasn't moderate enough and they need to move to the right, whereas when a moderate Republican loses an election, the Republicans decide he was too moderate and they need to move to the right.

Real life is, of course, more complicated than that.  If Romney loses AND the Republicans lose seats in Congress, I imagine that'll yield roughly the same result as Romney winning -- not a massive rebuke to the fundamentalists, but a noticeable setback.

[Brentai]

Oh I don't care about any of that.  I'm just happy to know that my main problems are coming from cold, malicious rationalism rather than mostly well-intentioned but completely unreasonable insanity.  One of those things I can actually deal with.

[Brentai]

How?

How do you get put on the defensive for saying that regular people should have the oportunity to obtain the required education fo basically every decent-paying job in the country?

How do you let a man with a BA, an MBA and a law degree label you as elitist for suggesting that maybe other people should have the same opportunities as him?

How do you go so far as to backpedal from a position like that?

President Obama, just where in the bloody hemmorhaging fucking hell is your GOD DAMNED NUTSACK?

[Büge]

don't you know they practice genital mutilation on babies in kenya

[Ziiro]

There's a few conservative blogs I check occasionally just to keep things in some kind of perspective ranging from center-right to batshit-crazy-right.

After skimming over the recent entries of someone more near the batshit-crazy-right (and comments under it) a lot of people think Santorum really only takes things slightly too far. That was the point I had to stop reading.

It's one of those things that makes you questioning perception and reality. What reality do these people live in? How does this sort of thing happen?

[Classic]

A few accurate observations made during the 1970's republican renaissance that have been successfully implemented? Real proof for distributed problem solving and a recap of why populism doesn't work because of how easy the populace can be exploited by a few trusted elites?

[Mongrel]

Or, more succinctly: People are stupid?

[Thad]

How do you get put on the defensive for saying that regular people should have the oportunity to obtain the required education fo basically every decent-paying job in the country?

How do you let a man with a BA, an MBA and a law degree label you as elitist for suggesting that maybe other people should have the same opportunities as him?

How do you go so far as to backpedal from a position like that?

Must have missed this story.  I can guess the gist, but if you've got a link I'll give it a gander.

EDIT: Ah, okay.  (NOTE: Link is Fox News, but it's an AP story.)

And speaking of Santorum's Bizarro Logic:

Interviewed Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Santorum recalled a statistic that suggested more than 60 percent of kids who enter college committed to a faith leave without it. He said there are "some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine."

Yes.  Because it's the college forcing its ideology down Christians' throats that leads them to abandon their faith, not the church forcing ITS ideology down their throats that discourages them from taking a moment to seriously think about it until they're in their twenties.