6-year headstart ain't nothin' to sneeze at . . .

Latest from the Romney campaign (Romney Camp Slams Santorum Over Organization - WSJ):

The Mitt Romney campaign seized on Rick Santorum’s failure to qualify for delegates in a handful of Super Tuesday states, saying he has flunked the test required to be the party’s nominee.

Of the 391 bound delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, Mr. Santorum will be ineligible for up to 16% of them, according to an analysis the Romney campaign distributed to reporters Saturday.

First, this criticism from Romney 2012 attorney Ben Ginsberg is ironic in light of their campaign's weaselly grab for one extra delegate in Michigan. But, I just love the "16%" figure, and the fact that Romney has been running for president for 6 years, longer than every other candidate but Lyndon Larouche (and Ron Paul, who has pined for the job since at least 1988 when he resigned from the GOP and ran the first time).

That being said, I will not deny that Mitt Romney's organization is impressive and that it reflects well on him. One thing that I couldn't help but observe from attending the Nashville/Belmont U. event on Wednesday night was that the Santorum campaign is unconventional and driven by ideas. The man was over an hour late; there was no upbeat music; the audience was packed with sitting-on-their-hands Ron Paul followers; there were no warm-up speakers or long introductions . . . it was just Rick Santorum, speaking for over an hour without notes and challenging the conventional wisdom that big government is better and that American Exceptionalism is blase. So, yes, Santorum's campaign is unconventional, but if and when he wins the nomination, I hope we'll be able to count on Ben Ginsberg's expert assistance . . .

The mud is slinging

The negative ads from the Frontrunner's SuperPAC were all over the radio this morning, deceptively telling us that no "candidate" authorized them, with their soundbytes quoting Rick conveniently out of context. It is to be expected, because if the polls are to be believed at all, the Frontrunner is in some trouble, and he knows it.

Reproductive "Rights" are a Fluke!

Sandra Fluke has been practically canonized as a saint by the left. She became a "martyr" for the cause when Darrel Issa barred her from testifying before congress. When she was allowed to testify later on, the left championed her as an activist for women's reproductive rights. The question is: What is Sandra Fluke really standing for--rights or entitlement programs?

Sandra Fluke is not fighting for womens' reproductive rights. She's fighting to have the rest of us pay for her sex life! Ms. Fluke can have as much sex as she wants--that is none of my business. But now she wants the government to force insurance companies to provide free contraceptives to all women. My wallet is my business.

That means Hospitals, universities, and other employers affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church will be ordered by the government to go against their ancient moral convictions. It also means that insurance premiums will go up to cover the cost of Ms. Fluke's sex life. The fact of the matter is, Ms. Fluke is not fighting for anyone's rights. No one has ever advocated the outright ban of birth control (despite what the leftist propagandists have said). She's fighting for the state to tell the church what to do, which violates the First Amendment. She's fighting for free contraceptives--free to her, that is. Nothing is actually free, and the rest of us will have to foot the bill. Both of these "causes" that she fights for under the false banner of reproductive rights are despicable.

The government needs to get their nose out of the insurance business and out of the healthcare business. Whether these businesses want to provide contraception or not is, well, their business. Ms. Fluke testified before congress that without insurance coverage, contraception could cost a woman over $3,000.00. She gave no convincing reason why the American people, or anyone other than her, ought to pay for it.

I asked my wife, who is a woman, and who works for an insurance broker whether she thought birth control was a "right." She said no. Ms. Fluke would like to characterize the lack of insurance coverage for birth control as a "medical crisis." And yet, somehow, women have survived for approximately 100,000 years without it.

Take away all the emotional pleas, and the sad tales of woe (in other words, manipulation and propaganda) from Ms. Fluke's testimony and look at the facts. Birth control, like any other aid to recreational activity is not a right. I love fishing. Do you suppose I ought to become an activist for fishermen's rights and persuade the government to force bait shops to give away fish hooks free of charge? I had a friend who was forced to go noodling because he couldn't afford a fish hook, and a catfish bit his finger off! It's a medical crisis!

That never happened of course, but I hope you see my point. We're not talking about rights here; we're talking about entitlements.

Rick Santorum is a crusader against entitlements. He has fought against government dependency because he believes the American people are able to take care of themselves better than the government. He was an author of the Welfare Reform Act, passed in 1996. He has pledged to repeal Obamacare and has been an outspoken critic of President Obama's HHS birth control mandate.

If you are sick of paying for everyone else's entitlements, and sick of gratuitous government mandates, pick Rick on Super Tuesday!

We Need a President Who Won't Apologize

After President Obama apologized for the burning of Qur'ans by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, he claimed the apology "calmed things down." Evidently not. Now two more of our troops are dead. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has yet to apologize for the bloodshed.

I don't care what faith you profess, or how highly you esteem any holy book--human beings are inherently more valuable than ink and paper.

What we need is a strong and consistent commander-in-chief. Unfortunately, we are stuck with Barack Obama until at least January 2013. I say consistent in addition to strong because our President is clearly capable of ordering a strong military action. Not quite a year ago, on May 2 2011, he ordered Seal Team 6 to raid Osama bin Laden's compound and kill him. So why is he being so frail and cowardly toward Hamid Karzai?

On NBC's Meet the Press, Rick Santorum said, "I think the response needs to be apologized for, by Karzai and the Afghan people, for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform, and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake. That is the real crime, not what our soldiers did." Rick has pointed out in his recent speeches that in the year he was born (1958) defense spending made up 60 percent of the nation's budget. Currently, it's only 17 percent. The president wants to cut our defense budget even more.

In these uncertain times, the defense budget is the last thing that needs to be cut. We need a commander-in-chief that will support our nation's military instead of apologizing for them. We need a president that will stand by our only democratic ally in the middle-east, Israel (we have tried to build democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but instead we've ended up with Taliban-lite). Clearly, that man is not Barack Obama.

The clear alternative to the current president is Rick Santorum. Support him on Super Tuesday. Let your voice be heard. Take your country back!

Vote Democratic-vote for Willard Mitt!

I might have more sympathy for the Frontrunner's "outrage" over some Democrats crossing over into Republican primaries in Michigan voting for Rick Santorum if the Frontrunner hadn't done the same thing himself. He voted in 1992 in the Democratic Presidential Primary for Paul Tsongas. Now he says he did it to try and badly influence the Democrats' primary process in 1992. Back then, the Frontrunner was humming a different tune:

Back in the 1990s, he said he voted for Tsongas out of home state pride and because he liked his platform better than Clinton. Either way, Romney is on record saying that it’s fair game for partisans to participate in the primary with their own team’s best interests in mind.

Now, the Frontrunner (or people in his camp) believe that Rick deep-sixed the Frontrunner's so-called "win" in Michigan-you know, the primary where Rick got half the delegates-because Democrats crossed over to vote for Rick in significant numbers (Where are the numbers?). In Mittworld, it is okay for slick-haired sons of politicians who claim to be Republican to vote in Democratic primaries, but it is not okay for his political opponents inside the party to ask for Reagan Democrats to be helpful in defeating the Frontrunner. In short, the Frontrunner thinks it is okay for him to pinch-hit for the other team, but he doesn't think you should be able to if you don't vote for him.

Let me be clear about something: I do not and never have supported crossover voting. I am a Republican, and I vote in Republican primaries only, because I do not believe that it is right for me to tell the other party who they ought to nominate for offices. I have never voted in a Democratic primary of any kind in my life-for that matter, I have never voted for a Democrat in my life. I've met some Democrats and know many who were and are incredibly nice folks and decent human beings, which, considering the current state and wording of the Democratic platform, leaves us to wonder why they would want to be Democrats-but we'll leave that between them and the Lord.

                 "Crossover voting is bad except when I do it!"



The reality is that in many primary states, open primaries are the reality, crossover voting is something that any candidate running in such a primary has to consider-it can work for them or it can work against them, but it will happen. Until primaries close or are replaced with a caucus/convention system universally, it makes sense for any candidate to make sure that the crossover vote is working in their favor.

The Frontrunner would do it, he has before, most recently in Michigan in 2008. So either what's good for the goose is good for the gander, or the Frontrunner preferred voting in the Democratic Primary!

Perhaps worshipping JFK is "religion"

Great op/ed from Albert Mohler re. Santorum's criticism of JFK "religion" speech My Take: Santorum’s right, JFK wrong on separation of church and state - CNN.com Blogs:

Even Rick Santorum’s most ardent detractors have to concede this much – the former senator speaks his mind. Recently, Santorum has been speaking his mind on questions of church and state, and the political left has responded with disbelief and horror.

Over the weekend, Santorum told ABC's "This Week" that reading the text of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association made him physically sick: “I almost threw up.”

As it turns out, Santorum had made similar statements about Kennedy’s speech before. But, as Santorum quickly learned, he had dared to criticize a speech, and an argument, that the left has long considered the equivalent of settled law.
. . . .
Kennedy argued the church he believed in should not be a matter of public concern “for that should be important only to me.” Later in the speech, he said: “I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

Those two crucial assertions – Kennedy's insistence that his church “should be important only to me” and his description of a president’s religion as “his own private affair” – create the problem.

I encourage you to read the entire op/ed.

I'll be the first person to admit Rick Santorum was not my first choice for president; in fact, he wasn't even my second. However, here it is less than a week before Super Tuesday and I'm voting for him. When I asked the Lord nine months ago whom He would have me support, I never dreamed the road before me would be so turbulent. I went full steam ahead for my chosen candidate, only to have my heart broken a few months later when he had to leave the race due to vicious lies that were hurting his family, even making his wife physically ill. December 3, 2011, was truly a sad day in America, whether people realize it or not. On that day,