The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Good Question, Tina

Posted on | November 16, 2011 | 95 Comments

Three of Rick Santorum’s children outside the Ames Straw Poll, Aug. 13, 2011

“Rick Santorum is seemingly so impossibly behind in the polls that it’s difficult to think he’s running for president for his own ego or because he’s particularly power hungry. In fact, what praise Santorum receives is always praise of the same ilk: He fills his niche well, speaking eloquently and evenly about social and foreign policy issues that desperately need to be addressed but threaten to be overlooked in this economy-dominated cycle. Why doesn’t that score him more points with voters supposedly sick of politicians who care more about themselves than they do about the issues?”
— Tina Korbe, Hot Air

One of my beefs about the “Second look at Gingrich” trip is that it is being promoted by people who never gave Rick Santorum a first look. If you’re scouting around for your next favorite Not Romney candidate, certainly Santorum is more plausible than Newt. (Today’s headline: “Gingrich Said to Be Paid at Least $1.6 Million by Freddie Mac.”)

Santorum’s brand of conservatism may not be your particular cup of tea, but there is no denying that he is a man of firm principle, untainted by even the slightest hint of corruption or scandal. Neither can it be denied that Santorum has campaigned tirelessly despite all discouragement. He has held events in all 99 counties in Iowa and you might think that some of Herman Cain’s critics — who have slagged him for his alleged neglect of Iowa — would give Santorum credit for his relentless campaigning in the Hawkeye State.

But no: The bandwagon-jumpers, who have flitted around from one Republican candidate to another, always want to jump onto a bandwagon they think can win, and so the media’s pre-emptive judgment that Santorum is not a contender becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a matter of perception and reality, and that Saturday in August when I caught up with Santorum at a barn party in Roland, Iowa, stands out in my memory for the contrast between the perception of Santorum’s campaign and the reality.

When a candidate is bumping along in single digits in the polls, there is the tendency to think he’s got no support at all. Yet there was Santorum in a barn in the middle of a cornfield, surrounded by dozens of ordinary Iowans who were enthusiastically devoted to his candidacy, and telling them confidently that he was going to shock the world by winning the Iowa caucuses and going on from their to win the Republican nomination and then defeating Obama.

It was a classic Iowa moment and, despite everything, I cannot even now — with just 48 days remaining until the Jan. 3 caucuses — rule out the possibility that Santorum’s “Little Engine That Could” campaign might indeed succeed. Stranger things have happened in this weird year, and once the bandwagon-jumpers realize that the Newt Bubble is foredoomed to failure (see Maetenloch’s post at the generally pro-Newt AOSHQ for a few hints) I wonder if Santorum might finally get that first look he has been so long denied.

Iowa blogger Shane Vander Hart has endorsed Santorum, and his list of reasons for supporting Santorum begins with this:

He is a man of integrity. What you see is what you get. There hasn’t been any doublespeak. He doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet. He doesn’t flip flop. He’s a strong family man. If you spend any time around him it is quite evident that he loves his wife Karen and their seven children. He has strong character, and is faithful both to his family and God.

It is fashionable among pundits nowadays to derogate social conservatism as a spent force in GOP politics, but if the Christian Right has any remaining clout, surely it has clout in Iowa, and Santorum’s family-friendly campaign — his wife and kids traveling with him to every event — has a built-in appeal.

While I’m not sure that Shane Van Hart’s influence will set off a herd stampede toward Santorum, I am reminded of something that Joe Albrecht, spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, said to me in August: “Iowans . . . recognize the value of hard work.” They expect candidates to work for their votes, and no candidate has worked Iowa as hard as Santorum has.

Nothing else but hard work can explain how Santorum over-performed in the Ames Straw Poll, where he finished a strong fourth and, as he pointed out in our post-event interview, was massively outspent by all three candidates who placed ahead of him.

Santorum’s strong finish at Ames should have given his campaign a boost, but was overshadowed by (a) Rick Perry’s Phantom Menace, and (b) Tim Pawlenty quitting the next day. Looking back now, three months later, it is supremely ironic to see Gingrich (who got just 385 votes at Ames) in the four-way Iowa front-runner scrum, with Perry fifth (7%) while Santorum is seventh (3%) and continues to be low-rated as a non-contender by all the pundits.

There’s something definitely wrong with that picture and it seems to me that anyone who thinks Santorum will be a non-factor in Iowa is likely to be very surprised come Jan. 3.

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein says, “Yet again, we’ve been played” — although I hope he doesn’t include me in that “we,” as I’ve been fighting the Conventional Wisdom for the past year. And quite frankly, I think it’s time to start casting a skeptical eye at Fox News coverage of the campaign, because they’ve been pushing their own sort of Conventional Wisdom that’s not quite the same as the MSM’s version, but still quite influential.

Linked by Nice Deb and the Spartanburg Tea Party blog, as well as by Da Tech Guy who says I gave Lisa Graas “the best birthday present ever.” Lisa’s response to that on Twitter caused me to accuse her of sexual harassment.

Not like that’s a bad thing, you understand . . .

UPDATE II: Massive Memeorandum thread on Gingrich’s Freddie Mac deal, and Iowa reporter Kay Henderson provides audio and a transcript of Newt’s exchange with reporters this morning:

Bloomberg’s John McCormick: “Bipartisan commissions have sort of found that ‘influentials’ were sometimes put on Fannie & Freddie just to have them friendly. Is this is a case of that?
Gingrich: “I have no idea…I was approached to give strategic advice. I was glad to offer strategic advice and we did it for a number of companies and Gingrich Group was very successful.”
McCormick: Do you think you were sort of being bought to just be there and be a friendly voice?”
Gingrich: “No, I don’t think that anymore than your institution is being bought by the people who advertise in it.”

The New York Time’s Trip Gabriel: “Do you recall any of the strategic advice you did give?…Expanding housing for low-income Hispanic communities, for example?”
Gingrich: “Well, first of all, if you can do it in a way that is financially sound, every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities for people whether they’re African American, or Latino or of any background so the idea that you’re thinking about how can we help people learn how to budget, how can we help people learn how to save, how could you help them learn how to maintain a house on a low income would strike me, for more people, would be good things to do, not bad things to do and I’m happy to say I made public speeches to the National Association of Home Builders. I’m in favor of the largest possible home ownership. This is all public knowledge. I’m in favor of doing the right kind of things and you can go talk to Rick Lazio about the support I gave him as speaker on housing reform which he pushed through despite opposition of some of the people like Barney Frank and others, so I think the record there is one of I’m pretty consistent and frankly, I tend to give the same strategic advice in private I give in public.”

….AP’s Tom Beaumont: “Does this remind you that your background comes from being a Washington insider?”
Gingrich: “It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington and if you want to change Washington, we just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn’t work very well, so having somebody who knows Washington might be a really good thing.”

Yeah. Good luck with that argument.


Category: Election 2012, Iowa, Rick Santorum

Comments

95 Responses to “Good Question, Tina”

  1. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 12:50 pm

    A good scare, will we turn to our Churchill?

    http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/15/is-newt-gingrich-americas-chur/print

  2. Joshua Saunders
    November 16th, 2011 @ 12:54 pm

    Right now, my tentative vote is for Santorum. My problem, is that he does not speak enough about the issues that this cycle I feel are most important. You must be able to illustrate a bold vision for the country economically. I trust him on social issues, and foreign policy, but really I trust a few of the candidates on foreign policy, and president has little to do with social issues. Most of the candidates would appoint strict constructionalists to the supreme court/courts when given the chance to. So you have to go to the economy and Jobs. He also does not have a stellar voting record on fiscal issues particularly when GW was in office.

  3. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 1:03 pm

    SD’s?

    A ton of Wall streeters are Obama people, but the concept behind the stock markets is what people unknowingly are slamming when they broad-brush “Wall Street.”

    I keep waiting for Republicans to start labeling the Dems as the party of the ultra-rich. THAT’s the problem with “Wall Street.”

  4. Bob Belvedere
    November 16th, 2011 @ 1:07 pm

    Angry and whiny, like a high school geometry teacher…and I like the guy and would have no trouble voting for him.

  5. Bob Belvedere
    November 16th, 2011 @ 1:11 pm

    Republicanmother sees conspiracies all around her, but, hey, I wouldn’t believe me as I’m a member of The Illuminati — maybe.

  6. Kid The
    November 16th, 2011 @ 1:12 pm

    Santorum was the template for the destruction of Palin which was the template for Cain – Newt – Bachman – Perry, and soon to be Romney.  Santorum was the first.

  7. Info
    November 16th, 2011 @ 1:14 pm

    By this sign will you know when the MFM believes Gingrich is seriously looking like the nominee:  they will start going after him for being Catholic. 

  8. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 2:08 pm

    SDs=Social Democrats.

  9. Paul Zummo
    November 16th, 2011 @ 2:58 pm

    Meant to reply to, not like scarymatt’s comment.  Tennwriter is correct.  The term socon has been so abused that it’s almost as descriptive as neocon.  The caricature of social conservatives as people camping out in people’s bedrooms to prevent them from having “fun” and for being proponents of big government is an inversion of reality.  

  10. Paul Zummo
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:02 pm

    Unfortunately I agree that Santorum does come across as, well, pick your adjective: petulant, angry, whiny.  He can make the points he’s making without sounding like a teenager who didn’t get his way.

    But I also think that basing one’s judgment of a candidate solely or principally based on his tone is absurd.  Santorum is, ideologically, far and away the best candidate in the field.  Alas, he is probably going nowhere, which is a pity.  You see , we prefer  our candidates to have no clue about the issues but to sound all sassy rather than to be knowledgeable but slightly disagreeable.

    The modern GOP.  Gotta love it.

  11. Republicanmother
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:26 pm

    The world’s most successful Marxists have been Wall Streeters:
    William Boyce Thompson, Chair of the NY Fed gave Lenin and his crew a million bucks to get started. Using State Department records, wire transfer receipts, and the private correspondence of prominent Wall Street folks of the progressive era, you can prove that communism would not have gotten off the ground and stayed around as long as it did without their help.

    “Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”–David Rockefeller, August 10, 1973 in the New York TimesHe made this statement after Mao murdered 60 million people! 

  12. Adjoran
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:32 pm

    There were more people enthusiastically devoted to the 4H kid who raised the biggest hog at the State Fair, but they might have been hoping for pork.

  13. Adjoran
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:36 pm

    As a Catholic pro-life and traditional marriage voter, I must note that B. Obama won the Catholic vote in 2008 by 52-45. 

    It’s not the person in the pew behind you or in front of you that did it, it’s the ones you never see.

  14. Tennwriter
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:48 pm

    W was a compassionate conservative by his own words.  By which I think he means….kinda conservative, but willing to use govt power to soften the hard edges of conservatism.

    Which is not exactly socon.  A hardcore socon would be like ‘this is right and true, and although I personally am going to be charitable to you, its not gov’t business to bend the truth of reality to make it easier on you.’

    As to Scarymatt,

    Let’s have a debate about the nature of Libertarians. It is known by all the smart people that Libertarains are weed-smoking pothead computer geeks who want to force the daughters of the upper class to be prostitutes because they could not land a hot chick in high school.  Now your private defintion may be different, but you can’t expect us smart people to know that, can you?

    Shorter version: Paul Z is correct.

  15. Adjoran
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:52 pm

    Well, he said he made $300,000 as an adviser for Freddie Mac.  Freddie Mac and the records say he was paid as much as $1.8 million – to lobby.

    That better be one humdinger of a ‘splanation.

  16. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:53 pm

    @beddd0ebf1f1d7f0c1561106bdcdfb31:disqus , that sounds like the common view of people who register Libertarian, but so what?

    Look, I’m not going to say you can’t be Humpty Dumpty and make words mean exactly what you want them to mean.  I can’t make you be an effective communicator.  That’s up to you.

    It’s clear to me that to you, “SoCon” means, “Agrees with Tennwriter.”

  17. ThePaganTemple
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:54 pm

    No, he endorsed Specter because Specter previously had endorsed him. Sarah Palin endorsed John McCain’s Senate re-election for basically the same reason.

  18. Adjoran
    November 16th, 2011 @ 3:57 pm

    If we’re getting in plugs for our own conspiracies, I want to note that we of the Knights Templar have been conspiring to dominate the world for 900 years now, and we are closer than ever to bringing our master plan to fruition.

    When choosing your super-villain in the Grand Conspiracy Theory, always go with experience.

    Knights Templar:  The Name You Know, The Name You Mistrust.

  19. ThePaganTemple
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:00 pm

    Yep and they’re called “Cradle Catholics”. The Church is generally a very liberal body, with a few enclaves of conservative thought, mostly based on marriage, gay rights, and right-to-life, which in the meantime often translates as anti-death penalty. They tend to be liberal on things like immigration, war, and a good many other mostly liberal social policies. And they mostly vote Democrat by more than fifty percent, regardless of the social beliefs of any particular candidate.

  20. ThePaganTemple
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:02 pm

    Joe people were really pissed off at Republicans that year, and Pennsylvania is a Democrat state. It’s by no means fifty-fifty. What mainly got Santorum beat in my opinion was the Terri Schiavo fiasco, but it wasn’t just that or any one thing. It was a culmination of factors.

  21. ThePaganTemple
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:08 pm

    It doesn’t matter who comes out ahead, the minute somebody pulls ahead of the pack, Obama and the Democrats will just continue what they’ve been doing, playing Whack-A-Mole with our candidates. The minute they knock one down, they just wait for another one to pop its head up, then SMACK! wash rinse repeat. And we keep letting them do it. And if Santorum rises to the top of the pack, they’ll have their trusty mallets ready and aiming for him too. Make no mistake about it, its as much a game as anything and OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE LAUGHING AT YOU!

  22. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:13 pm

    Tennwriter: Compassionate Conservative was just some non-sense slogan the campaign came up with, it was never anything other than cocktail republican blather. To my mind W wasn’t a conservative in any sense, a big government Republican with some socially conservative views doesn’t make one a conservative.

  23. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:33 pm

    PAUL ZUMMO:

    You can unlike someone by clicking the button again after liking someone the button should read Liked to those who are registered.

  24. ThePaganTemple
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:34 pm

    Wow. So you think that people that might have considered voting for Rick Santorum decided they preferred Ron Paul instead of him? Really?

  25. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:35 pm

    Actually one doesn’t.

  26. Republicanmother
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:44 pm

    No, I’m just pointing out that his performance at Ames was so pathetic, it doesn’t really even warrant discussion.

  27. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 4:45 pm

    To be fair the extra two years he kept his senate seat during his second term probably didn’t sit well with the constitutionalists.

  28. Republicanmother
    November 16th, 2011 @ 5:17 pm

    Name calling, real cute.
    The quotation and the fact I cited can be found in the New York Times, before it devolved into what it is today.The fact that we are moving toward a one-world economy(with the aid of bailout and central banks) is reality, I’m so sorry for mentioning it.

    When I look at the list of donors for Rick’s 2000 and 2006 campaigns, its like a who’s who list of those who benefit from government largess.

    You all may now return to your “reality show” aka the GOP primary.

  29. Bob Belvedere
    November 16th, 2011 @ 5:28 pm

    We in The Illuminati have always prided ourselves on being the most secretive organization and it doesn’t show [get it?].

    We’ve lived in the shadows so long, manipulating all governments, that we’re pale as Michael Jackson was.

    When choosing a super-villain for your Grand Conspiracy Theories as you try on your new tin-foil hat, always go with the stealthiest organization around…

    THE ILLUMINATI: We Have Not Only Seen The Fnords, We Created The Whole Program!

  30. Tennwriter
    November 16th, 2011 @ 5:31 pm

    And you have secret miraculous and magical powers, to boot.  Which is always handy.

  31. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 5:33 pm

    All that proves is that some Wall Street people are leftists.

    This country would have been “over” years ago if a majority of them were left-leaning.

    The free market is vital to Conservative thinking, Libertarian thinking, and Classical Liberalism. So slamming Wall Street is just bizarre.

  32. Tennwriter
    November 16th, 2011 @ 5:39 pm

    Enthused base=Independents join in the fun.

  33. Tennwriter
    November 16th, 2011 @ 6:46 pm

    Matt,
    I tried to get you to see that bigotry, prejudgice, and straw men are not fun by putting you in the soup, but evidently you’re wedded to your belief in socons as being only interested in stopping gay marriage, and nothing like an inconvenient fact or a thousand can stop the Dream!

    I should have taken warning from your first post:

    Matt sez discussing soconism: It’s often just statism dressed up a little differently than the standard Progressive party line.

    So, Matt, when it comes to vote for Obama or Santorum for President in the general election; vote your conscience…..vote for Obama.  You know those filthy theocratic statists with their love of limited government are just as bad as Bill Ayers.

    Please vote for Obama. Libertarians acting like this cause way more problems than they solve, and if they were over on the Left side, it would help the Right.

    Adobe,
    Good point.  At first he seemed Jacksonian in war, but I think he settled into Wilsonian war.

  34. Anonymous
    November 16th, 2011 @ 9:11 pm

    @beddd0ebf1f1d7f0c1561106bdcdfb31:disqus , WTF?  You have a super imagination to imagine that I would vote for Obama, or that anything I said implied that.  Or that I dislike Santorum.  Hell, I voted against Obama twice in 2008.  If a Dem had the balls to primary him, I might have done it again next year (VA has open primaries).

    I think we generally agree on principles, but you’ve got a special definition for a fairly common label.  It’s like how ignorant lefties like to call anything they don’t like, “fascist,” except everything you like is “socon.”  Now, proceed to imagine that I said that Romney is awesome or whatever.

    Or maybe this is all just your way of adding “doesn’t do reading comprehension” to your definition of socon.

  35. Jacob
    November 16th, 2011 @ 10:50 pm

    As much as we would like to pretend it shouldn’t matter, personality counts a great deal, and Santorum is a prick.

    Maybe his debate performances have nothing to do with his “true”personality, but all I see is an angry, self-righteous, know-it-all who’s completely unhinged that no one is giving him the respect a Senator who lost a 20 point landslide deserves.

    Add that winning personality to Santorum’s brand of hyper-social conservatism and overly interventionist neo-con instincts are the diametric opposite of what we need in a Republican for 2012, he could conceivably split the party in half.

  36. Tennwriter
    November 17th, 2011 @ 12:11 am

    Let’s say All of the Libertarian Horde leaves because of Santorum.  That’s what 25-40 people?

    Hyperbole, but the essential point is correct.  There just arent’  that many hardcore libertarians (and then you subtract the ones that vote Libertarian anyhoo).

  37. Adjoran
    November 17th, 2011 @ 2:13 am

    As with Protestants, the voting patterns of Catholics and Jews today is directly proportionate to their church attendance.  The more you attend, the more likely you vote Republican.  The less “observant” you are, the more likely you vote Democrat.

    Before the wailing gets too loud, this doesn’t mean some regular Church goers aren’t diehard lefty Democrats or some atheists aren’t conservative Republicans who love their mothers.  But the percentages don’t lie.

    Catholics have been trending slowly more toward Republicans since Nixon.  Most of the Catholic population were immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th Century waves.   They came from Catholic southern Europe – Italy, Spain, Greece – and Ireland, and were quickly absorbed into the Democratic Party where many remained as loyal for half a century as blacks have in the last half century.

    The change is as much a result of the Democratic Party embracing some very objectionable social ideas as anything Republicans did to win them.

  38. Adjoran
    November 17th, 2011 @ 2:20 am

    SSSSHHH!

    They are SECRET.

    And – magical!

    Remember, when you want to join a secret conspiracy for World Domination, you don’t want to trust your future to some fly-by-night group that’s only been around a couple of centuries.  You want a secret cabal that’s been tested by time, sticking doggedly with the Master Plan for nearly a Millennium.

    Knights Templar:  In It For The Long Haul, Not Just The Cheap Thrills And Groupies.

  39. Adjoran
    November 17th, 2011 @ 2:22 am

    Wow, it was in the New York Times?

    THAT New York Times?

    You seem to be recovering well from the horrible things those aliens did to you.  Ouch!

  40. Adjoran
    November 17th, 2011 @ 2:26 am

    He said that on a tour of China, hoping to get favorable treatment in getting into the banking business there.  He was trying to suck up to Mao to make a banking buck, which is what he did and did well.

  41. Adjoran
    November 17th, 2011 @ 2:28 am

    He who laughs last, laughs best. ~ Confucian.

  42. Tennwriter
    November 17th, 2011 @ 9:23 am

    Matt,
    I’d like to say we have similar principles. I remember a list of proposals put forward by one libertarian, and I agreed with 93% of them.  But otoh, you say that a lot of Socons are equal to Progressives. So you say….A=B, but A does not equal C, whereas I say A=C, and I don’t know if  A=B.

     Now, it could be we have similar principles, and one of us is severely ignorant about certain facts, or bigoted (‘them socons should just vote and stay in the back of the bus where their sort belongs’).

    The most likely solution is you overstated your case, depending on Typical Socon Kindness and Courtesy not to call you on it, and to pretend it was a serious point.  In other words, you were running a bluff.  And the fault here really lands on the Socons for being gullible.

    If a man playing poker with a pair of twos bluffs a man holding four aces, then we congratulate the bluffer on a good play.  And that is what Libertarians have been doing for years.

    Now some, really do hate socons more than they love liberty, but I believe you  are not of that breed.  I guess I should apologize for saying you’d vote Obama.

  43. Anonymous
    November 17th, 2011 @ 10:04 am

    @beddd0ebf1f1d7f0c1561106bdcdfb31:disqus , again, since you seemed to have missed it:  My original comment was referring to “socon” in the more conventional sense, which is to say Conservative about Social Issues.

    You’ve defined “socon” as a very different thing than what I was referring to.  If there are a lot of people who have the same definition as you do for the designation socon, then I think you guys need to work on getting out the word on how you’ve changed the definition, or you’re going to run into this sort of confusion a lot.

    I’m pretty certain that we’re just using the same words to talk about two different things.  I’ve said that pretty plainly (IMHO) several times, so I’m not sure why you haven’t understood that yet.

  44. Tennwriter
    November 18th, 2011 @ 12:27 am

    Since reply buttons fade away, and the post is on a different page than the last reply button….

    ScaryMatt’s and mine will be intertwined. Mine will the be the one with Extra Sarcasm.

    ==============

    , again, since you seemed to have missed it: My original comment was referring to “socon” in the more conventional sense, which is to say Conservative about Social Issues.

    =====Ah, well, that makes it all okay.  Since you’re only saying those nasty, vile …..Um….I think you’ve reduced socons down to Abortion and Gay Marriage….and since you already say you agree with them on Abortion, what you really mean is Believing that 5,000 years of history gets a vote, and that calling a rose a buttercup changes nothing is Statist just like those Progressive scum.

    You need to stop saying socon if you just mean normal folk against gay marriage.  I’m pretty sure you’ll offend a lot of Californian Democrats who voted for Obama, and against prop 8 and againsts gay marriage.

    Fact is, Obama is against gay marriage, and I thought he was not a conservative.  I guess I should pay closer attention.

    Now, we could just ask a typical socon what he’s for.  We’d find a conservative.  Or we could submit to the definition chosen by their enemies.

    Socon means Conservative, and I MEAN IT! Including all the social issues.

    And btw, I love being called a statist.  Really.  I want to throw my arms open wide with love for the world, and if that accidentally pops a libertarian in the nose….Well, then my right ended where someone’s nose began.

    =========You’ve defined “socon” as a very different thing than what I was referring to.

    ==You evidently are just talking about normal folk like Californian Dems against….oh, I’m repeating myself.

    How does that poem go….

    First they came for those who stood for ancient tradition in marriage,
    And while I was one such, I was a gutless coward so I let them…..

      If there are a lot of people who have the same definition as you do for the designation socon, then I think you guys need to work on getting out the word on how you’ve changed the definition, or you’re going to run into this sort of confusion a lot.

    ==Or we could just kick the Libertarians from the party.  That was a Lucy arguement of yours, Matt.  Problem is, I’m not Charlie Brown.

    I pretty much hammered the Classical Values guy into the ground, and he just could not see the obvious, because if he did a great deal of his arguementorium bit the dust.  Same here.  You’re not going to admit socons are normal conservatives because you’ve got a useful rhetorical weapon in hand.I’m pretty certain that we’re just using the same words to talk about two different things. I’ve said that pretty plainly (IMHO) several times, so I’m not sure why you haven’t understood that yet.

    ====I do not accept your framing, that’s why.

  45. Tennwriter
    November 18th, 2011 @ 12:33 am

    Let’s try to format and edit that last para a bit better….

    ME>I pretty much hammered the Classical Values guy into the ground, and he just could not see the obvious, because if he did a great deal of his arguementorium bit the dust. Same here. You’re not going to admit socons are normal conservatives because you’ve got a useful rhetorical weapon in hand.

    MATT>I’m pretty certain that we’re just using the same words to talk about two different things. I’ve said that pretty plainly (IMHO) several times, so I’m not sure why you haven’t understood that yet.====I do not accept your framing, that’s why.   

    …..And we can agree to disagree which upon a further read seems to be what Matt is asking for in his last bit.  And a reasonable request it is, as I doubt we can come to an agreement any time soon.