As I conveyed in my last post on the subject, I’m pretty exasperated at this point with the progress and the dynamics of the Republican presidential primary contest. If the whole thing had been set up by an omnipotent hand to structurally favor Mitt Romney’s success (despite his lack of an large enthusiastic base) it could hardly have been done any better. Endless blathering from my own vantage point is not going to change anything. But, as said before, nothing can alter the course events better than, well, events. It’s in the hands of the voters of South Carolina to determine whether a true contest continues or whether Mitt Romney’s crushing sense of inevitability—his greatest asset all along—becomes a crushing reality of inevitability.

There are hints of movement, largely in Newt Gingrich’s direction. He had characteristically strong rhetorical moments in the most recent debate, and the enormity of the South Carolina crowd’s response is still echoing in the air. Sarah Palin came as close to an endorsement as she has so far by indicating she thought Gingrich was the one to vote for if South Carolinians actually want the contest to continue beyond their state. Her endorsement is hardly a game-changer but Newt needs any sense of momentum he can gather. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Bono (of U2) recorded the Jimmie Rodgers song “Dreaming with Tears in My Eyes” for a Jimmie Rodgers tribute albumthat was put out on Egyptian Records in 1996. If you happen to look for it on YouTube currently, you’ll see multiple instances where it’s been uploaded, but most of the people uploading and commenting on it seem to be under the impression that the song is actually a Bono or U2 original.

You can listen to the embedded version at right (though you might want to avoid looking at the slideshow of images associated with it by this particular uploader). A lot of the YouTubers believe it’s one of Bono’s greatest songs, or even the greatest. It’s not that surprising they assume it’s an original, because Bono’s rendition is certainly far away from any blue yodeling connotations; his characteristically big, breathy vocal floats atop a bed of piano and rising strings. However, that the version works very well is beyond question. In fact, I think it’s total dynamite, and likely the most striking contribution to that album (which is itself very good). [Read more →]

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From section: Commentary, Music by Sean Curnyn

I’ve done my best to keep the old chin up, but I have to admit that after these last two debates it’s getting a little wearing. I’ve been annoyed for months at some big-time conservative commentators—Mark Steyn and George Will, to name two—who have had only had negative things to say about those in the Republican field this year, as if there was no need to lift up the better qualities of even one or two of these candidates. One of them, after all, will be facing Barack Obama in November, in the hopes of putting an end to what has arguably been the most disastrous presidency in living memory (certainly of the past 40 years). However, the longer these dog and donkey shows go on, orchestrated by the likes of Stephanopoulos and Sawyer, the worse things look. It has been a mistake to enable the manipulation of the GOP nominating process by what are, frankly, liberal hacks and not-so-stealthy Democratic operatives. But for some in the Republican party establishment, it seems this kind of perverse masochistic circus is just what they want. After all, it’s looking more and more likely that it will result in the coronation of Mitt Romney, the reliable business-as-usual candidate this year for the Beltway boobs. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

So, Rick Perry rode yesterday’s endorsement in this space to 10.3% of the vote and a fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses, behind Newt Gingrich with 13.3%. As we know, Mitt Romney won over Rick Santorum by a few votes at 24.6% versus 24.5%, and Ron Paul was third with 21.4%.

It’s odd, really, that Mitt Romney, who neglected Iowa voters to a fairly insulting extent until recently, did so well. It’s not so odd that Rick Santorum did well: he worked his butt off in Iowa at the doorbell level, he has mega-social-conservative credibility and he peaked at precisely the right moment. Ron Paul has to be disappointed with a third place finish. It strands him as a curiosity rather than a contender.

Rick Perry is so delighted with his fifth place finish that he has returned to Texas to “reassess” his campaign. Michele Bachmann, who was last, is clearly about to drop out. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Before issuing my all-important and fiendishly well-timed endorsement (on this, the day of the Iowa caucuses for the GOP presidential nomination) let me just review the record of my thinking a little bit. I’ve been following the Republican race attentively since early in 2011, and writing on it periodically during that time. As I believe I wrote somewhere along the line, my interest was in seeing a good contest among good candidates and seeing the best one win. I think that has been the attitude of many voters. No one can be without prejudice in these matters, but I attempted to stay as open-minded as reasonably possible for as long as reasonably possible. Certainly, I’ve been predisposed against Mitt Romney from the beginning, for a number of the same reasons that many others have been predisposed against him (there’s little reason to rehash those at this particular juncture). I thought it would be a good approach to hold off settling my decision for sure until actual voting began taking place, and that is today—although my own state doesn’t vote for months yet.

I did have one philosophical and/or strategic bias, I admit: I thought that a governor—current or former—with a sturdily conservative record of success would likely be the best candidate to look for. I agree with many political observers that senators and congressmen do not seem to make either great candidates or great presidents. Executive experience and a record of responsibility do matter. (Check current situation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and associated nation for more info.) For a non-governor to rise to the level of very serious consideration would require more spectacularly superior characteristics of some kind. This is why, early in my op-eds on the campaign, I took a good look at former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. He’d been successful, and successfully re-elected, in a relatively liberal state while governing in a generally quite conservative way. He was mild-mannered, but that didn’t seem to be such a terrible thing, considering that the Obama 2012 campaign was bound to depend on demonization of the GOP candidate, and it’s difficult to demonize someone who comes across so mildly. However, I didn’t count on Pawlenty being demonized by Republicans (with a major assist from the media) for that very mildness itself, illustrated by his choice to eschew going after Romney hard on health care in one of the first debates. But Pawlenty also made the ill-fated tactical gamble of putting all of his eggs into the Iowa straw poll of August, 2011. (Who could care about that result now?) So in the final analysis his candidacy was a victim of his own political misjudgments. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

In advance of the Iowa caucus—the first chance for votes to be cast in the GOP presidential nomination contest—Bill Kristol has an editorial in “The Weekly Standard,” titled “A Time for Choosing.”

Those who have stood aside—and who now may have concluded, as they may not have when they announced their original decision, that the current field is lacking—will surely hear the words of Thomas Paine echoing down the centuries: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Now is not a time for leaders to engage in clever calculations of the odds of success, or to succumb to concerns about how they will look if they enter the fray and fall short. Now is a time to come to the aid of our country.

Well, Bill Kristol and his inside-the-beltway ilk have been holding out for Sarah Palin to come rescue us for a long time. They are irresistibly charmed by her outside-the-beltway ways; they adore her bluntness, her ability to effortlessly connect with the values of everyday Americans in the heartland, her comfort in her own skin, her fearlessness in confronting the 24-hour liberal-media-attack-machine, her obvious and deep Christian faith, and her impatience with the oft-repeated lies and presumptions that rule a place like Washington D.C. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

A holy and merry Christmas to all who will be celebrating, and a very happy Chanukah to those observing that festival.

The small group of close relatives, friends and world leaders on my snail-mail-Christmas-card list received a custom made card this year featuring the photograph of our dog Billie below, and the Bible verses beneath it.

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.”

Job, Chapter 12, verses 7 through 10 (English Standard Version).

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From section: Commentary, Faith by Sean Curnyn

I did not write, after last Wednesday night, what has otherwise become my habitual post-mortem of Republican debates. There could have been plenty to say, I suppose—and certainly others found plenty to say—but in my case it seemed like a place-holding debate. It didn’t change my own mind on anything, and I’m not sure it really made a significant difference to the horse race in and of itself, although the horse race has certainly been in flux overall.

I’m personally right where I was before that debate. There are two candidates I find worthy of support, on the substance: Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. I am not yet ready to decide for which one I would cast my vote, given the necessity of choosing. I expect to make up my mind, for the sake of good form if nothing else, immediately before the Iowa caucuses begin.

I have settled on Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich because they seem to me to be the candidates with the best records of actually getting good things done in office. I believe that both would shake up Washington, in a generally conservative direction, if elected president. Both have quite detailed and dramatic plans on the economy, regarding taxes and energy and entitlements and other matters. Both, of-course, are opposed and despised by the current Republican establishment in Washington. (Clearly, Romney is the favored “business-as-usual” candidate.) [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

When the payroll tax cut (from 6.2% down to 4.2%) was first proposed by President Obama around this time last year, as part of a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, I don’t recall hearing a lot of objections being raised, or anyone being particularly perturbed. One exception, however (that I would be extremely remiss in not mentioning) was that of myself, writing in another space.

I pointed out then that this particular kind of tax cut was “fundamentally dishonest” and indeed “the most craven kind of gimmick that could be conceived,” coming as it did from the Democratic side, which generally opposes tax cuts on principle. (That principle being that everybody’s money really belongs to the government.) To propose a cut in the very tax that is supposed to fund Social Security, when everyone is aware that that program is well on its way to insolvency, and in the absence of any larger plan to fix the program, simply made no sense. And this was from the party that is always accusing Republicans of wanting to dismantle Social Security! The fact that allowing Americans to keep this much more money in their pockets would be stimulative to some extent seemed beyond argument, but the form which this cut took seemed exactly the wrong one. As I said then, it would be better “to just send everyone a once-off check: ‘HERE’S YOUR FREE MONEY’ – signed, your friend, Barack H. Obama.” Even that would be better, in other words, then sending the message that it was OK to slash Social Security taxes without doing one single thing to fix what is otherwise a doomed Ponzi scheme. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn

Just a few quick observations on this: The debate was clearly choreographed by Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer to turn Newt Gingrich into the latest Republican piñata. It’s difficult to look good when you’re being attacked from all sides, and in particular it threw Newt off of his game of being positive and focusing his criticism on the Obama administration. The prearranged set-piece where they questioned each candidate on the importance of “marital fidelity” and then deliberately ended with Gingrich was especially nauseating—perhaps the most nauseating interlude in any political debate I’ve ever seen, and that would truly be saying something. [Read more →]

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From section: 2012 CAMPAIGN, Commentary, Politics by Sean Curnyn