Frum is a little worried by Romney's belated and political endorsement of the Paul Ryan Medicare plan. Money quote:
If health care costs continue to rise during the next three decades at the same pace as in the past three decades, then—under this proposal—today’s 30-somethings would receive support sufficient to cover about 25 percent of their Medicare costs, leaving them to find the other 75 percent themselves.
That might be a liability this fall, might it not?
Pivoting off the above debate, Ari Kohen wonders what critics of Obama's civil liberties record hope to accomplish if they won't vote for him:
At bottom, Greenwald just wants us to have the conversation about imperialism, the war on drugs, and our loss of civil liberties that he thinks we can only have as a result of Ron Paul candidacy. All of the other politicians embrace these things. And then, once we’ve had the conversation, something will happen. Perhaps a new candidate will emerge out of thin air. This one will be perfect and incorruptible, will always do exactly what (s)he promises, and will always fight the good fight on every issue important to every single person who identifies with the Left in America.
Or, what is more likely, we’ll have an election between Obama and Romney, and a whole bunch of people who voted for Obama in 2008 will decide to stay home in 2012. And then maybe we’ll be so lucky as to have President Romney.
Friedersdorf, on the other hand, believes that civil liberties issues "are bigger than any election":
As Glenn Greenwald insists, it is ruinously unhealthy for a polity to stop everything, every three years, for a lengthy election season in which life and death issues are de-emphasized, and everyone does their best to extol the virtues of politicians who are deeply flawed at best. Whatever the "print" world's voices do, election season is going to proceed; surrogates are going to make the case for and against the incumbent, and the jobs picture is going to be debated. There is an additional opportunity, even for supporters of Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, to influence the Anderson Coopers of the world such that when the political debate reaches the rest of the country, it isn't as narrow as the Karl Roves and Rahm Emanuels of the world would prefer. As I press Sullivan, let it be said that he's helped expand the conversation, in just this way, on more occasions and more significantly than I ever have — and that even in this election, his insistence on taking Ron Paul seriously has helped broaden the discourse. Is it not equally urgent that the same broadening also occur in the Democratic Party, whose denizens are naturally inclined to uncritically rally around their incumbent?
In an infographic:
Alex Howard notes that all of the GOP candidates spoke against SOPA last night:
Santorum, Romney and Gingrich have publicly come out all against these bills. If asked last week, would they have given the same answers? I’ve been frustrated that so few questions about the Internet and technology have been asked. Clearly, the political calculus around supporting them has shifted. At least Ron Paul is consistent; he — and Rep Michele Bachmann — came out against SOPA weeks ago.
Nick Sibilla fact checks Obama's new ad.
Kornacki expects Florida would be in contention:
[T]he Florida polling that now shows Romney crushing Gingrich would tighten dramatically. (Remember that in early December, when he was surging everywhere, Gingrich was the one with a commanding Florida lead; that’s how volatile these numbers can be.) This would set up a frantic ten-day campaign in Florida (which votes on January 31) that the media would likely portray as a referendum on Romney’s viability. There would probably be, as John Heilemann suggested on MSNBC earlier today, talk of party leaders lining up a consensus back-up candidate in the event of a second straight Romney loss (because Newt would still not be an acceptable option for most of them).
Bernstein wonders whether Santorum will drop out after South Carolina.
A reader writes:
I just noticed that you blurred your name in the banner headline. If I'd been drinking my tea, it would have ended up all over the screen.
Another writes:
Love the name blur, I finally get it. All day I thought the damn wifi was slow and that the banner just wouldn't resolve.
Another:
I hope it was you who changed it and that you didn't get hacked by Fox News or something.
Another:
I don't know if it was your idea or somebody on your staff's, but the blurring out of the name in the masthead is fucking hilarious. I love reading your opinions on politics and public policy, adore your theories of political philosophy and governance, and wait with bated breath for your next View From Your Window and Hathos Alert, but it's shit like THAT that keeps me coming back for more.
Another:
Heh, love the new motto – at least you're honest about your biases, unlike that one network. And I had been wondering if you would ever replace "Of No Party Or Clique" from your Atlantic days. Did you just think of the new motto this week?
We had been batting around the idea of "Biased and Balanced" for a few months but never got around to putting it up. This week was the perfect opportunity.
A reader writes:
I think now that the facts are out the American people will understand that Newt wasn't lobbying for an open marriage, he was just acting as the historian of his own infidelities.
Gallup reports that the race is tightening:
Ezra Klein, on the other hand, insists that a Gingrich victory in South Carolina would "delay rather than derail Romney's nomination." As far as historical precedent is concerned:
The last time different Republican candidates won the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and the South Carolina primary was … never. For the Democrats, however, it happened in 1988: Dick Gephardt won Iowa, Michael Dukakis won New Hampshire, and Jesse Jackson won South Carolina. Dukakis, of course, went on to win the nomination. Come to think of it, that's probably not a historical analogy Mitt Romney likes very much.
Mickey – surprise! – differs, and ponders a brokered convention. I'm not predicting anything but drama. I'd only add that delegates matter more than polls and hype; that Romney's failure to seal the deal makes the deal less and less likely, and that Paul is not going away.
Dreher was unimpressed by the Marianne Gingrich interview:
This Newt-is-a-sleaze anecdote is news, but it’s not new news — and that, plus her own squirreliness, makes me conclude that this thing won’t have legs. Especially after Newt’s I-am-outraged attack on the news media tonight. Demagoguery? Sure. But effective at stopping any potential fallout from the Marianne interview, which turned out to be pretty weak tea.
I tend to agree with Rod on this. Lloyd Grove differs:
In case anyone needed to be reminded of Gingrich’s outrageous hypocrisy, ABC helpfully spliced in footage of the then-adulterous speaker, in a breathtaking feat of compartmentalization, pursuing the impeachment of Bill Clinton for arguably less egregious behavior, denouncing the Clinton-Gore administration as having “less moral authority than any administration in history,” and continually defending the sanctity of marriage as a political talking point.
Margaret Carlson's view is closer to Grove's but still she isn't sure the interview will do Gingrich much damage:
Newt was not polling well among evangelical women before Marianne’s revelations, and surely won’t now. But he makes up for it with his surge among men in a state where divorce is not unheard of, despite the fact that 60 percent of Republican voters identify themselves as Christian conservatives. Residents of South Carolina divorce at a rate twice as high as for that den of iniquity, Washington, D.C. Many fewer people divorce in the bluest of states, Massachusetts, than in the Palmetto State, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
Full interview here.
Despite Newt's many infidelities, E.D. Kain prefers Gingrich to Romney:
Romney, I’m quite certain now, has no soul. Gingrich may have made bad choices – his soul may be black in a few spots – but he has one. He’s a human being at the very least, warts and all. Romney is a machine at best, a blank slate willing to say and do anything to get elected.
Chait explains the Romney way:
As in every election he has ever run, Romney has studied the impulses of the electorate to which he is appealing and molded himself to it. He has nearly mastered the technique of turning every question into an answer about how Obama has destroyed America. At one point, Time’s Michael Crowley tweeted, "You could accuse Mitt Romney of murdering a drifter in Laredo and he'd respond with an attack on Obama." Moments later, asked to name his biggest mistake of the campaign, Romney answered that he wished he talked more about Obama, because of the socialism.
The Dish 
