Month: January 2012

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is seen reflected in a mirror as he speaks during a Nashua Chamber of Commerce breakfast on January 9, 2012 in Nashua, New Hampshire. With one day to go before the New Hampshire primary, Romney is making one final campaign push through the state. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

The out-of-context quote most commentators have fairly dimissed aren't going away. And even liberal bloggers are being more charitable than Romney's Republican opponents:

John Weaver, who is Mr. Huntsman’s top adviser, said Monday that Mr. Romney “will rue the day he said that.” A “super PAC” backing Mr. Gingrich revealed Monday that it plans to significantly amplify that attack on Mr. Romney in South Carolina, where it plans to spend $3.4 million to blanket the television airwaves with television ads.

I think Romney has had a bad few days. We'll see if it has damaged him tomorrow night.

Update: Taegan thinks it's a dangerous gaffe:

Romney's comment is actually quite similar to John Kerry's, "I voted for it before I voted against it." The context didn't matter and the damage was done.

Matt Bai agrees – because the gaffe reinforces a key, existing worry about the candidate, and could define him in ways that the general election would punish. Hence the danger that his "electability" card could fray. He'll need all that Bain SuperPac money in South Carolina, won't he?

John Heilemann speculates that a strong showing could bring out Huntsman's father's checkbook:

An investment of, say, $10 million — a rounding error on the Huntsman Sr. balance sheet — would allow the [Huntsman] super-PAC to blanket the airwaves in South Carolina and Florida with ads, many of them (no doubt) attacking Romney. And while that might still not be enough to put Huntsman Jr. in serious contention to be the Republican standardbearer, it could inflict a serious toll on the front-runner and create a wider opening for hard-core conservatives such as Santorum and Gingrich who are better-positioned in the contests that lie ahead to halt Romney's march to the GOP nomination.

They now make him the second likeliest nominee after Romney, after Ron Paul. But the odds on Romney remain overwhelming.

A reader writes:

I grew up in central PA — the "Alabama" part of the state, as Carville so aptly put it. Where I grew up was a very red part of a blue (or at least purple) state. My old congressional district is about 60-65% Republican, despite most people there being working class, and in an area where most of the jobs were connected to the railroad, coal mining, and manufacturing.

Culturally, it was very "Southern."

The most listened to radio station was Froggy 98, a country station. My next door neighbor's pickup truck had a confederate flag on it, and in fact I saw many confederate flags growing up. People were obsessed with NASCAR. Every year I had the Monday after Thanksgiving off from school for the first day of deer hunting season. Religiously, it was a hotbed of "independent, fundamentalist, Bible churches."

These people overwhelmingly voted for Santorum. They were his people. I've met Santorum a few times and he knew the name of my tiny high school (100 in my graduating class), indicating how important this part of the state was to him.

A reader writes:

Santorum's polygamy argument just seems so easy to refute with heterosexuality. If a man is allowed to marry one woman, isn't it just a slippery slope to his being allowed to marry three?

Another writes:

Why does society restrict certain behaviors? Because they are harmful to individuals and others. The harm caused by polygamy is profound and well-documented.

By its nature, it relegates women to subordinate status, not to mention the emotional suffering caused by sharing a husband and the inevitable jockeying for affection and status among "sister wives." It harms children who are raised in such a tension-fraught and perpetually hostile environment and who see their status rise and fall with that of their mothers. In a culture of old and middle-aged men marrying young girls, sexual abuse is common, almost inevitable. The economic strain of trying to provide for so many mouths often condemns children to poverty. Polygamy also damages young men and creates conflict within communities by reducing their supply of marriage partners. And finally, polygamy harms society because it often leads to welfare fraud and social ills that taxpayers must pay to address. All of these pathologies are on display in Utah polygamous communities and the Middle East.

Another:

Polygamy is a red herring in the same-sex marriage debate.  Let's be clear.  The public policy problem with polygamy is not that multiple people choose to live together as partners.  They can do that now, and the state doesn't, and shouldn't, stop them.  The problem occurs when people claim state benefits for more than one partner.  Then you have a problem of inequality in benefits – for instance, a person being able to receive Social Security based on the work of more than one partner.

When people like Santorum raise polygamy as a counter-argument, the best response is to agree with him that a person should only be able to claim marital benefits for one spouse, on grounds of equal rights, but insist that how many people a person lives with – and their gender - is none of the state's business.  Throw it back on him by asking him exactly what he is proposing with regard to penalizing people living in multiple-partner homes.  Is he suggesting breaking in and arresting them?  Would he make it a criminal offense?  Would he sentence them to prison?

This puts him back on the defensive, shifting the burden on who is asking to change things. Instead of letting Santorum get away with claiming he is merely defending the status quo, point out that he is really asking for new state penalties, new state interference in private lives, based on how many people live in your home. 

Santorum and other anti-equality bigots use polygamy for only one reason: it is less politically popular than same-sex marriage. Tying something people think they want to something people think they don't want is an ancient rhetorical tactic. That doesn't make it logical or true. They get away with this because people are confused about the issue – just as they are confused about the difference between state recognizing marriage (which should be equal for all), and a religion recognizing marriage (which is entirely that religion's business). Of course, politicians like Santorum keep listeners intentionally confused about this, because it benefits their policy goals.

One more:

The public policy behind not allowing polygamy is not really about marriage: it's about divorce. I practice some family law, and a divorce between two adults can be extremely complex in decisions related to property division and child custody. The factors to be considered and weighed by the court are endless. The cases are mentally and financially exhausting. And that's between two (originally) consenting adults.

Now, throw into the mix a third or fourth spouse and it becomes sheer bedlam. All at the same time? Two want to stay married while a third wants a divorce? Visitation? Visitation with a non-biological parent? Grandparents' rights?  I shudder considering the neverending saga.

Practically, if multiple adults want to live in the same house and jump bedroom to bedroom, swing from the ceiling, and parade a leather-suited gimp through the house, so be it. Just don't ask the government to legally recognize the joiner because that means the government takes the responsibility for the (often inevitable) split.

Cartoon from Buzzfeed's brilliant mash-up of Rick Santorum quotes and New Yorker cartoons.

The NYT claims it will. Bob Wright counters:

If we cut defense spending it's not as if the dollars we would have spent disappear; they go various other places–some of them go into commercial R&D, some of them go into consumption (which people seem to like), and so on. And it's not as if the human resources those dollars would have supported just dry up and blow away; they get put to a different use.

Yglesias is on the same page:

[T]he question we need to ask about this is how elastic do we think the supply of innovators is. Maybe if spending on military robotics declines, reducing the total returns to robotics-related innovation, the we'll have many fewer people going into robotics and way less innovation. Maybe they'll teach yoga instead. But maybe if spending on military robotics declines then our most talented roboticists will focus more of their time and attention on civilian applications. The people who make the Roomba also make the PakBot for the military. To an extent, PakBot spending supports the existence of the firm and attracts capital to the industry, spurring the development of Roombas. But to an extent the PakBot simply diverts engineers away from thinking about how to make better Roombas and into thinking about how to make better PakBots. 

Jessica Valenti is not impressed by a new WaPo blog: 

I will always want more women’s (and feminist) voices in the mainstream media, particularly in politics. There’s an overwhelming byline gender gap and that needs to change. But The Washington Post’s new lady blog, “She the People,” is not a step in the right direction. In fact, I think it’s pretty terrible. … I’m glad that The Washington Post wants to appeal more to women. I’m also glad that this blog means that they’re employing more women; that’s great. But there’s a much simpler – and less condescending – way to create a publication that does these things. You want more women readers? Get more women writers: on the main page, in the opinion section, writing about more than “women’s” issues. Cover more feminist topics. And for the love of all that is good in the world, drop the fucking lipstick logo.

A savvy reader points out:

And Orlando is number 2!

Reference kicks in at the 2:40 mark. Number 1 gayest city and accompaniment here.