Also Ran: Rudy Giuliani

With 95% of the vote counted in the GOP Florida Primary, Rudy Giuliani managed to squeek by Mike Huckabee for third place. And that's not good enough.

Most news sources are now reporting that Giuliani will drop out now. The former NYC mayor had adopted a strategy of ignoring early races in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina where he was unlikely to win and betting everything on Florida. When he came up with that strategy he was leading in the polls in Florida. But time passed, the spotlight moved, and Giuliani's strategy came back to bite him.

Giuliani will endorse John McCain tomorrow in California, according to the Associated Press.

As I sit at my keyboard listening to the pundits on television, McCain seems to have already won the nomination. They talk abotu his electibilty and the winner-take-all states that he's going to take on February 5th. We'll see if they're right...

Some Thoughts on the Race Before the GOP Vote in Florida and the Dems in SC

First let's talk about Rudy. I saw a story early in the week on a Giuliani meet and greet gone bad. Ron Paul's people have been after Giuliani since at least July, when he was booed over his tax statements at a town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida.

Giuliani showed up at TooJay's Original Gourmet Deli in Palm Beach Gardens on Tuesday. Ron Paul supporters held up signs that made TV footage of Giuliani look like an ad for candidate Paul. Then when Rudy tried to take questions, the Ron Paul supporters started to chant "Ron Paul! Ron Paul!" It was so loud, according to the Associated Press, that "no one cold think, much less speak."

Could things get worse? Always, of course. Abortion protestor showed up. Giuliani has the most pro-choice position and history of any of the GOP candidates. Rudy gave up and left...

The NY Times endorsed McCain this week. The Times felt compelled to explain why it had not back Giuliani:

Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? ... What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?

That man is not running for president.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking....

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Ouch!If you're a Giuliani supporter, that's gotta hurt a little...

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I saw bits and pieces of the GOP debate last night. Huckabee was asked a question about cutting taxes and made some interesting remarks on China....

Huckabee blew his own horn for a few moments about how great a governor of Arkansas he was on taxes. Then he changed the subject and discussed his perspective on the concerns of average Americans over the economy.

"...frankly, in talking about the stimulus package, one of the concerns that I have is that we'll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese. And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that's been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package."

Huckabee suggested that a public works project to strengthen America's infrastructure would be money better spent. Of course, it wouldn't be spent as quickly (the point of a stimulus package).

"I'd like to suggest that maybe we add two lanes of highway from Bangor all the way to Miami on I-95. A third of the United States population lives within 100 miles of that... This nation's infrastructure is falling apart. And if we built those lanes of highways -- with American labor, American steel, American concrete -- I believe it would do more to stimulate the economy."

He called it "a long- term stimulus package that I think would have more impact on the American long-term future."

Huckabee's China statement sounds like he thinks there's something wrong with stimulating China's economy. If we manage to stimulate our own economy (which seems to be the goal) why do we care if someone else's economy happens to benefit, too, as a side effect? Globalization has made it hard to isolate the American economy from other economies, and I'm not sure why we want to.

As for borrowing money from China, China held $386 billion worth of US Treasury bonds in November (the last month for which figures are available); that's down from a high of about $420 billion in March of 2007. It's about 16% of our Treasury Bond debt held by other countries. So borrowing money (by selling Treasury Bond) is basically the way the Bush Administration is paying for things. Why should this be different?

Later Sen. McCain was asked a question about the economy. McCain said this:

We will clean up our act and we will regain the confidence of the American people as being careful stewards of our tax dollars, and we will fix this problem with having to borrow money from China, because then we will balance our budget...

What puzzles me is why no one mentions Japan. China may hold 16% of our Treasury Bonds, but Japan holds 25%. We owe Japan $194 billion more when those bonds come due than we owe China. Doesn't that make Japan the real problem?

The China discussion went on. Romney called China tough competition: "They're going to be a much tougher competition, China is, competitor, than we have seen from Europe in a long time."

Giuliani said that China was both an opportunity and a warning, but mostly an opportunity: "I think we have to look at the rise of China as a wonderful opportunity. I see 20 (million) or 30 million people coming out of poverty in China every year. To me, that's 20 (million) or 30 million more customers for the United States." Giuliani seemed to have the most developed and thought out policy on China. And the most positive.

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On the Democratic side, John Edwards came out of the Democratic Debate in SC with a new constituency. He now leads "the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party," according to one news source. Clinton and Obama, in other words, acted like children...

Alaska's former senator, Mike Gravel, has returned to the campaign trail after beating something like the flu. Of the nine candidates still running in the two major parties, he's the only remaining candidate without at least a couple of delegates committed to him. Gravel has been out of the Senate since 1981 and now lives in Virginia. Senator Gravel is campaigning in Florida and doing his best to get Bush and Cheney impeached in his spare time.

McCain Wins South Carolina (And Conservatives Still Don't Have a Candidate)

The voters in today's GOP Primary in South Carolina could be divided up into four many demographic groups: there were Moderates, there were Conservatives, there were Evangelical Christians, and there were Retirees. About a quarter of the voters were moderates, according to exit poll data, and John McCain garnered two-thirds of their votes.

That means that of the 33% of primary voters who went for McCain, about half called themselves moderates. Older voters, according to the Associated Press, also tended to cast their ballots for McCain.

But the majority of South Carolina's GOP voters described themselves today as either Conservatives or Evangelical Christians (most of whom qualify as Conservatives, as well).

So why did the most moderate of the GOP's candidates win South Carolina? Simple: Conservatives still don't have a favorite son. They split their vote four (or maybe five) ways and diluted their power as a voting block.

You might say that Conservatives are more concerned today about their differences these days than about their similarities. Evangelical Christians are looking for a candidate with a faith based message and they think they've found on in Mike Huckabee. He carried the Evangelical vote for the most part. But the Fiscal Conservatives who are more concerned with financial policy than religion don't much like Huckabee because they question his record on taxation and spending during his tenure as governor of Arkansas. Those voters split their ballots between Romney and Thompson. And while Evangelical voters might be willing to accept Thompson as a candidate, they have a problem with Romney's Mormon religion. Romney has failed in his bid to attract the support of Evangelical voters.

Perhaps the most important factor in the South Carolina GOP Primary was McCain's ability to draw some voters from every camp. He gained a degree of acceptance among both Evangelicals and Fiscal Conservatives.

It is worth noting that Mike Huckabee is the darling of the misnamed "Fair Tax" crowd at the moment. The only other candidate that supports that proposal in Ron Paul. And if Ron Paul's people had voted for Huckabee, their four percent of the vote would have made Huckabee the winner. That's assuming a lot, I know. If bullfrogs had wings...

Ron Paul finished fifth in the race. And Giuliani came in a distant seventh.

After Nevada: Duncan Hunter Drops Out

California Congressman Duncan Hunter was counting on doing well in the West. Today he finished seventh in Nevada, and the congressman has decided that Rudy Giuliani is going to have to find someone else to keep the NYC Mayor and former GOP frontrunner from being last in state primaries and caucus events.

Hunter's message voters during the campaign has been straitforward, but almost monotone. He harped on the immigration issue at the expense of most other issues. He also tried to appeal to military voters; Hunter is a Vietnam era veteran.

Hunter's campaign spokesperson blamed the media for Hunter's withdrawal from the race, comparing media coverage to the hit TV show "Survivor" and saying that Hunter had been voted off the island...

He plans to return to Congress and work on immigration policy, he said.

Giant Sucking Sound Heard Across Midwest as Romney Campaign Is Resuscitated

Residents of surrounding states heard a loud sucking sound at a little after 8pm local time tonight coming out of Michigan. That was about the time that major news sources predicted the winners in the Michigan Presidential Primaries - and the sound was Mitt Romney's campaign breathing life back into its almost dead body. The sound was actually heard (faintly) as far away as South Carolina and even created gentle breezes in places like California and Florida.

Okay, I'm being a tad sarcastic I suppose. But Michigan was a "must win" for Romney. And his win does little more than further muddy the question of just who the GOP frontrunner is. For the next 24 hours, I guess the frontrunner is Mitt Romney. But the question on everyone's lips since the race started seems to be, Where'd the "mo" go?

Momentum, the big MO, seems to disappear quickly in this GOP race. Mike Huckabee seems to have more of it than any other candidate. He went from "Mike who?" at Thanksgiving to the Iowa Caucus winner in January. The momentum of that win has placed him a respectable third in New Hampshire and now Michigan - states he wasn't expected to do well in. Next up is South Carolina, a state where Huckabee and Romney will compete for the Conservative Christian vote the way they did in Iowa. When we woke up this morning, Rasmussen Reports had McCain leading in South Carolina; that lead was built in part on momentum from the New Hampshire win and McCain's numbers will now go down. Huckabee, Romney, and Fred Thompson were all competing for second spot - separated by 3 percentage points in the survey. If Fred Thompson pulls out a win (or even a second place), the GOP race will go from a three man to a four man field of frontrunners - five if you count Giuliani, which I don't at the moment...

So let's talk about Giuliani. But what's to say? He finished sixth in Iowa and Michigan, fourth in Wyoming and New Hampshire. A poll yesterday said that McCain was leading in Florida (they like old people there), but that statistically it was a four way tie between McCain, Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee. If Thompson were to win South Carolina, Florida would become a five way tie...

NPR had a cute story about a sand sculpture in Myrtle Beach, SC. Six GOP candidates were sculpted in beach sand there. Duncan hunter must be irritated that his face was not included. With 83% of the Michigan vote counted, hunter got less than one percent of the vote in the GOP Primary there...

New Hampshire Makes it Muddier

I'm listening to Barack Obama concede. It's clear that he's conceding nothing but the New Hampshire Primary... "And when I am president, I will end this war in Iraq and bring our soldiers home..." That's not a concession.

Barack won without winning and lost without knowing it.

He won because Hillary is still on the defensive. Almost winning has only increased his credibility as a challenger. Six or eight weeks ago the Democratic Party was a coronation procession on its way to crown Hillary Queen of America. Today most Americans aren't sure who the Democratic Party's frontrunner is. And I'm not sure myself.

Obama lost because he didn't replicate the young college vote miracle that work for him the Iowa Caucus. I'm sure his campaign people will worry about that...

Because it is a two-way race, Edwards is still in it and makes it a three-way race. But that will change soon unless Edwards a) comes in second, in front of one of the two "frontrunners" again before February 5th and b) wins at least a couple of primaries on February 5th (or before).

Who's not in it anymore? Joe Biden got twice as many votes as Mike Gravel. Since Joe Biden dropped out last week (he's still on the ballot because they were already set), maybe Gravel should reconsider his status. When Dennis Kucinich is 10 times as popular as you are, Senator Gravel, you're probably not popular enough to be President.

The GOP field becomes even muddier after New Hampshire. McCain has new life after winning the New Hampshire Primary. It will be interesting to see how much momentum that gives him going into the next few state, and whose votes he cuts into.

Romney and Huckabee are in a death struggle for the conservative religious vote. Romney has now lost twice in states where he was supposed to win; but he probably won't go away. Huckabee did better than expected in N.H. and is sneaking up on Romney in Michigan (next up, January 15). If Huckabee wins Michigan and South Carolina (January 19 for the GOP), I think Romney is toast. If Romney wins Nevada (far from certain) on January 19, that may take the edge off the defeat; but Romney has to win Michigan or South Carolina to stay alive, I think.

Giuliani finished fourth as was glad for it. He almost came in fifth. It's still three weeks until Florida. Giuliani decided not to compete in the races before Florida. The question is, will anyone remember who he is in three weeks? The economy has replaced terrorism as the leading issue; that's bad for Rudy. If Huckabee doesn't bead Rudy in Florida, McCain will. If McCain doesn't, Romney may. And Ron Paul got new life in New Hampshire by giving Giuliani a run for fourth place.

Does anyone remember when Fred Thompson was considered a shoe in; all he had to do was declare his candidacy? Huckabee, in third, got ten times the votes of Thompson, in sixth. Fred can take comfort in beating Duncan Hunter...

One week until Michigan.

The Republican Know-Nothings...

I think it is hilarious, the extent to the GOP employs the "fear and loathing" approach to political support. The idea is simple: talk about something the public is afraid of, feed their fear (reasonable or unreasonable), and the offer to fix it. No sincerity is required.

When Tim Kaine ran for Governor of Virginia I would hear radio ads for his opponent, Jerry Kilgore. In my neck of the woods, Kilgore seems to be playing a fiddle with just two strings. On the one string his ads would tell us that we shouldn't vote for Kaine because, why, Kaine was a Catholic and the Pope wouldn't let people be executed in Virginia while Kaine was governor. (Kilgore assumed I'd think this was bad.) The other string played a note about illegal immigrants and how the state could save thousands over dollars by identifying them and being sure they weren't paying in-state tuition at Virginia Tech. I thought, "They got in to Tech? Jezz, leave them alone!"

Kilgore lost, even though he started out as the frontrunner. I'd like to think his racist rhetoric and the manner in which he patronized voters had something to do with that...

Now we are getting the same thing from presidential candidates. Romney and Giuliani want to out do each other with who can be the most hard line on immigration. The irony is that neither of them were hard line on immigration until they began running for president. But they know that fear and loathing plays well with rednecks in rural Idaho and old white ladies in Florida. So they've all become a bunch of know nothings.

The Know Nothings were a political movement in the 1850's. They were scared of what the Irish might do to America. And they played the fear and loathing card to get elected.

There's a good piece in the Boston Globe about Romney and Giuliani and the Know Nothings.

Immigration is a much more complicated issue than the GOP wants you to believe. Don't let fear and loathing determine how you vote...

When it Comes to It, Electability is the REAL Issue for Dems

Reuters is reporting that if the 2008 presidential election were held today and Hilary Clinton was the Democratic nominee, Rudy Giuliani could beat her.

So could Mitt Romney.

And John McCain. And Fred Thompson. And even Mike Huckabee.

I the same poll in July, people were unfamiliar enough with the most of the GOP candidates that Hilary would have won by a small margin. Not as big as the margin that Barack Obama or John Edwards would have won by, but she would have won. But people have had time to think about it.

The campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination has been about influence and money until now. Many Democratic women want a woman to be president. And Hilary is easily the most well connected of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination. Hillary has led until now. She still leads the other Democratic candidates in polls that ask Democrats who they plan to vote for.

There is a danger for the Democrats, a danger that they could lose sight of the real goal of the nominating process. The goal is not to find out who is most popular with other Democrats. The goal is to nominate a candidate who can become President. The concern has consistently been that Hillary Clinton may not be that person, regardless of her influence and popularity with the party.

The choices are really at the party level:

• Almost every Democrat wants universal health care administered by the Federal government; almost every Republican believes that it can be left in the hands of private insurance companies and employers.
  
• Almost every Democrat wants to get out of Iraq; almost every Republican want to stay in Iraq.
  
• Almost every Republican wants to privatize social security and reduce benefits for future generations; almost every Democrat wants to extend the payroll tax so that the wealthiest one or two percent of Americans pay that tax on all (or at least most) of their incomes (like the rest of us) so that we can fund the system as it currently exists in the future.
  
• Almost all Democrats are pro-choice; almost all Republicans are pro-life.
  
• Almost all Republicans want to take our education system toward government financed private education; almost all Democrats want to strengthen public education and repeal many aspects of the disastrous No Child Left Behind law.
  
• Almost all Democrats want to simplify the tax code and make it more progressive; almost all Republicans want to simplify the tax code and make it less progressive (or do away with it and replace it with a federal sales tax).
  

So take your pick. Do you want a Republican or a Democrat in the White House in 2008. If your answer is that you want a Democrat, that person is probably not Hillary. And if we nominate her, there's a good chance that we will end up with eight more years of George Bush's policies and a President name Mitt or Fred....

The 2008 President Race - Some Tidbits...

You've all probably heard the joke about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac who used to lie awake in bed at night and wonder if there was a dog. But did you know he was running for president? Okay, I don't really know how well Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) sleeps at night. And he's a Unitarian, not an Agnostic. But he is dyslexic.

There's a lot we don't know about this batch of presidential candidates. The information is out there; it just doesn't seem to float to the top very often. Maybe that's because it doesn't really matter much (or matters less tan it used to, at least). Here's another example....

Almost everyone is away that candidate Mitt Romney (R-Mass.)is a Mormon. What rarely gets mentioned is that the wife of candidate Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Jackie Marie Clegg Dodd, is also a Mormon. Dodd's father was a U.S. Senator. In 1970, Dodd, a Catholic, married his father's speech writer, Susan Mooney. They divorced in 1982. Dodd dated for 17 years; his romantic interests included Bianca Jagger (Ex-wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger) and Carrie Fisher (who player Princess Leia in Start Wars). The in 1999 he married Clegg.

If you had to guess which presidential candidate was the bass player for a band that had opened for or played with stars like Willie Nelson, REO Speedwagon, Charlie Daniels, Alabama, and Grand Funk Railroad, who would you pick? Would it confuse you more if I told you the candidate was a Republican? Mike Huckabee is the answer. The former Arkansas governor is a blues and rock band leader as well as an ordained Southern Baptist minister (he went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas).

There are 17 declared candidate in the two major parties. Where did your favorite go to college?

Hillary (D-NY) went to an all-girls school, Wellesley College, before doing her law degree at Yale (ironically, the alma mater of our current president). On the other hand, Romney, Obama (D-Ill.), and GOP hopeful Alan Keyes all get their last degree at Harvard. So will the fact that Harvard beat Yale this year make a difference in the campaign?

Here's a list:

• Joe Biden when to the University of Delaware and did his law degree at Syracuse University.
  
• Chris Dodd went to Providence College before doing his law degree at the University of Louisville.
  
• John Edwards (D-NC) started at Clemson, graduate from North Carolina State, and did his law degree at the University of North Carolina.
  
• Rudi Giuliani (R-NY) went to Manhattan College and on to New York University School of Law.
  
• Mike Gravel went to Columbia University.
  
• Mike Huckabee did his undergraduate work at Ouachita Baptist University.
  
• Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) got his BA and his law degree from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
  
• Alan Keyes did his undergraduate work at Cornell.
  
• Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) went to Case Western Reserve University.
  
• John McCain (R-AZ) went to the Naval Academy.
  
• Ron Paul (R-Texas) went to Gettysburg College before getting his medical degree from Duke.
  
• Romney attended Stanford, but ended up doing his undergraduate work at Brigham Young.
  
• Obama finished up his undergraduate work at Columbia University before going on to Harvard.
  
• Bill Richardson (D-NM) went to Tufts University.
  
• Tom Tancredo (R-CO) went to the University of Northern Colorado.
  
• Fred Thompson (R-TN) got his undergraduate degree from the University of Memphis and did his law degree at Vanderbilt.
  

That's eleven lawyers, one doctor, two soldier, one minister, one Peace Corp volunteer, one real live knight, one actor, and one real estate agent.

Other tidbits worth mentioning:

Ron Paul is a Republican, but he is also a member of the Libertarian Party. Bill Richardson was a French major in college. Mitt Romney's father ran for president in 1968. Duncan Hunter won a Bronze Star in Nam as an Army Ranger and went to college on the GI Bill. Rudi Giuliani was knighted by Quenn Elizabeth. And Fred Thompson was the GOP mole in the Watergate Hearings.

Rudy Giuliani Gets Booed on Taxes

On Saturday, GOP Presidential hopefully Rudy Giuliani was in Florida where we served as Grand Marshall for NASCAR's Pepsi 400 in Daytona. Before the race he attended a town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, where about 500 people listened to him answer questions for half and hour or so. One of his answers brought jeers and boos from some people in the crowd. Giuliani was asked if he would support a flat tax proposal (proponents are using the euphemism "fair tax").

Giuliani said "no." People in the crowd (a couple of dozen or so of them, at least) made those same nasty noises in response to Giuliani's answer that many race fans make during driver introductions when Jeff Gordon gets introduced.

I found it interesting that, in a crowd of 500 people, only 25 to 50 of them vocalized negative feelings about his answer. That means that only five or ten percent of the people there felt strongly about the "flat tax" question. I also found it interesting that the Associated Press headlined a story based on the incident; but they did. Go figure...

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If you're looking for something to think about that will make your head hurt, try taxes. The issue is complicated beyond words. There's no sense discussing it much with someone unless you have at least a vague level of agreement with them about what governments should do -- by which I mean the sorts of things a governments should dabble in more than exactly which course of action governments should take on something. After all, taxation is how government pays for what it does.

Most people don't have a firm grip on the number of different governments and taxes there are that have some effect on their daily lives. If you live in a town in Virginia you almost definitely pay taxes to the town (even if you don't own property), taxes to the county the town is in, taxes to the Commonwealth of Virginia, and taxes to the Federal government. Among my favorites is the prepared food tax that most Virginia local governments charge when you buy cooked food; that tax adds an additional five or six percent to the price of your hamburger at a Wendy's or Shoney's and that money stays with the locality where the restaurant is located.

If you live in some other state, there's a good chance your county taxes you twice - once through your county commission and once through your school board. In Virginia school boards don't have that power.

I looked up the term "flat tax" online and found that not everyone agrees what a flat tax even is. On the one hand, a flat tax is technically a tax where everyone pays the same amount - like the $10 tax I pay to put a county sticker on the windshield of my car. Poor or rich, whether it's for your 30 year old Pinto or your Dodge Viper, ten bucks is what it costs. But most people mean a flat rate or percentage when they talk about a flat tax - everyone would pay something different because they earned (or spent) a different amount.

Of course, we haven't talked about what to tax yet. Some flat taxers want to tax income, some want to tax only earned income, and some what to tax spending (instead of income). That last proposal is what people mean most of the time what they talk about the so-called "fair tax." They want a national sales tax of some sort to replace income tax in America.

I've always struggled with the definition of the word "fair." I can't give you a definition of that term that satisfies me. Most people think of everyone being treated the same.

We don't treat all kids the same at the school where I work:

• Some of them we make pay for their lunch; others we give lunch to for free.
  
• Most have to take their math tests in silence and have half an hour; a few, though, get 45 minutes and some help reading the test.
  
• Some students at my school we make read their books without any sort of devices to help them; others we let wear glasses.

What's "fair" mean?

The "fair tax" proposal is attributed in large part to radio personality Neal Boortz, promoted by the organization Americans for Fair Taxation, and embodied in a bill in committee in the U.S. House of Representatives called H.R. 25.

Common question number one is how a flat tax is fair to the poor (since they have less of an ability to pay)? Not to worry; the poor will go into the grocery store and pay the new 23% sales tax on milk and bread (just like everyone else), but then they'll get a check from the government called a "prebate" to compensate them for money they spend on basic necessities (just like everyone else).

Like the old (current) tax system, there's no effort to allow for the fact that the cost of basic necessities is different in Los Angeles than it is in, say, Newberry, South Carolina. Still, proponents say the "fair tax" is "progressive." I don't know how that's "fair," but I'm not sure what they mean by the word.

One minor detail that bothers me some about the proposal that Americans for Fair Taxation has online is simple. Right now poor people don't have to do any paperwork to escape income tax. If their income is less than the amount of their deduction and exemptions, they don't have to file. Under the proposal I looked at online, poor people would have to file paperwork to get their tax rebate - they'd have to fill out a new form to get back money the government shouldn't have taken. The amount of paperwork rich people have to do would decline sharply and the amount of paperwork poor people (who generally have less education) have to do would go up. That strikes me as being less than progressive; my experience with poor people leads me to suspect that many would miss out because they wouldn’t do the paperwork.

I do know this: poor people (and many in the lower half of the middle class) generally spend every penny they get just to make it from month to month. Rich people don't have that problem. So under the new "fair tax," a couple in their thirties raising two point four children in the burbs will pay taxes on almost every penny they make just because they spend it while the doctors and lawyers in more affluent neighborhoods, even if they pay more in actually taxes, could get by with paying tax on half or less of their income. Then when you look at the government's money and you talk about what portion of it came from the wealthy and what part of it came from the average American who's just try to make ends meet while they raise their kids, you'd find that the "fair tax" reduced the percentage of the Federal budget that was paid for by the more well to do. Rich people will be happy about that.

I'll ask rhetorically, "how is that fair?" And I expect that someone will explain it to me whether the question is intended to be rhetorical or not...

Election 2008 and the Evangelical Dilemma

The Christian Right (Religious Right, whatever you want to call them) faces a dilemma at the moment and I'm not sure they even see it...

In 1979 when Rev. Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. founded the Moral Majority, the Christian Right in America entered a golden era of political influence. Leaders like Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson (to name just a few) wanted to bring America back to God, and wanted government to reflect the values of the Bible.

The most heated issue on the Evangelical plate is abortion. Sure, they're against gay marriage, have strong views on educational issues (like prayer in school, vouchers, the teaching of evolution, etc), and want to see God incorporated more into government with things like the posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. But abortion is THE issue.

The dilemma they have is that Democrats (like me) all belong to a party that supports a woman's "right" to choose to have an abortion. That's the consensus of the Democratic Party. there are individual party members (like me) who don't believe in abortion; but the Party does. So the Religious Right can't support a Democrat. But none of the Republicans this go around are particularly interested in religion. Economics, yes; religion, no. Except for one: Mitt Romney.

I said that I don't think the Christian Right see their dilemma. What I mean is that the Christian Right thinks that their dilemma is that they don't have a really good candidate to support. Rudy Giuliani is leading in most of the national polls among GOP candidates. But he's not very strong on abortion (and he's been divorced umpteen times). I think their dilemma is that they could end up embracing Romney as a candidate. Romney is leading at the moment in Iowa and New Hampshire; if he wins those races he could gain a lot of momentum...

Don't misunderstand me. This is analytical, not emotional. I don't have a problem with Mormons. But if the idea originally was to take America back to God, the Christian Right ought to be skeptical about the whether a Mormon doing that. Why? Without making this a profoundly theological discussion,

• Christians (especially members of the Christian Right) believe that Jesus Christ was God Incarnate (made into a human being); Mormons don't.
  
• Christian believe that Jesus died to rescue us from a hopeless bondage to sin; Mormons don't. Mormons believe he came to live a good life, teach, and set an example for us to follow.
  
• Christians believe that we get to Heaven by having faith in Jesus and trusting in the fact that he died for our sins; Mormons believe that we get to Heaven by being good (an error that half the books in the New Testament, particularly Galatians and Hebrews, were written to refute).
  

Mormons aren't Christians. Mormons find this statement offensive. Unapologetically, I regret that. But in years (centuries) past those who believed as Romney does would have been called heretics.

The dilemma for the Christian Right? Do they embrace a heretic who is against gay marriage and shares a few other political goals with them, or do they embrace someone they disagree with but who at least pays lip service to the fundamental truths of Christianity, or do they stay home on election day?

The irony, if they end up endorsing Romney, is that he's not that strong on abortion...