Last night at the debate Senator Santorum had an opportunity to show leadership when asked about Speaker Gingrich’s past indiscretions. He was asked by John King what he thought about the allegations made by Marianne Gingrich and Rick Perry’s thoughts on forgiveness.

Santorum said:
“…I am a Christian [like Perry], and I thank God for forgiveness. But you know, these these are issues of our lives, and what we did in our lives are issues of character for people to consider. But the bottom line is, these are these are things for everyone in this audience to look at, and they’re to look at me, look at what I’ve done in my private life and personal life, unfortunately.

And what I say is that this country is a very forgiving country. This – this country understands that we are all fallen. And I’m very hopeful that we will be judged by that standard and not by – by a higher one on that ultimate day.”

Look up the video, Santorum was dripping with Sanctimony, almost like he was perfect. Well, as a non-perfect born again Evangelical Christian, my first thought is, “how would Jesus handle this?”

John 8:1-11 is a perfect picture of Jesus’s response to people caught with their – er – pants down:

 1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

 11 “No, Lord,” she said.

   And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Mel Gibson, a man who has had his fair share of public personal demons dramatized this beautifully in his film “The Passion of the Christ”, portraying the scene with no dialogue, a woman in the wrong is thrown onnthe ground, Jesus writes in the sand, rocks fall to the ground, and a loving hand is extended. She didn’t even ask for forgiveness! Yet Jesus, the savior of the world Sen. Santorum publicly professes to follow, extended a hand of grace anyway.

The ironic thing is that according to scripture, Jesus lived a life free of sin, meaning by his logic, he could have thrown the stone at this woman. But he did not. What an amazing picture of a loving God!

To those of you who keep hanging this over Newt’s head because it “offends your moral values.” If you profess to follow Jesus, you may look to his example and see that a hand of grace was extended. Governor Perry reflected Jesus in this way, let’s follow his example.

If I were Newt Gingrich, I’d ring up Rick Perry and have him cut an ad where he talks about the power of redemption and being reconciled to God and the need for bold, conservative leadership in Washington.

That was the absolute best, most genuine defense of Gingrich on his personal life I have heard. This would blunt ABC News’s interview with Marianne Gingrich.

I think Newt has handled the situation pretty well, but getting assurances from a prominent social conservative could soothe a lot of conservative’s fears about supporting a man with as sordid a past as Gingrich.

I should also add that Rick Perry’s 4% average in polling in SC  is not indicative of the level of support he has in SC. Many people like Rick Perry and I think his endorsement carries a lot of weight with not only his supporters, but Rick Santorum supporters.

Feigned outrage is not going to work on us.

Having some inaccuracies about Mitt Romney’s career is not as bad as suggesting Newt supports China’s one child policy. 

And Newt repudiating his Super PAC DOES show tremendous leadership, not disorder or implosion.

And I’m sorry, but conservative talk radio hosts blasting Perry and Gingrich or saying Gingrich has been making the arguments “King of Bain” was making have either not been paying attention to what Newt has been saying or have not watched “King of Bain” and should probably do a little more research before commenting on it. Gingrich and Perry were too broad and a bit over the top, but they were certainly not attacking capitalism.

We’re onto Romney, we’re beginning to take ground, we realize you (the Establishment) don’t like it, but get over it.

While I do not agree with using left-wing socialist arguments against Mitt Romney, there’s something Newt Gingrich brought up that I think is an absolutely valid question:

Not necessarily as conservative voters, but as Christian voters, do we really have to agree with and approve of some of what Mitt Romney did at Bain Capital? There are certainly instances and most of the instances where he was incredibly successful: Staples, Dominos, etc. But do we, as Christians first, capitalists second, have to agree with decisions made by Mitt Romney?

I don’t think Newt or Perry were ever talking about getting the government involved to regulate Bain, I think what they were talking about is character.

I think anyone running a small business would say making a profit is the most important thing they could do as a company and that is certainly true, but it’s also important to think about the livelihood of your employees and the people who work for you, no? It’s important to look at how your company serves the local economy and what would happen if you went out of business?

Please do not get me wrong: I’m not saying that the government should have regulated Bain so that Mitt COULDN’T do what we did, but should he have done what he did?

For all of you who are calling the race for Romney, let’s not forget that President Ford won 6 primary before President Reagan won 1. President Ford ended up winning in 1976 at a brokered convention, but it was very close.

Let’s not give up!

Also if polling out of SC is true, then it’s good news and if Perry and Santorum really care about this country, they’ll drop out after SC and endorse Newt for president going into Florida.

We can beat Romney.

So Ron Paul wants all the other conservatives in the race to drop out and endorse him to take on Mitt Romney.

I agree that conservatives need to coalesce around a candidate, but Ron Paul’s foreign policy prescriptions are just not palatable for me or most conservatives. But there’s no question that Ron Paul has the base of support, the money, and the passion in organization to continue far into this race.

At the same time, We’ve all been talking about a possible late entrant into this race to challenge Romney to the nomination.

So why don’t we split the difference with Dr. Paul? If he drops out and let’s his son, Sen. Rand Paul, who holds the views of his father conservatives like but is  more in line with main stream conservatism on foreign policy, run in his place, let’s rally around Sen Paul. The downside? He’d kind of be learning on the job. He’s only got a year of experience in the Senate. But it’s a hell of a lot better than having Obama or Romney in the White House.

I know it would probably never happen, but one can only dream right?

Republican voters are not happy with their choices….

Who could possibly come in late to save the day?

(I believe it was) Bill Clinton’s checklist of things you need when running for president DOUBLY apply to a late entrant: 1) Money 2) Base of Support 3) Name Recognition

So who are some Republicans who fit this criteria? Who could quickly raise money, have an automatic base of support, and name recognition? Let’s go through some of the possibilities.

1) Swap Ron Paul for Rand Paul The younger Paul’s views align more naturally with the conservative base of the Republican Party, plus, he’d get his father’s passionate base of support as well. A Rand Paul candidacy could finally split the difference between conservatives and libertarians. The downside? Paul’s been in the senate for just one year, and some conservatives might not be 100% comfortable with some of Paul’s libertarian views. Why would Ron Paul do this? For Paul, the message is more important than the messenger and while his son may not share all of his views, they agree on the most important things.

2) Swap Newt Gingrich for Marco Rubio Newt is passionate about two things: As speaker, he pushed for accomplishing conservative goals (some of them he did) but before he was Speaker, he was chairman of GOPAC which trained young conservative leaders. Newt is passionate about the future of the Republican Party and what better way to illustrate that than putting up someone who is widely seen as a future leader of the conservative movement? The downside? Rubio’s been a senator for a year, the plus for him is he held a leadership position as Speaker of the Florida state Assembly, which is more than Obama held at this time.

3) Swap Rick Santorum for Allen West One thing that is sorely lacking in American political life is leadership, and one thing Allen West just exudes is leadership. Congressman West is on his way to higher office one way or another, but if he presents a compelling plan for America, why not just make him president right away?

4) Swap Rick Perry for Bobby Jindal He’s got the most experience out of all of these potential candidates AND he showed incredible leadership in the absence of leadership from the White House during the oil leak crisis. While he’s not as well known, those who know Jindal are excited by him.

5) Swap all the conservatives in the race for Sarah Palin Yes, I know some of you dread the idea of a Sarah Palin candidacy. But she’d have people willing to drop serious money on her, she has a passionate base of support, and she’s well known. He polling is bad, but that can change easily once she’s contrasted with Obama. She can articulately appeal to tea party Republicans and independents  who have been influenced by the Occupy movement. In many ways she’s the perfect opponent for Obama, the exact opposite of him in every way. She polls badly, but that can change once people see her contrasted with Obama.

We’ve got options people. It would just take people convincing one or more of these candidates to drop out in favor of another candidate.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s good that Mitt Romney’s career at Bain is being brought up…. I just don’t think it’s being done in the right way.

As an employer, Mitt Romney had every right to fire whomever he chooses. In fact, sometimes firing employees is the responsible thing for employers to do. No one has the right to a job, everyone should work hard and when someone isn’t up to the task of their job they deserve to be fired. Similarly, when the government imposes policies on people, they have no choice but to lay people off. Most employers don’t want to do this, but sometimes they have to.

The way Newt, Huntsman, and Perry, all principled fiscal conservatives, are going about attacking Romney on this is reprehensible. I am firmly in camp Newt, but I have to say I am sorely disappointed by his decision to take a line from the New York Times and run, I’m angered that a Pro-Newt SuperPAC is buying an anti-Romney documentary pushing left wing talking points.

There is a much smarter way to attack Romney using Bain without resorting to childish left-wing ideas about “fairness”. What is the one single strength, the one reason Romney is at the top of the polls? His electability. Period. End of story. The way the conservatives should have handled this is to say, “Look, I know Mitt Romney seems electable, but having a successful business career means making decisions that leave people on the chopping block, in an election year where the public is anti-Washington and anti-Wall Street, do we really need the personification of Wall Street with a trail of people left in the wake of his career ready to tell their stories be our nominee?

In the case of Newt, he could have found supporters who were once on welfare and are now successful because of welfare reform.

In the case of Perry , he could have stated the has millions of people ready to cut commercials for him regarding his job creation record.

They did not need to resort to this. I’m still firmly a Newt supporter, but count me bummed out.

Yep, Erick was right, the GOP electorate isn’t really interested in having a conversation about sodomy and in Santorum breaking down how homosexuality is like polygamy or pedophilia. 

My guess is, with George and Dianne moderating tonight, Santorum will get questions about this and if he continues as he has been he’ll continue to fade over the next few days.

This election is about the fundamental fiscal condition of this country and the kind of country we want to be, not about people’s personal lives. And thank God for that!

Check this video out.

First of all, why does Rick Santorum always look like he’s looking away from people and why does he seem so angry all the time? This is going to be a real problem if he’s the nominee, especially going up against the supposedly “cool” Obama.

Secondly, Libertarians shouldn’t be apart of the conservative movement? Look, I was an independent voter because I’ve got a libertarian streak (especially on fiscal issues) and I couldn’t STAND the kind of pork barrel spending projects that “conservatives” like Rick Santorum represented. I became a Republican because I saw the conservative movement embracing the Tea Party movement. If the only people we’re going to allow into the party and the conservative movement are white Christian social conservatives, how are we going to win any elections? We need to embrace those people, but we’ve got to be inclusive of people who agree with us on flanks of the platform.

Finally, His argument? Absolutely lousy. Yes, we realize that entitlements are more of a problem than earmarks. But, this is like a family with financial problems saying, “Look, eating out at Chilis and Applebees every night isn’t the REAL problem, the REAL problem is the fact we have a mortgage we can’t afford.” Of course, the big purchase items (in the case of reality, entitlement reform) are a bigger source of the problem, but it doesn’t mean smaller things (like earmarks) are good. The fact is, earmarks and pork barrel spending, however small, are morally unacceptable in a government were we’re going to have a problem paying our bills very soon.

You think Newt gets testy when he’s challenged?

Check this out.

That’s from the Dems mind you, but as far as I can see the contexts are true enough: Mitt Romney does not react gracefully when challenged.

Something tells me once Mitt starts getting hammered, we had better get ready for melt down of epic of proportions.

The fact that Iowa, a state with less than 6% unemployment in an election that is all about jobs, got to set the terms and pick front runners in this election in a nation that still has more than an 8% unemployment rate (that will probably climb in the coming months as people lay off seasonal employees), is absolutely ridiculous. It’s why we’re stuck with Rick Santorum as a top-tier candidate. Evangelicals in a state with low employment decided social issues were most important. This has got to stop. Some suggest the solution is a national primary, where all 50 states cast their ballots in, say, June to pick our nominee. While this is attractive, it is also quite destructive, as it would favor establishment candidates and people without a lot of money would not be able to participate. So here is what I think can be done:

1) Make the Republican Party more conservative. If Romney is nominated then elected president, this will be tough, but, if we get a conservative candidate or if Romney looses, we’ve got to demand the GOP make a conservative chairman. Michael Steele, as surprisingly media illiterate as we was, which weakened his chairmanship, did a lot of good in demanding conservative reforms of the party. We’ve got to get a conservative to chair the Republican Party with a strong mandate to ensure the party hierarchy is more conservative.

2) Close all primaries and caucuses. All primaries and caucuses should be closed to Republicans. We’ve got a lot of problems in California, but one thing we have had the foresight to do is to close our primaries so that it’s mostly conservatives casting their ballots in them. Independents are welcome to vote for the Republican candidate once we’ve picked it. That is the point of being an independent is to be able to choose a candidate in the general without a particular alliance.

3) A Series of Mini-”Super Tuesdays”. Candidates who don’t have money should be able to participate, but states shouldn’t have prominence or special treatment. The GOP Primary should start the first Tuesday of March, with 3 or 4 states going first, then another 10 two weeks later,  then 15 two weeks after that, and so on. This way a candidate with limited funding can still participate, but his or her ability to expand their operation is tested as the primaries get bigger.

4) A First, Second, Third Ballot Requirement. No more than four candidates should be able to recieve delegates, and the rest should be eliminated from the process of should occur. The GOP should include a ballot requirement that says “If your first choice for the Republican nomination is eliminated from consideration, who is your second choice?” and another line can be added that says “If your first and second choices are eliminated who is your third choice?” That way, a candidate who wins 25% of the vote can’t win the nomination.

Anyone else have any other ideas? This system was designed for a bygone era, We’ve got to fix this.

We created this. Getting the Christian conservative vote is a good idea, because standing for life is a good idea. And while I disagree with the government getting involved in decisions between two consenting adults, upholding the concept of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is overall positive. What is a terrible idea is not educating the social conservatives about the importance of fiscal conservatism. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve encountered at church support candidates because they “support pro-life and pro-traditional marriage” yet they’re incredibly liberal.

The fact of the matter is, we’ve allowed pro-life and marriage become issues for liberals to hide behind. As conservatives, we’ve got to be a lot better about educating our base, if we don’t, candidates like Sanatorum and Mike Huckabee will continue to have traction while real accomplished conservatives like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich will get slammed for their so called “apostasies” that are really, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant.

Ok. We’ve seen the results in Iowa. Perry is gracefully returning to Texas, Bachmann should follow suit. Santorum may pick up some momentum in other states, but let’s get real: When people start looking at Santorum’s record as Erick has outlined here, nice speeches are going to matter less and less the candidates records are going to come into focus more and more. 

For all the supposedly goofy things Speaker Gingrich has said, it’s his accomplishment of things that he’s done that’s most impressive. He has, effectively, won a national election before in a landslide by running on a series of conservative legislative proposals, and he put all of them up for a vote, winning many of them, the most important being the capital gains tax cuts, meaningful spending cuts, and welfare reform. And if his record were not impressive enough his policy proposals are what conservatives have been asking for: a transition to a flat tax, a complete cut of capital gains taxes, further reforms to welfare and other entitlement programs and best of all, a complete repeal of the legislation that Mitt Romney piloted in Massachusetts: ObamaCare.

As much as many of you liked Perry, it’s time to throw in the towel. Let’s not repeat 2008, let’s get behind Newt. He may not be perfect, but there’s plenty to enthusiastically get behind.  And best of all we can beat Romney with him.

There are many pundits who are predicting that Newt could be out by tonight, and that is certainly a possibility. Afterall, Newt has been the recipient of the pretentious Romney attack machine that drove the other candidates to hate him in 2008 and he may want to get his revenge by getting behind Perry, just as Rudy and others dropped out early in 2008 and got behind McCain to stop Romney. But I think counting Newt out is premature for a number of reasons:

1) Newt has got $9 million in the bank. That’s a decent sized war chest going into South Carolina and Florida. It certainly does not match Romney’s money and even Perry’s money, but it is a good amount to remain competitive. Plus…

2) Newt has gone on the offensive against Romney. No one has touched Romney with any consequence thus far in the race and Newt has realized simply relying on a positive campaign without drawing a contrast with your competition is not enough. Newt will and SHOULD finally contrast Romney’s record with his, while also laying out his positive vision for America.

3) Where would “peeled-off” Romney support go? The vehemently anti-Newt support reconsidering Romney may go to Perry, but I think much of the neutral Romney support will go to Newt.

4) Debates begin again this weekend. This is typically where Newt has shined. He has to have an INCREDIBLE performance and he’s got to go after Romney. If he does that he’s still very much alive.

With much of the voter base undecided and looking for an alternative, don’t expect Newt to drop out just yet. It’s certainly possible, but unless he does terribly, don’t count him out.

With Ron Paul leading polls in Iowa and Rick Santorum on the rise, some in the GOP have all but written off Newt Gingrich. If that’s true, it’s too bad because it means we have allowed a few policy mistakes to discount an otherwise beyond stellar record of conservative achievement.

We all know Ron Paul’s a cooky survivalist nut job, but as Erick Erickson noted yesterday, Rick Santorum isn’t exactly a shining light of conservatism. Erick laid out in detail Santorum’s Bushian record of moderation supporting big government Republican legislation like the prescription drug program and No Child Left Behind. Santorum either supported these policies or he’s not a leader. In either case, he wouldn’t be the kind of president we need post-Obama.

Peter Ferrera, who served President Reagan in the White House Office of Policy development and an adviser to Gingrich over the years, lays out with great attention to detail, the most substantive column written about Gingrich, his record, what it did for America, his plan and what it would do for America:

First he talks about Gingrich’s historic House victory:

 He led us to victory before. Spectacular, historic victory. The strategy and content of his 1994 Contract with America propelled the Republicans to a 54-seat gain in 1994 to win control of the House of Representatives, which had been held by the Republicans for only two out of the previous 62  years. Even the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s failed to achieve that.

An off-year electoral House victory like 1994 is as close to a proxy as we’ll get to a test for a national election. Newt has lead landslide victories before. But “front runner” and supposedly most electable Republican Mitt Romney? He’s 5 for 22 in his electoral record, declining to run for re-election in Massachusetts because he would have assuredly lost the election. Despite what the establishment in Washington believes, Romney is probably the least electable of the candidates other than Ron Paul. Newt is a proven winner.

Fererra continues:

Contrary to the untouched by reality liberal/left talking points about how the 1993 Clinton tax increases led to balanced budgets, when the Gingrich majority took power in 1995, it was greeted by the 1996 Clinton budget still projecting $200 billion annual budget deficits as far as the eye could see, totaling $2.7 trillion over 10 years, confirmed by CBO. The House passed a budget bill providing for $1 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, and that was almost 20 years ago when $1 trillion was still real money.

…

Total federal discretionary spending, as well as the subcategory of non-defense discretionary spending, declined from 1995 to 1996 in actual nominal dollars. In constant dollars, adjusted for inflation, the decline was 5.4 percent. By 2000, total federal discretionary spending was still about the same as it was in 1995 in constant dollars. As a percent of GDP, federal discretionary spending was slashed by 17.5 percent in just four years, from 1995 to 1999.

For all the talk these candidates do about how they plan on cutting spending and for all the ridicule pundits like Ann Coulter and Mark Steyn heap on Gingrich for supposedly being a man of “crazy” ideas, Gingrich is the one guy who has actually cut spending consistently in the federal government and kept it consistent. It was not until Gingrich was thrown out in 1999 that Denny Hastard and the House GOP started spending us into oblivion.

What happened as a result of all of Gingrich’s achievement? Well, he could have guessed, because parts of it had happened before in the 1980′s, I’ll let Ferrera explain:

As a result, the $200 billion annual federal deficits, which had prevailed for over 15 years, were transformed into record-breaking surpluses by 1998, peaking at $236 billion by 2000. Over four years, the national debt held by the public was reduced by a record $560 billion in surpluses. When Gingrich left office, instead of CBO projections of $2.7 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years, CBO projected surpluses of $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years. That is a positive turnaround in the budget of $5 trillion. This is exactly what we need today.

These spending cuts were accomplished not with a deal with the Democrats to raise taxes, but with pro-growth cuts in tax rates. Gingrich led enactment of a capital gains tax rate cut of nearly 30 percent in 1997, from 28 percent down to 20 percent, which was the largest capital gains cut in American history. Despite that cut, actual capital gains revenues soared $84 billion higher for 1997 to 2000 than projected before the rate cut. The Republican Congress also expanded IRAs, and adopted other tax cuts on capital.

And we haven’t even gotten into welfare reform… In an election fixated on what people have said, Gingrich has a proven record of things he has accomplished. Yet conservatives want to rake him over the coals for talking about space exploration? Give me a break! The man has one of the most impressive records amongst the candidates, rivaled only by Rick Perry.

He also breaks down the brilliance of Newt’s platform and what it would do for our country:

It is all in writing at Newt.org. Gingrich is campaigning on the ultimate, supply-side, pro-growth, Jobs and Economic Recovery plan of cutting taxes and spending to balance the budget, just as he did in the 1990s. He is proposing the 15 percent optional flat tax plan of Steve Forbes and Steve Moore. He proposes corporate tax reform, closing loopholes in return for lowering the rate to 12.5 percent as Ireland did in 1988 to such great success.

He would eliminate the capital gains tax, the death tax, and the alternative minimum tax. He would allow immediate expensing for capital investment, like the deductions for all other business expenses, instead of dragging those deductions out over many years through arbitrary depreciation schedules.

So when people like Ann Coulter write lazy tripe zeroing in on a policy they disagree with Newt over, just remember the entire platform he is promoting is a mix of policies conservatives have been dreaming about for ages. Let’s remember Newt received 46% of all negative ads this cycle and endured attacks from fellow conservatives angling to balance a Romney ticket. Newt is, overall, a solid conservative. Someone we can enthusiastically, not reluctantly, support.

Read the whole thing here. It’s great!

The Establishment is riled by the response Newt Gingrich gave to the charge by Mitt Romney to return all of the money that he earned from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Newt said:

“I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned on bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years if being, then I would be glad to then listen to him, and I’ll bet you $10, not $10,000 that he won’t take the offer,”

Charles Krauthammer appearing on Special Report was indignant and accused Gingrich of leveling an attack worthy of a socialist against Mitt Romney. Of course, Krauthammer and other establishment conservatives supporting Mitt Romney have much to worry about from this line of attack: It’s incredibly effective in this economic climate when people are out of work and still loosing jobs.

It was critical for Newt to deliver this line of attack because it’s a preview of what the general election will look like. If Romney gets the nomination, he’ll be running against a real socialist, who will not hesitate to shower him in these sort of allegations.

Mitt’s already having a tough enough time winning the nomination. He’s had a tough time in nearly every single other race he’s ever run in as well.  We don’t need Mr. Wall Street to be our nominee to top it all off.

Look, I have not been the most complimentary of Rick Perry or his supporters, but I have got to say that while I am still supporting Newt. I think Perry proved to be an incredibly honorable guy.

While the other candidates on the stage punted  or attacked Newt over the question about Newt Gingrich’s comments about whether or not Palestinians are a made up people, Gov. Perry stood up for Speaker Gingrich and let America know that the real problem with foreign policy is President Obama’s foreign policy. Perry’s nod to Gingrich signaled to me that he’s got Newt’s back. That is an incredibly honorable thing to do and set Perry apart for me tonight.

As someone who did not have a very high opinion of Perry before as a candidate, I can say that he has risen a few notches in my book after this debate. On top of that, Perry gave his personal best performance of the campaign. He tied with Newt to win this.

As for Newt Gingrich, I think considering they came out with guns blazing he did very well answering to the charges without resorting to petty personal attacks. The one “attack” he did level out what putting Mitt Romney in his place and he did it very well using facts and not getting personal. He handled the questions on fidelity well, admitting that it is a consideration people have to make when choosing a leader and admitting he hasn’t handled this well. For all the talk of Evangelicals being appalled at Newt’s personal life, people also forget that two of the chief tenants of Christianity are grace and humility. The fact that Newt seems genuinely remorseful and open about his personal failures might actually make Evangelicals in Iowa more sympathetic to him. Newt did well, not his best performance, but as I said before, he co-won the debate with Perry.

It was interesting to hear from Rick Santorum, seeing as Herman Cain is now out of the race and Huntsman was busy in New Hampshire (more on that later!) Look, if this were 2004 and President Bush wasn’t running for re-election, I think Santorum would be a candidate for the times. But this is 2011, not 2004, and the conservative movement is in a much different place than it was back then. Santorum talks about his consistent conservatism, but he was a big government social conservative for much of his career in the senate, going along with much of the Bush agenda.

Michele Bachmann went on the attack tonight. Unfortunately, much of what she said was either blatantly out of context or simply untrue. I like Bachmann, She has got a massive future in the Republican Party and could potentially be our nominee sometime in the future. But she should heed Newt’s advice and not resort to out of context remarks and half-truths to get her point across. I believe that if she promoted her agenda with as much passion as she goes on the attack with the other candidates she would be doing a lot better than she is right now.

Ron Paul’s good when he’s good. But he’s not going to be the nominee.

Mitt Romney gave his absolute WORST Performance of the entire election cycle tonight. He came off defensive, irritated, and very unlikable as a person. His $10,000 bet  with Governor Perry in front of a nation struggling to make ends meat was completely tone deaf. It wasn’t the figure per say, it was the way he said it, like it was $10, like it was nothing. You could see Governor Perry couldn’t even believe it.

Two interesting things happened tonight, one on stage and one off. Mitt Romney was clearly out of his element tonight, facing off against five much more conservative candidates in a state that is probably too conservative for him to win in a caucus. Following the debate, Donna Brazille noted the phrase that is going to flying around is “consistent conservative” and I agree with that. While this could affect Newt, it’s going to seriously damage Romney.

Now, Jon Hunstman wasn’t at the debate, he is in New Hampshire, where he is picking up a little bit of momentum (he polled in double digits last week.) Now imagine a situation where Romney doesn’t get first, second or third in Iowa but places FOURTH behind Newt, Paul, and Perry or Bachmann. What is that going to do? It’s going to put Jon Hunstman in a very interesting place, especially as he will be elevated in a Lincoln-Douglass style debate with Newt Gingrich soon.

If that happens, expect Huntsman and Romney to split the moderate vote and propel Newt to win New Hampshire. And if that happens, it’s all over, Newt’s won. Huntsman has set himself up for 2016/20

Now this is all hypothetical. And of course, I’m a Newt supporter, so I’d like to see this happen. But don’t be surprised.

Three words:

“I was wrong.”

Newt is by no means perfect. Sometimes I think he holds views with nuance for the sake of holding views with nuance. The latest episode of this is his conversation with Jake Tapper on when life begins. (My take: While I believe life begins at conception, I don’t have a problem with Newt’s position, it’s sufficiently pro-life for me.) But, he is at least willing to admit when he’s wrong. He called Doug Hoffman and apologized for endorsing Dede Scozzafava after she went and endorsed the Democratic candidate in the race after dropping out. He called sitting on the couch with Nancy Pelosi “the dumbest single thing” he’d done in years. And while it astounds me that some who claim to be strong Christians keep beating the drum of Newt’s previous marriages with absolutely ZERO grace, some even resorting to terrible, terrible lies, Newt has been uncharacteristically yet sincerely humble about the whole situation going back a few years.

Speaker Gingrich recognizes that people, including himself, make mistakes. They take positions that can be the wrong position and they can admit when they’re wrong. Especially someone with no “off” switch when it comes to sharing his ideas.

Romney on the other hand, has no desire to repudiate his previous mistakes, the biggest being his Massachusetts health care law. And rather than admit that he has made mistakes on positions he’s taken in the past and that he’s taken on new ones, he pretends that he hasn’t made changes in his policy.

For all the talk of Newt Gingrich’s hubris, it seems Mitt’s the one with the humility problem. That’s why Newt’s resonating and Mitt’s tumbling.

Before I begin my criticism of the Occupy movement, let me point out that I am an under-but-greatfully employed recent University graduate with a mountain of debt, way more debt than the average college graduate. And while my parents and I take full responsibility for taking it on, there was behavior conducted by the banks I landed from and the university I attended that I would have changed. For starters, I wouldn’t have just given an 18 year old several loans at $10,000 to $20,000 a pop without finding out what he planned to do after University. If I worked for the university, I would have given the prospective student a realistic outlook on what they could potentially earn based on the history of their alumni after graduating from the university to help them figure out if paying the tuition required to attend would be worth it in the long run. 

But that is all water underneath the bridge. And that is my chief criticism of the Occupy movement: you cannot change history. It’s happened whether you like it or not. If the heart of my generation is with the Occupy movement, we need a very serious wake up call. We cannot control that as we entered the work force the economy crashed. We can’t control the fact that it’s better for business to employ people with way more experience. We cannot control the fact that we took out a ton of student loans, many of us irresponsibility, and now the banks want their money. 

We cannot control it. But there is something we can control. To me it an absolute irony that the Occupy movement uses the phrase, “We are the 99%”. Because the solution to our problem is actually found in that number but in a different context.

Thomas Edison, a brilliant American inventor once said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” In other words, ideas are fun, but it’s hard work that makes things happen. We can DEFINITELY control this, whether it’s in the job we’re in now or it’s coming up with an idea and making it happen through the hard hard work that’s required.

If these Occupy people put just a fraction of the energy of what they’re doing into actually contributing positively to society, America would be a much more prosperous place than it is now. So I propose, my generation embrace the Edison 99% principle instead of the Occupy 99% principle.