President Barack Obama has faced the nation the past three years declaring his debt-exploding policies to be Biblically-based, in the national interest and necessary to remedy the economic crisis he inherited from his GOP predecessor. When addressing the persistence of continuing economic ills in the fourth year of his presidency he asserts that Republicans impede solutions to the nations ills because they put party politics above what’s best for the country or that  he didn’t realize just how bad the crisis was. Finally, when addressing follow up questions from the media reminding him of his original contradictory claims and suggesting that he is attributing nefarious non-Christian motives to Republicans in Congress, he…oh, wait a minute, we don’t actually remember hearing such follow ups when Obama meets the press.

By contrast, the man currently leading polls to be Obama’s Republican opponent on Election Day faced the nation yesterday for a CBS cross-examination that consisted of Bob Schieffer’s serial cognitive dissonance in mis-characterizations of past statements of Senator Santorum on education, birth control and Obama’s professions of faith:

• Santorum has long stood for getting the federal government out education, citing the nation’s abysmal dropout record over the past 30 years. Sheiffer accuses him of wanting to eliminate public education.
• Santorum, a Roman Catholic, is personally against the use of medicinal birth control, thinks Supreme Court precedents removing its regulation from state control was wrongly decided but explicitly believes it should be legal. Yet, Schieffer accuses him of being for denying women access to birth control.
• Santorum disagrees with President Obama’s recent claim that his health care, economic, financial regulation and foreign policies are consistent with the teachings of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible in general and, specifically those of Jesus Christ. Yet, despite the fact that Santorum explicietly stated that he believes Obama is a Christian, Scheiffer accuses Santorum of questioning Obama’s faith.

Finally, the “revered” CBS anchor of the network’s longest running show descended in to the depths of depravity with a fast one about  the death of one of Santorum’s children designed to perpetuate the liberal line that he is a weird and extremist Christian because he followed the advice of counselors with a family wake. Schieffer refers to the deceased child as having been stillborn in passing. The former Pennsylvania senator wouldn’t let the remark pass despite the “reporter’s” best attempts to move on, and corrected him, as the child actually lived tow hours after birth. Schieffer ended up having to deliver a red-faced apology. (see link above for the entire sad exchange)

Santorum can effectively defend Judeo-Christian values, conservatism and himself

Many in the republican party are concerned that Santorum can be discredited by the media and the Obama campaign machine by resort to such tactics as those used yesterday on the Face the Nation. Of course, the drive-by media and every Democratic Party campaign tries to do the same with every GOP candidate. I remember the amiable dunce that won 49 states.

Yesterday’s performance by Rick Santorum should calm their fears.

Santorum has religious beliefs, but he favors tolerance and economic liberty. Obama has religious beliefs, but he favors having the Secretary of Health and Human Services deciding what insurance policies must be offered for sale.

Santorum has a sterling conservative voting record that implemented the successful economic policies that extended the Reagan Recovery into the mid-2000s, reformed welfare and defeated al Qaeda after 911; during which time Obama opposed legislation that would have required that babies who survive abortions receive life-saving treatment, voted against funding for the War on Terror, voted for the Democrats last two budgets and TARP before he was inaugurated and whose policies as President have failed to produce an economic recovery in the United States  worthy of the characterization.

Yes, after winning four elections to Congress from a Democratic state, he lost to a pro-life son of a Keystone State legend in the 2006 semi-Democrat landslide, thanks mainly to the failure of President George W. Bush to publicly defend the Iraq War. Yes, he voted with most of his GOP colleagues for their party’s pre-tea partier/post-911 president’s NCLB education accountability and Medicare Rx Drug policies. He now regrets those two votes. I’m not going to dignify complaints about puny McCain-losing earmark issues.

Santorum has a sterling conservative voting record and has been a prominent advocate of conservative values and policies in the media. He doesn’t carry the baggage of having been for Romney/ObamaCare-style mandates like his main opponents for the GOP nomination and his character is unblemished.

Yes, he will be attacked as an extremist by the Left. Reagan and Dubya were as well, and both were elected and re-elected. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich would also be attacked. In fact, despite Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech, if either Jesus Christ or Moses were the GOP nominee they, would also be targeted for libel and slander of the Democrats and the media.

Santorum has sung conservatism his way, much as did The Gipper and he can defend that record with flip-side encores.

By contrast, Obama’s Hope and Change tune has been no FDR end-of-Prohibition-inspired “Happy Days are Here Again” that became the anthem of the New Deal coalition Democratic Party.

We think Santorum’s cover of Sinatra and Elvis trumps  Obama’s envious crooning come November.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

After President Barack Obama inevitably drops the recently announced mandate that even church-affiliated employers provide health insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and “Plan B” morning after abortion pills (aka RU-486), will we look back at this exercise as a ruse to make ObamaCare seem more palatable to voters this fall?

After all, the Messiah will be seen as having heard the public outcry including threats of civil disobedience, and graciously agreed to respect the consciences of Roman Catholics? In fact, the subject mandate applies to all religious group employers which include numerous Southern Baptist hospitals and other Protestant and Evangelical organizations, but I digress.

Yes, America’s founding by pilgrims and Puritans, not to mention the first freedom in the Bill of Rights, properly focuses this mandate to fund abortion coverage via insurance premiums on the free exercise of religion, but of course, when Democrats aka Dem-o-bats (pictured, that suck the blood out of health care) rule, our tax dollars regularly fund abortion and yet we don’t see threats of civil disobedience to withhold taxes, do we? Moreover, if theObamaCare mandate is actually put into effect in August 2013 (after the election of course) the only recourse people of conscience would have would be to refuse to pay the ObamaCare fine for refusing to comply.

There will be no option to purchase an insurance policy that excludes the contraceptive and abortion coverages because private health insurance companies will be prohibited from issuing such policies and if they did, the Supremacy Clause would require that any such contracts be declared void.

What happened to free enterprise between a willing buyer and willing seller?

But wait a minute. Let’s back up. What ever happened to my right to bargain with an insurance company for the coverage I desire at a price we mutually agree upon?

The fact is that health insurance prices are artificially high now due to numerous other government mandates due to ObamaCare as well as federal and state laws that existed before anyone ever heard of the senator from Illinois that led the fight to prohibit a law requiring abortionists to try and save the lives of babies that escape the womb during attempted abortions.

Last week’s decision by the Obama Administration to use the blank check “discretion” Democrats gave  it to regulate our lives via his health care “affordability act” aka ObamaCare, forces private insurance companies to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing morning after pills (RU-486).

Most of the conservative news coverage has focused on how the Sebelius Edict continues an assault by the administration on the Roman Catholic Church and its possible violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise (of religion) Clause.

Of course, the requirement that any organization (All Christians and many non-Christians) fund abortion is repugnant and while DeVine Law is not certain that the employer-provided health insurance mandated coverages technically violate the usually narrow application of the Free Exercise clause (right to worship), isn’t there an even more fundamental, if that is possible, freedom involved here?

Unlike many conservatives, this gamecock variety takes a fairly expansive view of the Commerce Clause. One of the major reasons that the framers of the U.S. Constitution convened to address the Articles of Confederation was to stop the states from acting as foreign nations and to forge a national economy. To that end they empowered Congress to “regulate interstate clause”. Much of the early application of that clause ended state monopolies over certain industries (one wishes that Congress would do the same with respect to interstate health insurance sales, but I digress) and played referee to ensure fairness and prevent fraud.

Sadly, Congress and the courts began to interpret “regulate” to include product planning in the last century, which practice has morphed, under this President to include the take over of automobile companies (and without even asserting a war power that couldn’t even save President Harry Truman’s Supreme Court-rebuffed attempt to seize steel companies during the Korean War, er um “police action”) while abrogating bondholder rights under duly-passed Bankruptcy laws and giving General Motors to the United Auto Workers as a tax payer-funded welfare program.

But also unlike the Truman steel-seizure case, President Obama’s “regulation” has the imprimatur of a 2010 Democratic Party-majority of the House of Representatives and super-majority of said party in the Senate, along with scores, if not hundreds of Supreme Court precedents to bolster the liberal “living constitution” definition of the word, up to and including prohibiting farmers from growing wheat to eat at home.

Moreover, isn’t there something Third-worldish, if not outright totalitarian, when we hear of fundamental changes in the compact We the People have (or at least had) with the federal government we formed from a Cabinet secretary or even the President himself, much as it was a usurpation of our right to self government when 5+ lawyers made abortion a right.

Wasn’t Congress created as a separate power so that those they represent have a say in changes in the law that affect their lives? Obviously, and that right is also worthy of a conscience objection that trumps blank checks Democrats right into law for a royal head of state to issue edicts from on high at his whim that empty or pocketbooks along with our deeply held religious beliefs.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

During my teen and young adult Democratic Party activism years in the 70s and 80s, the number one scare tactic used by the party to scare widows and orphans, i.e. the poor,  was their claim that if Republicans controlled the government, they would “take away your checks”. Ronald Reagan, famously asserted his support for a safety net for the “truly needy” and despite several periods of exclusive GOP control of the executive and legislative branches over the last 30 years, the safety net remains intact.

And yet, the Democratic Party mantra against Republicans as having a lack of concern for the poor has continued unabated with the goalposts continually being moved to re-define caring as support for the latest liberal Democrat proposal, whether it be Stimulus, ObamaCare or mortgage bailout bills.

Enter Mitt Romney:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich…. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Translation: We agree with the Democratic Party. Our concern for the very poor has been satisfied by the welfare state they have constructed and if we must spend more money to expand that safety net to show we care about the poor, we will.

Mitt makes many mistakes with this statement and one of  the mistakes is in thinking that Republicans can ever satisfy the Democrats on the issue of caring for the poor. We can’t. Why? Because their concern is in buying the votes of the poor by keeping them dependent on government and creating more poor people to be dependent on them.

Republicans need to make it clear that we favor a safety net for the truly needy, but that does not mean accepting the status quo, which, by the way, no longer includes the wildly successful Gingrich-Clinton welfare reform since it was eliminated as part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill.

This issue reminds me of an incident that occurred in the later days of my Democratic Party activism in the mid-90s when a charity came to my law office asking for donations. My flippant response was that I already gave. I paid my taxes.

Within seconds I felt guilt at having farmed out charity to the federal government, knowing that no government can love.

A few years later, I switched parties mainly because I saw that conservative economic policies help the poor and everyone else more than Democratic Party policies. My caring concern for the poor drove me to reject the class warfare and envy of the left and embrace the supply-side policies of Reagan that Newt/Clinton basically continued.

The conservative message to the poor is that most of you need not be poor. Our policies encourage job creators to take risks to start businesses by getting out of their way and letting them keep most of their profits, which profits are the reward for risk taking that creates wealth and jobs.

Mitt, your success over the last 40 years was made possible by such policies. Your success helped there be less poor and less very poor, and yes, for those that can’t get ahead, we have a safety net. But all that are in that net today, need not be tomorrow. You know that and you should quickly learn that you can’t mollify the Left by affirming support for the specifics of the safety net ObamaDems have constructed, nor by supporting automatic increases in the minimum wage.

We had hoped you would repudiate RomneyCare as a failure. You didn’t and yet, neither do you run on it as a great achievement. Now, you continue the “competence” theme against a supposed failed Obama due to his inexperience.

Wrong. Obama is a success from his standpoint and quite competent in his goal of fundamentally changing the America that created wealth as no other for so many for two centuries and defended Liberty for a century.

The changes that ObamaDems have wrought must be reversed and the number one reversal must be the ObamaCare nee RomneyCare.

Hence, my last ditch support for Rick Santorum.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

Mike DeVine Law Gamecock is humbled.

That so many voters that have earned my respect for so many years have chosen to support Newt Gingrich over Mitt Romney convinces me that Mitt is not so much better than Newt, that a vote for the former Speaker is not acceptable. Newt is a worthy fighter… and the crow and humble pie ordered here, here and here… needed more sugar and salt, respectively, thank you very much.

I still plan to vote for Mitt on Super Tuesday, but I don’t dismiss the primary voters of my native home state lightly. If Newt can give up the vague Bain Capital attacks and show mature discipline over the next months, he can win my enthusiastic support for the nomination and, of course, in the general election.

Romney ought to have to prove himself worthy to bear the mantle of the Party of Lincoln and Reagan as much as Gingrich ought.

May the best man win, I will be open to the idea that we need a street fighter just now, and …much more later…

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

South Carolinians have seen too many shuttered textile plants never visited by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital to fall for Newt-Perry slurs that blame the buyers of companies already failing due to the internal policies of the sellers or external policies of governments.

Vultures eat the dead.

Bain, under Romney, saved jobs worth saving in the private sector (unlike the now government motors taxpayer -funded welfare “jobs” saved by President Barack Obama at a loss) by salvaging the identifiable living and the profits earned saved and created jobs, sight unseen:

The problem with the entire discussion is that jobs are being used as the only measure of the “good” done by Romney. Profits are also good as they allow companies to grow and as they return capital to investors who can then fund the creation or growth of other companies. Indeed, despite our being surrounded by Keynesian-thinking politicians who believe that nothing is as important as consumers having spending money, the indirect benefits to society of profits to investors are arguably at least as large as the indirect benefits of employment.

We have to assume that conservative movement leaders like the former Speaker of the House and a twice re-elected governor of the Lone (jobs-producing in the 21st Century so far) Star State are familiar with the the economic fundamentals that define free market capitalism and that constitutes the foundation of modern day American conservatism. Hence this2000 conservative epiphany-defined gamecock’s disdain for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry when they launched their respective efforts in my native home state by hurling the “vulture capitalist” epithet at the successful former CEO of Bain Capital and related companies, savior of the post-911 Salt Lake City olympics, and balancer of Bay State budgets.

Mitt Romney turned Bains around three times. His job was to make a profit. He did. Profits are good. This is fundamental to conservative principles. Disparaging the buyers of troubled companies as “vultures” is anathema to conservative values and principles and must not be rewarded with the historically dispositive prize that is the SC Republican Primary.

Conservatives want Reagan (or Coolidge). We find none.

We thought Perry was the closest facsimili thereof, and while he seemed the most reliable conservative in the field before his desperation-driven avian mis-sighting, but his debate-gaffe driven microscopic caucus and primary showings prompted a second look a decidedly non-reliable Gingrich. Then he devolves into vulture anti-capitalism after being forced to defend accepting hush money from Freddie Mac. What would you expect from a guy so concerned with Air Force One plane seat accommodations. And for those that cried Huntsman when we eenie-meenie-minie-moed between Romney and Santorum, Jon dropped out today.

Evangelicals, and any conservative concerned about life, marriage, Iran, and manufacturing jobs are naturally drawn to the Roman Catholic son of a coal miner and father of enough future conservatives to swing future Iowa caucii or man a basketball team with players to spare on the bench. Good job Daddy Santorum!

We forgave Rick Santorum his support of Arlen Specter when we learned of the loyalty angle, are impressed with his arguments for tripling the child tax credit and manufacturing tax incentives, and will always respect his denunciation of the Newt/Perry vulturism when he was arguably poised to benefit the most from disingenuous, anathem-to-conservative appeals to supposed class envy-starved South Carolinians. Then we sought counsel from our fellow Southern Baptist,Richard Land:

Will evangelicals support Mr. Romney if he is the nominee? Yes, and by substantial percentages. Never underestimate the unique ability of President Obama to unify social conservatives, of every faith tradition, around his eventual opponent.

Will Mr. Romney’s Mormonism be a negative factor for evangelicals? It will for some, but remember that in Iowa the 60% of voters who identified themselves as evangelicals gave 42% of their votes to a Mormon (Mr. Romney) or a Catholic (Messrs. Santorum and Gingrich), while giving only 38% of their vote to fellow Protestants (Messrs. Perry and Paul and Mrs. Bachmann). So much for narrow denominational prejudices.

One should note also that several prominent evangelicals, such as former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, are enthusiastically supporting Mr. Romney.

Even Pastor Robert Jeffress, who may be Mr. Romney’s most vocal evangelical critic and last fall referred to Mormonism as a “cult,” has stated: “If it comes down to Romney versus Obama I’m voting for Romney.” I’ve heard the same sentiment from hundreds of evangelical pastors over the past two months.

This USC Gamecock knew as much even before he made his roost atop Stone Mountain of Georgia, supported Mitt early on in 2007 before Fred Thompson teased us, and after Bachmann, Cain, Perry and Newt imploded.

Santorum would make us proud as President. So would Mitt. They both exude American Exceptionalism and would either’s election as president would inspire the re-entry of billions if not trillions of currently sidelined dollars into the economy.

I recently made my executive experience-driven choice in Mitt Romney. But what is most important about this stage of the GOP nomination contest is that conservatives not reward vulture slurs against economic liberty.

I am confident that home of the winner of the last two College World Series will not let me down.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

Achieve King’s dream with equal treatment
Misguided liberal policies assume blacks are inferior victims
MIKE DEVINE
Special to the Observer

“Daddy, why would somebody want to shoot a preacher?”

That was a precocious little boy’s first reaction upon seeing the headline of The Spartanburg Herald announcing the assassination of the 39-year-old leader of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr.

No holiday cries out for a progress report more than the one President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1983 and that America celebrated yesterday. Where do we stand nearly 39 years after King’s death on April 4, 1968?

Brandon Woolfolk, a 23-year-old African American junior at UNC Charlotte presently working as a hotel clerk, told me last week that “One change is that back then blacks feared whites. Today, they fear other blacks.”

Dewey Tullis, a life-long educator and prominent black member of the Spartanburg County Democratic Party, told The Wall Street Journal before last fall’s election he was supporting the Republican running for South Carolina’s top education post because, “Frankly, I’m tired of seeing our young black men graduate high school without knowing how to read and write.”

One main reason for these disturbing assessments: the well-intentioned but misguided liberal policies implemented immediately after the race-based “Jim Crow” laws were abolished. New race-based laws were passed, old non-race-based laws were misinterpreted by liberal judges, and new welfare policies kicked the black father out of the house and made Uncle Sam daddy.

Character building a priority

By contrast, King’s dream was that people be judged based, not on skin color, but rather on the content of their character. There is hope, however.The Charlotte-Mecklenburg African American Agenda conference earlier this month, whose agenda “priorities” could have been written by whites, shows that more and more blacks get it and are about the business of character building. Event organizers even invited as a featured speaker National Public Radio correspondent and Fox News commentator Juan Williams, author of “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It.”

Now, what about Caucasians?

I became active in the Democratic Party mainly due to my disdain for the racism I saw in the 1970s. Happily, I watched most of the Republican racism melt under the weight of King’s mainstream American and Judeo-Christian moral arguments. Unhappily, I watched disturbing pathologies develop within my party and its members.

Then, during my five years in Atlanta before moving to the Queen City, I experienced what I call a “conservative epiphany,” in large part due to the covertly racist behavior of fellow liberal Democrats in their treatment of blacks as inferior victim dependents and their overt disdain for the Christian faith that inspired King.

Radio talk show host Dennis Prager recently described being shown a video of people reacting to a talk show organized by a firm that specializes in analyzing such shows for their producers. Prager noticed that the carefully chosen panel included no blacks. The firm explained that in their previous experience they discovered that after a black person gave their opinion about a show, white people would rarely offer differing opinions for fear of being deemed racist.

This condescending and misplaced white guilt and fear of the Political Correctness Police must end.

Face down the PC crowd

I don’t remember Daddy’s answer to his eldest son’s innocent inquiry some 39 years ago, but there is nothing I better remember than the way he lived his life. Dad employed the non-race-based Golden Rule found in Matthew’s Gospel as he coached some of the first racially integrated little league baseball teams in my hometown and insisted that blacks employed with him at Southern Railway be held to the same standards as whites.

King based his civil rights message largely on that New Testament passage, which admonishes us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which acknowledge equality before our Creator and require equal treatment under the law.

Quite simply, whites must stop treating blacks as inferiors, and muster the courage to face down the PC crowd to make King’s dream more of a reality.

This was Gamecock’s first column in the Main Stream Media after 5 years as Legal editor for The (Decatur) Champion, the DeKalb County(Ga) legal organ weekly newspaper and three years as a conservative blogger.

Link to Observer Column: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/16468980.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

The depths of Great Depression II and the historic 2010 tea partier conservative-driven Republican Party mid-term landslide encouraged dreams of a Reagan-like 2012 GOP nominee to retire President Barack Obama to a resumption of his autobiographical writing career.

The crashing sounds of Bachmann’s looseness with the facts, Cain’s knowledge gaps and Perry’s non-creative vulture mis-sighting-destruction awoke this South Carolina gamecock from Utopian REM eye-battings to the reality of imperfect choices absent Gippers and Silent Cals.

We so wanted one of the most historically reliable conservatives to be the 2012 standard bearer for our Party of Lincoln. But we learn anew that voters can’t rehabilitate those with character lapses or lacking the campaign skills required in the second decade of the 21st Century. We can’t blame voters in Iowa, New Hampshire nor the Palmetto State for weighing electability based on actual campaign performance, much less 11th hour anti-capitalist attacks against companies that make offers to buy other companies that are accepted by those other companies.

We are proud of our fellow social conservative from the Keystone State for vigorously defending the heart of conservatism, i.e. the free market capitalism of Mitt Romney, even if he is the lone remaining obstacle to a Rick Santorum as GOP presidential nominee. We would be proud to support him or Jon Huntsman in the Fall. Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich lost us with their leftist attacks on Bain Capital.

But when we factor in all of the issues and electability, George Will’s minimization of the urgency of the latter notwithstanding, we must now endorse the former governor of the Bay State and believe that the primary voters of our native Palmetto State will once again choose the GOP nominee when a plurality of them vote for Mitt Romney in 11 days.

Do I think Rick Santorum could defeat Barack Obama? I do. The smug President of Food Stamp Nation that voted for all the policies that led to this recession and who focused on stimulus pay-offs to state government union dues paying workers, oil drilling moratoriums, Keystone Pipeline job delays and fundamentally changing America via ObamaCare, would have a hard time garnering more electoral votes than even a warm bucket of non-Ron Paul-flavored spit.

But Mitt Romney is the better choice between those left standing on the issues, campaign skills and electability.

President Obama must be removed from office. His removal alone will spark a major economic recovery by bringing investor capital off of the sidelines where fear of what Obama could do next, and the certainty of what he won’t do, now rules.

Obamacare must be repealed and it won’t be if Obama is re-elected. The beltway George Wills counsel that we have “survived” equally bad presidencies and that no “apocalypse” will result from an Obama “stymied” by a GOP-majority House and Senate.

Mere survival and stymieing? Avoiding apocalypse? Is that the standard for a GOP “win”, even if that were the only goal? We can’t reverse any of the decades-long big government creep that Will bemoans with mere stymieing.

Mitt Romney will unleash the American economy, defend the nation from evil enemies and be a social conservative advocate. Yes, I believe his pro-life epiphany was sincere.

Mitt Romney believes in America. His goals are not George Will minimalism “informed” by a fantasy of a Congress-led 19th Century America. Since Washington, America is best governed, first and foremost, when we choose at least one man with courage that can make a majority. Mitt can be that man.

In the wake of Romney’s Granite State win, we hear:

And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, “It could be worse.”

It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse?

Of course not.

What defines us as Americans is our unwavering conviction that we know it must be better.

That conviction guides our campaign.  It has rallied millions of Americans in every corner of this country to our cause.

Over the last six months, I’ve listened to anxious voices in town meetings and visited with students and soldiers.  In break rooms and living rooms, I’ve heard stories of families getting by on less, of carefully planned retirements now replaced by jobs at minimum wage.  But even now, amidst the worst economy since the Great Depression, I’ve rarely heard a refrain of hopelessness.

Americans know that our future is brighter and better than these troubled times.  We still believe in the hope, the promise, and the dream of America.  We still believe in that shining city on a hill.

We know that the future of this country is better than 8 or 9% unemployment.

It is better than $15 trillion in debt.

It is better than the misguided policies and broken promises of the last three years – and the failed leadership of one man.

The President has run out of ideas.  Now, he’s running out of excuses.  And tonight, we are asking the good people of South Carolina to join the citizens of New Hampshire and make 2012 the year he runs out of time.

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation.  This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision.  I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique — We are One Nation, Under God.

Mitt Romney has the Reagan vision and will make us proud as the next President of the United States.

Mike DeVine

After the historic tea partier-inspired conservative Republican landslide that was the Election of 2010, we had every reason to believe that Reaganites-a-plenty would be vying for the opportunity to retire the disaster that is President Barack Obama.

Surely there are scores, if not hundreds, of articulate, experienced and reliable conservatives on fiscal, social and national security issues who posses the skill sets to campaign and govern effectively? Maybe they exist, but we haven’t seen them in Des Moines, Dubuque or Davenport of late.

Yet, we are told that if Iowa social conservatives turn to reliable pro-lifer Rick Santorum in larger numbers than for Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry that they will be “shooting us in the foot again” by “ensuring [that] Mitt Romney wins the nomination”.

We largely share what we think is the underlying fear of the esteemed (by us as well) leader of Redstate.com, i.e. that a Mitt Romney nomination would be another McCain-like lost opportunity for bold conservative leadership. Hence our own preference for Rick Perry as the most reliable conservative and several others before we would “settle” for Romney. But while we understand that this is the nomination bout and that there are stark differences between conservatives, those differences pale in comparison to those between any of our non-Paul contenders and the Leftist disaster that has occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the past three years, but I digress.

Iowa not a bellwether

Why the seeming priority of pre-maturely assessing blame for a Romney nomination victory to a small group of unique social conservatives making choices between a crowded field of flawed non-Reagans in a state that rarely has even a minor effect on subsequent contests? As Michael Barone so succinctly stated, “as goes Iowa…so goes…Iowa” and not the nation.

Have those that would cast stones at Iowa social conservatives been rock solid for an obvious best non-Romney-facilitating choice from jump street? Hardly. Moreover, the argument being made about the supposed “danger” of an Iowa caucus vote for the Keystone State loser to Bob Casey, itself, factors in viability. So shouldn’t Iowa social conservatives be afforded the same privilege in finding the more reliable tea partiers wanting based on poor debate performances and other campaigning deficiencies? Obviously.

Who knew social conservatives preferred pro-lifers?

Yes, one can construct a long list of conservative grievances against Rick Santorum. Is his list so much longer than those against the other non-Pauls that a vote for him is akin to assaults on extremities with a deadly weapon? We think not.

Coalescing around one tea partier would be a viable tactic if the main strategic concern is that Mitt Romney not be the nominee, but merely bemoaning the fact that particular Iowa results will not supposedly be a net negative in advancing that concern and blaming “social conservatives” for finally settling for a pro-life candidate in a crowded field, and staking out  a position to blame that group for a possible result down the road is quite unfair to social conservatives in particular, and Iowans generally.

If Perry doesn’t defeat Romney, its Perry’s fault

If Mitt Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination, it will overwhelmingly be the “fault” of his opponents for not running better campaigns.

Moreover, social conservatives in Iowa are not the same as those in Dixie. Iowa caucuses are “closed” in name only, given that one may register Republican at the caucus, rather than having to have been so registered for weeks or months earlier as in truly closed primaries or caucuses. Voters are not so easily defined and pigeonholed and most social conservatives are three-legged stool Reaganiteconservatives more so than any other hyphenated conservative or at least within the margin of error in such comparisons.

How would one not be deemed to have “shot us all in the foot” thus ensuring that Mitt Romney wins the nomination given such a crowded field of poor tea partier campaigners? One would think that not voting for Romney would be the sine qua non for escaping blame? But no, one must engage in the supposed exact science of assessing viability going forward based upon a lack of organization and money outside Iowa?

Would an anti-Romney vote for the three-headed Perry/Newt/Bachmann entry really be for a campaign juggernaut flush with money and volunteers in the non-Iowa Lower 47? Of course not. There is no such non-Romney machine out there.

This social con doesn’t get the seeming need to define the race as anti-Romney in the first place and then to assess blame for a Romney nomination against social conservatives that don’t vote for Romney.

Moreover, if one seeks to assess blame, shouldn’t one specifically define exactly where to aim to miss our feet? I think so.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

So what is the difference between the South Carolina law as opposed to the laws of Georgia (also upheld by their state’s highest court), that DOJ approved and Indiana (also upheld by the nation’s highest court) that DOJ declined to contest?

It is not the language of the respective laws, all of which avoid any semblance of a Jim Crow-style poll tax by, not only providing for the issuance of free photo ID voter registration cards, but also by authorizing a proactive educational campaign as well as allowing for non-photo ID voters to cast provisional ballots on Election Day that can be authenticated later with photo IDs obtained after Election Day.

Despite the above, no less than former President Bill Clinton has characterized photo ID laws as a “return to Jim Crow”, but I digress.  I defer:

The court’s liberal lion, then-Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote for the majority that Indiana’s law “is unquestionably relevant to the State’s interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.” Indiana offered free voter ID cards to all citizens, so the inconvenience of picking up an ID at the Department of Motor Vehicles wasn’t an undue burden and was reasonably balanced by the state’s interest in reducing fraud, Justice Stevens wrote.

So, could it be that South Carolina’s sin was the passage of their law too soon after the failure of President Barack Obama’s economic policies became apparent and too soon before his re-election bid?

Holder’s assistant deputy AG in the Civil Rights Division claims in his pre-clearance denial letter that the new law “abridges” the right to vote of an alleged 81,938 “minority citizens who are already registered to vote [in S.C.] and who lack DMV-issued identification”, thus rendering them “effectively disenfranchised”; and that the state has not yet finalized the proposed procedures to implement the issuance of free photo IDs and an education campaign necessary to “mitigate” the new law’s “discriminatory effects”.

S.C., not DOJ, purposefully identified non-photo ID holders for the purpose of facilitating the issuance of free state-issued such voter ID cards to them.

The irony in this claim is that South Carolina, unlike Indiana and Georgia, mandated that the state identify all those registered voters without photo IDs solely for the purpose of making sure that they were issued photo IDs!

The claim of such effects is based upon a disparity of 1.6% between whites and non-whites who lack photo IDs. Disparities of this kind do not and should not legally establish illegal discrimination, which should ordinarily require proof of intent, but even judged by the standards of the “pro-institutional racism” crowd, 1.6% is microscopically and insignificantly puny.

S.C. law treats all citizens equally. Is that what upsets liberal Democrats?

But let us return to the fundamental, underlying allegation, i.e. that to require that voters present photographic proof of their identification as a valid registered voter somehow “abridges the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group” under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  How so, especially when one can obtain the required photo-ID for free from the state?

Does there exist a constitutional right to vote without showing a photo ID? Of course not. But there does exist the right of the DOJ under Section 5 of the 1965 law to harass, er ah, I mean, “pre-clear” voting law changes in mostly Southern states. Those states have the burden of proof under the Act to show that proposed changes have neither the “purpose or effect of denying or abridging” the right to vote.

Shouldn’t the fact that citizens of all races, colors and language minority groups, i.e. ALL voters, must submit photo-Ids to vote meet that burden? Obviously.

Real Jim Crow vs. Democratic Party-versions of same

We should remind those that think South Carolina circa 2011 A.D. equals the antebellum or pre-1965 A.D. Jim Crow South, that neither involuntary servitude nor one-drop rule, race-based voting laws applied to ALL citizens or voters. The progress obtained after the War between the States, Brown v. Board and the Civil and Voting Rights Acts was that no person could be a slave of another and that all citizens are entitled to equal protection of the laws.

It seems that too many liberals and Democrats refuse to be content with equal rights. Holder’s own DOJ has expressed the sentiment that the intent of civil and voting rights laws are only to protect non-white victims from white perpetrators, which sentiment was vividly on display when charges were dropped last year against billy club-wielding, voter suppressing-New Black Panther Party members in Philadelphia.

Not being content with equal protection of the laws, having to run for re-election during Great Depression II despite the passage of the liberal Democrat legislationwish list that was supposed to fix the economy two years ago, and not being able to defend liberal legislation wish lists but desiring to retain and wield power anyway; the Bill Clintons, Eric Holders, and Barack Obamas (and, sadly, even civil rights hero John Lewis) of the world end up contorting themselves into positions that essentially insult the intelligence of Blacks and other minorities as too stupid to obtain a free, state-issued photo ID.

The contortions continue when they deny the fraud-prevention intent of new photo Id laws by insisting that we “know” that voter fraud is not a problem in the United States. Really? This from the same crowd that still thinks the presidency was stolen from Al Gore in Florida 2000 and that a conspiracy between President George W. Bush and Diebold rigged voting machines in Ohio in 2004 to deny John Kerry the office?

Will 90%-plus of African-American voters continue to say “Thanks, may I have another” after having their intelligence insulted once again by the Democratic party?

Now, we are confident that the Democratic Party of Joseph Kennedy and Richard Daley can still get photo IDs for enough dead to re-elect Rahm Emanuel, but can anyone deny that photo Ids serve the purpose of accurate identifications? Of course not. But then again, the Attorney General that makes fast and furious claims of racism against he and Obama when confronted with his Fast and Furious incompetence or worse, let us know last week that he favors “universal and automatic” voter registration!

So much for identification due diligence from the Obama Administration unless you are a minor child or octogenarian seeking to Fly Delta?

The real denial of equal protection is the application of the Voting Rights Act as a racist tool against Southern States, which Justice Clarence Thomas deems unconsitutional. This action, coupled with NLRB’s coercive and unjustified actions against Boeing that cost South Carolina 20,000 jobs for the past three years; Obama’s gangster/Chicago-style government threatening Bank CEOs with pitchforks; court order-violating oil drilling moratoriums; EPA executive overreach; and vows by the nation’s Chief Executive to “go around” Congress while not enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act reveals a Candidate as President willing to do anything to gain a second term.

Would he really refrain from Motor Voter-style, universal Democratic, citizen or non-citizen suffrage to garner at least 270 Electoral College votes? If you think so, I have a bridge to sell you so you can get to future Brooklyn Nets games.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

Unemployment and the Economy

If enough Americans give up on finding a job, the regularly reported unemployment rate (U-3) could fall to Zero percent. As it happens, the current U-3 rate of 8.6% would stand at over 11% if the labor force were as large as it was in 2007. The more comprehensive U-6 rate measuring all those that are unemployed and those only able to find part-time work is now at Depression Era levels over 17%, which rate doesn’t count self-employed individuals nor those that have dropped out. Over one in five American men are no longer in the labor force.

Jobs Plans, Occupiers and Class Warfare

Three years after President Barack Obama and super-majorities of his fellow Democrats in Congress enacted their Stimulus-Dodd-Frank-ObamaCare-GM takeover/UAW Bailout-Solyndra, anti-Keystone Pipeline and anti-Boeing jobs in right-to-work states, Gulf Oil and ANWR oil-drilling moratorium agenda; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stands at an anemic 1.8%.

The response? Democrats and their Community Organizer-in-Chief embrace the American “Occupy Wall Street” iteration (We address the foreign Arab Spring element further below)  of Time Magazine’s 2011 “Protester” Person of the Year, and class warfare, that echo President Obama’s threat to release the “pitchforks” against CEOs two year in ago. Meanwhile too many Republicans bemoan their occupation of a mere one-half of one-third of the government and refuse to refute the alleged “moral” case for taxing millionaires, as more and more Americans earn less “unequal” and lower incomes.

Admittedly, it would take much courage to risk subjection to leftist media spin during a government shutdown for the GOP to insist upon a halt to compromises dominated by job-killing factions a/k/a the Democratic Party in lieu of a return to the greatest job creating plan on earth, i.e. The free enterprise empowered by the Constitution of the United States.

Arab Springs never go out like a lamb

Leading from behind produced a draw in Libya and neither the U.S., Israel nor the civilized world are better off with the Muslim Brotherhood of terrorist progenitors ruling Egypt instead of Hosni Mubarak. Iraq, the only democracy in the Middle East thanks to massive U.S. and freedom-loving Iraqi sacrifices after 911, after three years of elections with no radical sectarian factions gaining traction, is sacrificed to Obama’s appeasement of Iran project.

But don’t forget, Usama bin Laden is dead. Feel safer? After all, the Commander-in-Chief didn’t offend Members-Only-Jacket-ijad by destroying our fallen drone on Persian soil.

Crime, Punishment and Selective Rules of Law

On the heels of 2010′s Justice Department (DOJ) refusal to prosecute billy club-wielding New Black Panthers, comes Attorney General Eric Holder’s embrace of Bill Clinton‘s moral equivalence evaluation of Voter ID laws with a return to Jim Crow, the whistle-blowing of Alabama’s former Democratic Rep. Arturs Davis notwithstanding. DOJ Obama appointees make clear their interpretation that the Civil and Voting Rights Acts only protect non-white victims.

As 2012 nears, no Obama/Biden-hosted Beer Summit resolutions are scheduled. But, the FBI reports that crime is down and the Fast and Furious assault on the right to bear arms in self defense has come to a halt. President Obama and Atlanta’s King & Spaulding law firm refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act due to “diversity” concerns. Meanwhile, K&S continue their pro bono defense of illegal enemy terrorist combatants in U.S. courts. Feel safer?

Weak Tea?

Tea partying conservatives made the mid-term elections of 2010 the biggest GOP landslide since 1948, yet none of their 2011 nominees for 2012 are named Newt or Romney. The hope of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan and Perry’s Texas jobs miracle have given way to higher Ron Paul floors in Iowa. Yes, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have been nudged to the right by the conservative base, but could either be relied upon to resist their instincts to “reach across the aisle” for Beltway media approval after they prevent Obama’s re-election? Stay tuned for for our 2012 Year in Review exactly 366 days from today.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Examiner readers and writers all!

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.