Five Essential Narrative Points for SuperTuesday: A Retrospect and a Prospect

SuperTuesday Narrative:

Santorum (brown) takes most Ohio Counties

The breathtaking sweep of the SuperTuesday elections will undoubtedly yield many stories which will need interpretation. There are, however, five main points in any credible SuperTuesday narrative.

First, Mitt cannot seal the deal. Not even by spending $12 million in two weeks in one state. Not even with the benefit of the Dele-GATE scandal by which he has manipulated either delegate rules or campaign momentum by unscrupulous party misdeeds in Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Maine, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan. Not even with the support of media giants Fox and Drudge. Not even with the endorsement of major party leaders.

Secondly, Rick is here to stay. Nothing has been easy for Santorum. Yet, he has weathered the blistering unleashed on him by Romney’s campaign treasure chest in every state contest. Romney outspent Santorum 6:1 in Romney’s home turf in Michigan, yet Rick wrestled him to a tie. Again, Romney outspent Santorum 12:1 in Ohio, and again Rick wrestled him to a tie. In both states, Rick did so even though his conservative base was split with Newt, which brings up the third narrative point.

Thirdly, at this point, Mitt’s best friend is Newt who is effectively preventing Rick from competing one-on-one with Mitt, a contest which Rick would clearly win. Newt’s southern strategy is kaput, with key states having been won by Santorum (Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee), and polling favorably for Santorum (Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina).  Santorum has won recent significant straw polls in Texas and is likely to win the important North Shore Tea Party straw poll this weekend in Louisiana. Since there is little more that Newt can accomplish by staying in the race, except to ensure a Romney win, one can only speculate that his continuation is designed to help pad his future conference speaking schedule and book contracts. Newt is quickly in danger of exchanging his reputation as the failed Speaker of the House with the equally onerous title of spoiler for the moderate candidate.

Fourthly, back to Romney and his profligate, Obama-like spending spree. The Romney campaign did not anticipate having to spend so much money at this point in the primary season, and has little left to continue its win-by-smear ad campaign. Fund raising numbers are about to come out for February, and the Romney campaign may be embarrassed to find itself having raised less money than the Santorum campaign. This will have a psychological effect on supporters, especially as they watch Romney resort to writing loan checks from his personal account to his campaign. Apparently, money can NOT buy an election, although it goes very far in keeping someone else from winning.

 

Fifthly, the vastly underfunded, underorganized Santorum campaign demonstrates how much a poorly equipped band of volunteers can do through hard work if they have a capable, relentless candidate with the right ideas. One can hardly avoid an analogy with Gen. Washington and his unprofessional, poorly outfitted army going up against the world’s superpower in the late 1700s. Nothing has been easy for Santorum, and victory is still not in hand. Yet with hardly a moment’s rest, he is off today for a Kansas noon event and to Mississippi for two more events later today in an effort to secure the nomination, just as Gen. Washington pushed on to Princeton after Trenton.

All in all, it was a bad SuperTuesday for Mitt, a great day for Rick, and a devastating day for Newt. It could have been worse or better for either Mitt or Rick. But the draw goes not to the front-runner, but to his opponent.

Santorum and States' Rights

One of the inexplicable objections that some people have about Santorum is that he is insufficiently committed to states' rights. States' rights is the flip side of the coin of a small federal government, and so this objection implies that Santorum looks to increase the size and impact of the federal government. The objection could not be more fallacious.

The basis for this objection is Santorum's proposal of two constitutional amendments, one to define marriage, and the other one to define personhood (a pro-life amendment). Presently, different states have different laws pertaining to these issues. For example, as Rick Perry indicated earlier in the campaign, he has no problem with New York allowing gay marriage, so long as Texas can make up its own mind.

Perry's stance would end in pandemonium. If a gay couple duly married in Massachusetts were to move to Texas, would Texas recognize the marriage? Or if a gay "married" couple were merely to visit Texas, would their marriage not be recognized by Texas during their visit? Would a Vermont gay couple filing jointly for federal income tax have to pro-rate their tax by deducting days in Texas that they weren't recognized as being married?

In some ways, our present situation is reminiscent of the competing slave laws from state to state in 19th century America. Slave owners from the south taking their personal body servants with them on visits to the north risked having their slaves granted freedom by the states they might visit. Similarly, runaway slaves were considered free once they crossed into northern states. To solve these issues, southern states were altogether eager to use the heavy hand of the federal government to infringe upon the rights of northern states through fugitive slave laws and through the intrusive arm of the Supreme Court (e.g., the Dred Scot decision) which trumped state laws.

All this changed with the 13th amendment which outlawed slavery throughout the United States. Santorum's two amendments would likewise establish a common policy on marriage and on the definition of life. However, there is a considerable difference between the way pro-slavery federal legislation was imposed in the pre-Civil War era and the way that Santorum's proposed amendments would be enacted. The pro-slavery federal legislation reflected the heavy hand of an intrusive federal government that was expanding its role. Santorum's proposed constitutional amendments, however, give due consideration to states' rights. Here's how.

The most important factor in amending the constitution is that it involves a vote of the states' legislative bodies. The issue is not sent to the states until the proposed amendment passes by a 2/3rds majority of both the U.S. House and the Senate. Only then is the amendment sent to the states which utterly control the fate of the proposed amendment. Each state legislative body votes on the issue. Only when 2/3rds of the states pass the amendment does it become a part of the constitution.

Thus, this process is heavily weighted in favor of the states, giving due consideration to states' rights. The only role the federal government has would be in initiating the amendment process. This contrasts remarkably with the fugitive slave laws of the 19th century which infringed upon the rights of the northern states by a simple majority of the U.S. House and Senate, and the president's signature.

Santorum's amendments are necessary in order to avoid a free-for-all situation where some of the states infringe upon the civil rights of some humans simply because they have not yet been born, and where states define marriage differently. Failure to have a common position on these key issues will have grave consequences on our country. But Santorum respects states' rights by addressing these issues through a constitutional amendment process which puts the states in control of the process, a process determined by our Founding Fathers.

This overthrows the criticism that Santorum is against states' rights. Quite the contrary, his goal is to fix a problem within the United States by sending the issue to the states.