Viewing the Same Thing, Seeing Different Things

My son Political Sphere and I stayed up way too late on Monday night (Tuesday morning by the time we started), to watch the Tampa debate. There was a question, about three-fourths into the debate, to Mitt Romney, and then to Newt Gingrich, on what each has contributed to conservatism.

If I were to come up with a dream list, it would include actions that support all three layers of the Spherical Model: civilization, free enterprise, and political freedom as guaranteed in the US Constitution. For civilization, there should be a demonstration of devotion to God, the grantor of our rights, by obedience to His laws, particularly including strengthening the family and valuing life.

For free enterprise there should be a demonstration that private choices should be made by the people making the money, not some distant central decision maker. Urge low taxes and spending cuts to live on less outgo than income. Know how free enterprise makes jobs and builds wealth, and understand how to keep government from interfering.

For freedom, understand and value the Constitution as the way to freedom, demonstrated by a record of words and actions supporting limited and divided powers of the federal government and specific support of the Bill of Rights.

Here is Romney’s answer:

Well, number one, I’ve raised a family. With my wife we’ve raised five wonderful sons, and we have 16 wonderful grandkids.

Number two, I’ve worked in the private sector. The idea that somehow everything important for conservatism or for America happens in government, is simply wrong. I’ve been in the private sector. I worked in one business that was in trouble and helped turn it around, another I started. And as part of that, we were able to create thousands and thousands of jobs.

And then I took an opportunity to become governor of a state that was slightly Democrat. About 85 percent of my legislature was Democrat. And I worked very hard to promote a conservative agenda. We cut taxes 19 times. We balanced the budget every year, put in place a “rainy day” fund of over $2 billion by the time I left. We were also successful in having English immersion in our schools, driving our schools to be number one in the nation.

That kind of a conservative model in a state like Massachusetts was a model in many respects that other states could look at and say, okay, conservative principles work. We were able to reach across the aisle to fight for conservative principles, and now I’m taking that to a presidential campaign, wrote a book about those principles that lay out why I believe they’re right for America.

I said to Political Sphere at the time, “That was a really good answer.” So I was surprised that the follow up commentary singled that out as a particularly weak answer. At first I thought that was just because the commentators are liberal and have a hard time understanding conservative principles, so they have a perception gap. But the next day I came across several conservative commentators who called it a weak answer; all of them clipped it at the first paragraph, on family. Since I see the civilization sphere as a base for the economic and political spheres to be able to thrive, and since the family is the basic unit of civilization, success in a family is important. It’s also not easy, and Romney’s family is exceptional—in direct contrast to the failure of Gingrich in the family, who failed at the very moment of claiming he understood the concepts. Living a civilized life is the only way to lead people to civilization. You can’t lead by standing on an alternate path and say, “All you people go that way.”

So I understood that Romney started with what was indeed a core conservative principle. And then he continued, listing significant business executive leadership—almost unparalleled in the business world and certainly unparalleled among the candidates. Then he referred to his political record, governing successfully, implementing conservative economic and social principles that led to success that shows in the public record.

In that limited time, he didn’t even include the boost he gave America by keeping the Olympics alive and removing much of the stain of scandal that had plagued the committee; he was hired specifically because practically no one else could have come from such deep problems and break even, and he did more; the 2002 Winter Olympics were a huge success.

Then he didn’t mention what he’s been doing lately. Maybe that’s because it gets dismissed as just more campaigning. But with no decision made about whether he would ever run for any public office again, when he stepped out of the race in 2008, he didn’t go home and rest; he went on the campaign trail for every conservative he could help. He spoke at campaign rallies; he raised funding; he gave donations. And the basic reason was that he wanted to help save America. It might have been awkward to say that himself, but those close to him over the decades show him to be the decent, positive man of integrity he would like you to see. It isn’t a façade; it’s real.

So I saw a strong answer. No hesitation. A long list, without notes or teleprompter. But the media reaction is that he was particularly unprepared on that answer. Hugh Hewitt, radio host who wrote about Romney four years ago, was an exception; he thought it was a good answer, but admitted it could have been stronger.

Then there was Gingrich’s answer. I didn’t hear much commentary about it afterward, but I saw it as an exaggeration, symbolic only, and taking credit where it was not due:

 I went to a Goldwater organizing session in 1964. I met with Ronald Reagan for the first time in 1974. I worked with Jack Kemp and Art Laffer and others to develop supply-side economics in the late ’70s. I helped Governor Reagan become President Reagan. I helped pass the Reagan economic program, and I worked with the National Security Council on issues involving the collapse of the Soviet Empire. I then came back, organized a group called GOPAC, spent 16 years building a majority in the House for the first time since 1954, the first reelected majority since 1928, developed the Conservative Opportunity Society, talked about big ideas, big solutions.

So I think it’s fair to say I spent most of my lifetime trying to develop a conservative movement across this country that relates directly to what we have to do. And I think only a  genuine conservative who’s in a position to debate Obama and to show how wide the gap is between Obama’s policies and conservatism can in fact win, because he’s gonna spend a billion dollars trying to smear whoever the nominee is, and we’d better be prepared to beat him in the debate and prove exactly how wrong his values are, and how wrong his practices are.

Gingrich may have gone to a Goldwater rally in 1964, but in 1968 he was the southern regional director for the Rockefeller campaign. He may have met Reagan in 1974, but who knows whether Reagan took notice of him then.  Gingrich ran his first campaign for congress from Georgia that year, and lost to the incumbent (and lost again in 1976 before winning in 1978). So is it likely he had a private advising session with California Governor Ronald Reagan in 1974, or just a meet and greet? And the likelihood that he was the idea guy behind economist Art Laffer’s theories is about as likely as Al Gore inventing the internet. (I’ll take that back if Art Laffer comes out and says, “Oh, yes, I couldn’t have come up with conservative economic ideas without Newt Gingrich.”)

Did Gingrich work successfully to bring a GOP majority to the US Congress? Yes, which is why he became speaker. (Do we need to add here that GOP doesn’t always translate to conservative, but can also be just the less liberal alternative to the Democrat Party?) And while that Congress kept its Contract with America by voting on its list of issues in the first 100 days, that didn’t mean everything passed, nor that they had any success in getting passed by the Democrat majority Senate or signed by the Democrat President. Big ideas, strong efforts, but not particularly notable results. And then the ethics and moral violations that led to his stepping down in disgrace were the antithesis of conservative ideals. When he had the opportunity to lead, his character failed him. Yet, instead of humility, we see braggadocio.  

Here is what I want, and what I pray for: that the people in this country, including myself, will see the truth—truth of who the candidates are (including Obama) and what they can and will do for our struggling nation—so that the decision of where we end up will be the result of clear decisions and not deceit. It’s possible that I see Romney positively because I want to, because I want what I picture he can offer. And it may be that Gingrich is a better man than he appears to me, because he has gone through a character change not visible to me. So I am continuing to look.

But I am paying attention and trying to discern the truth. But my country’s future depends on the decisions of millions of other American voters. So I pray that somehow truth will be evident to all of us.

                                                                                                             

Bain Basics



from Mittfitts.com

Venture capital is not exactly a specialty of mine. So as anti-Romneys have stirred the pot by calling Bain bad, I had to read up like of the general public. I have, however, read enough in the past about Romney’s business success and the near unanimous approval of both his business acumen and his ethics that, when opponents with a desperate need to wound his candidacy start claiming negative things about Romney’s predatory practices, I don’t automatically accept their word for it.

Maybe I’m too partisan by now, in my leanings toward Romney’s candidacy, that I’m missing something. But maybe not. Anyway, I have collected a few sources that have explained the Bain Capital experience pretty much to my satisfaction.

This one, from a pro-Romney blog, gives the “Real Story of Romney and Bain Capital.” Romney was asked by consulting company Bain and Co. owner Bain to start a separate venture capital company, where they could, instead of making money only on giving advice, invest money in companies they could persuade to follow their advice and make money on the success. Romney was hesitant and looked carefully at the opportunity before taking it on. He took a year, back in 1984, to raise money to start up the new company, all from private investors. And it took some time before the first big payback came—$2 Million invested in office supply store start-up Staples, which yielded $13 Million.

Generally what Bain did is not what you could call “vulture capitalism.” They didn’t identify weak companies where they could go in and pick the bones. Rather, they identified good ideas, good possibilities, that with enough capital and good business practices (often including laying off excess employees, particularly middle management), they hoped to turn the company around and build success.

Venture capitalists in general can expect a fairly low success rate—about like baseball hitters, who are best in the league when they average hits a third of the time. Bain was a great hitter. A surprisingly low percentage went bankrupt. And of those that did fail, that was often long after Bain was no longer involved. And one has to ask in those cases, what are the odds that company would have succeeded without the opportunities Bain offered?  A further look shows that, in some cases (Dade is an example) where companies did go through bankruptcy, they came through the restructuring and became more valuable, being bought on the other side at even greater profit.

It could be said, generally, that if Bain hadn’t gotten involved in those companies, chances were higher that more jobs would have been lost, and possibly all the jobs those companies provided. But an investment by Bain meant a stroke of good fortune.

As for the number of jobs Romney helped bring about? Probably an underestimate. According to the blog, “If one assumes a complete turn-over of employees every 5 years or so, a single company like Staples, which currently employs 90,000 people, has likely given jobs to over a quarter million people since it was founded!” Remember, Romney is careful to say he knows how jobs are created; he doesn’t say, “As president, I will create jobs,” the way liberals talk about it. What has to happen is to create the environment where businesses can create jobs. Get rid of uncertainty, over-taxation, and over-regulation. Romney knows what it takes because he has been involved in the “how” of job creation in an extremely broad array of businesses and industries. This particular blog lists well over 200 companies Bain worked with. Compare to the relatively vast experience Herman Cain, who had built up a couple of large, successful companies in the restaurant industry.

But one pro-Romney blog is not convincing by itself. So, here is former GE CEO Jack Welch, talking about Romney and Bain. In this two-minute clip, Welch says, “In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.”

In this National Review piece, two of the CEOs of Bain-helped companies, stand up for Romney:

Jack Smith, founder of Sports Authority, calls the attacks “a terrible slap against a brilliant guy’s record.” Bain was one of the original investors in the sporting-goods store, and Romney served as a director on the company’s board. Smith says he would consult Romney on “anything and everything.” “He provided guidance and direction,” he adds.

“I heard [Newt] Gingrich talking about how they eliminated jobs and the money they grabbed, that’s baloney,” Smith insists.

On Fox News, Stuart Varney talks about private equity and particularly Bain Capital. This clip is about 7 minutes long, but very informative about what Bain actually did, as compared to what Gingrich and others are claiming about it.

In the long run, it may be helpful to be having this discussion now. We can be certain that the Obama liberals will use any anti-capitalist ammunition they can grab hold of. So, having the opportunity to, piece by piece and case by case, debunk the arguments now will undermine those attacks later. So, for this head start we can thank Gingrich and Perry.

To Iowa and Beyond

I had a post almost completed for today, a civilization question, instead of the political election questions that have dominated here the past month. But I got distracted late last night watching the Iowa returns.

Screen Shot of the Interactive Map*

My son Political Sphere gets off work at midnight, and he wanted to see how it turned out too. We lasted until almost 2:00 central time, shortly after the lead changed from Santorum by 18 to Romney by a few. At that point, Romney was projected as the winner. Either way, both are assigned 11 Iowa delegates. I’m not displeased or surprised by the ending (except maybe for how very close it is). The party has gone through one non-Romney after another. Just before Christmas the non-Romney of the day was Gingrich, and while I much prefer him to Obama, I feel better about Santorum taking that slot.

Santorum gave a nice speech before the crowds in those wee hours, thanking the people who so often told him, “Welcome to Iowa.”  You can see the speech here; it’s about 20 minutes. In there he mentioned his intention to remove all regulations costing over $150 Million a year. Prior to this administration the average number of such regulations was 60; under Obama that has risen to 150—not exactly a stimulus to increase jobs. So I’m with Santorum on that plan.

I’m reminded of an aside about Iowa. We went on a family trip once where we stayed in a vacation home along the Mississippi, across from Keokuk, Iowa. On the coffee table at that house was a funny book about Iowa, trying to convince people that it actually existed. Most people, it said, when Iowa is mentioned, actually picture Ohio, or maybe that western state with the potatoes (Idaho). But Iowa is more or less invisible. We laughed about it, because it’s true we don’t know a whole lot about Iowa. But the primary caucus there, being the first, does get them some attention and respect. And the people there take it seriously. They really do turn out to meet the candidates, and they ask questions and study. If everybody took the process as seriously as Iowa does, we’d have a better electorate. So, thank you, Iowa.

Now, getting into a little of the nitty-gritty, I read something while I was waiting for results, from Joe Trippi, campaign manager for Howard Dean back in the day. It was that campaign that started using online media to connect with voters. He wrote a book I read a couple of summers ago, called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. He’s a strategist, and a liberal one. I couldn’t come up with that kind of thinking in my own mind; I don’t think that way. For that arcane expertise, there must be people like him, I guess, along with Karl Rove, Dick Morris, or, more for research than implementation, Frank Luntz.

Anyway, Trippi's article yesterday had some interesting things to look at. He said:

Watch Dubuque: The county in the northeast corner of the state is heavily Catholic and an area Romney scored well in four years ago. If Rick Santorum isn’t winning here it means the Santorum surge isn’t real or isn’t big enough to matter. The state is 23% Catholic—if Santorum, a pro-life Catholic himself, consolidates the Catholic vote in Dubuque and elsewhere, the Iowa surprise could be a Santorum win.

So I did that. I moved my mouse over the interactive map and found Dubuque County. Dubuque went Romney 31% (779 votes), Paul 26% (659 votes), Santorum 24% (601 votes). That eastern point of the state actually went pretty heavily toward Romney. I don’t know if that actually means Santorum’s surge is only temporary. He will, of course, suddenly get an influx of funding, because of his Iowa success. It isn’t likely to give him a win in New Hampshire, where Romney polls very strong (and is the basket in which Huntsman is putting all his eggs). But we’ll see.

Scrolling over the state gave some other info. If I’m not mistaken, at the point when Santorum was up by 18 votes statewide, two counties had not completed their count: Clinton and Keokuk. Then there was a change. Keokuk was complete, but Lee and Kossuth were not. And then Clinton County completed its votes, giving an edge to Romney. The other two remain incomplete this morning; I don’t know the story behind that. Political Sphere suggests that a precinct in each of those counties failed to have a turnout, so the precinct chair hadn’t bothered to turn in a count. They are pretty small. Total votes for Kossuth County are in the 400 range, and total for Lee a little over 600. Going by the percentages uncounted, we estimate there could only be about 20 votes possible from Kossuth and maybe 30 from Lee. Tiny amounts, but in this race enough to be decisive. It is one of those object lessons: every vote counts.

We were amused to notice that in Pottawattamie County, where Romney edged out Santorum by a couple of percentage points, Santorum got exactly 666 votes. Not a good omen. Especially if those voters chose Santorum based on his religion (Catholic), because they were afraid of Romney’s (Mormon). If so (not saying it is), they really needed either one more voter or a defector.

There were exit polls, and we wondered about the name for these, because the data was up well before the results. And this was a caucus, so people don’t come and go all day; they come at 7:00 PM and stay until they’re done, and then leave. So, these are probably “entry polls.” Anyway, Romney did well among middle and upper middle class, older, more educated voters, as well as the less intensely conservative and moderate. Moderate to liberal thinkers, particularly young voters, went with Paul. Tea Party middle income with some education went with Santorum.

According to the map, Romney only won 17 of, I think, 99 counties. He did tend to get the larger population centers (such as they are in Iowa). Santorum may have won more individual counties. But Ron Paul also led in a significant number of them. For people who like politics just for the sport of it, this was an exciting event.

Commentators describe Iowa as a winnowing state, rather than a selector. It looks like Michelle Bachmann, who won the straw poll in Iowa just last August, is out. Iowans liked her then, and her message has remained pretty much unchanged. This is why political science is a mystery to me. As of this writing Perry is still in. I’d like to see him stay through South Carolina at least. We’ll see. Gingrich is certainly in until then. So now, beyond Iowa, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

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* Interactive Map found here.

Troubles with Cain

We can try to separate things political, economic, and social, but in our real world they are interrelated. So, as I begin this process of measuring presidential candidates (political sphere), I start with the rules for civilization. 

Herman Cain, photo from Fox News

Specifically, the rules for civilization include having a people who believe in God as the giver of their inalienable rights; to not believe in God as the right giver is to give that honor arbitrarily to a human. So, while it’s possible to be an adequate administrator while not believing, it isn’t possible to lead a country toward civilization without believing. 

Among the behaviors belief in God requires are the basics of the 10 commandments (true whether a person belongs to a Judeo-Christian faith or something else). Among the 10 commandments is this proscription: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This brings us to the second rule for civilization: family is the basic unit of civilization. Leadership toward civilization must include preservation and nurturing of the family—from which all rules for civilization are passed from generation to generation. Without a critical mass of strong, intact families, civilization decays into savagery—always.

So, does it matter whether a politician is a sleazebag? Yes, it matters. Can such a person still love the country and make wise decisions concerning the execution of constitutional laws? Yes, it’s possible—but it’s not probable. In addition, when such a leader secretly behaves sleazily, he not only breaks a solemn oath to those closest to him, his own family; he puts himself in the position of being vulnerable to blackmail, which puts our nation at risk, possibly at critical turning points. 

If it doesn’t matter, let the politician admit openly to being a sleazebag, instead of lying to the voters. 

This opinion is at odds with an opinion piece from Fox News yesterday, by Dr. Keith Ablow, who says: 

I am simply stating a fact: The sexual histories of political candidates and elected officials have no place in politics because they can distract us from supporting those men and women with the skills to reduce the nation’s debt, create jobs and defeat our enemies.

The world is far too dangerous to exclude from public office those men and women whose sexual histories make us blush or make us sick. We shouldn’t even indulge our obvious, regrettable and seemingly insatiable hunger to peek in on them.

Like it or not a man can be unfaithful to his wife and a patriot who is faithful to his nation. A man can make horrible, unfathomable decisions about who he goes to bed with and make brilliant decisions about the economy and foreign policy. A man can break his marriage vows in sleazy motel rooms and be willing to die for his country.

The reasoning that suggests that a man who cheats on his wife can’t be trusted with the public till or legions of soldiers or nuclear weapons is naïve to the point of being foolish, and distracting to the point of endangering our national goals. 

So rest assured that I am aware I am considered naïve and foolish for thinking it is important that the prime leader of a civilization should himself be civilized. Nevertheless, I believe I am right. 

I don’t, as Ablow implies, have an insatiable hunger to peek in on the private, intimate relationships of politicians. I am comforted to see a healthy marriage and family; it gives me useful data. Its absence also gives me useful data. 

So, with this background, let me say that I do not assume all rumors are true. The first one, then two, then three accusations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain strike me as opportunistic and unlikely, considering lack of detail, lack of consistency with any other reports on Cain’s career, and the odd connections to Chicago (and its political machine, which Obama has always been part of). I don’t know enough yet about these women coming out of nowhere, suddenly now, and then the addition of this week’s accusation of a long-time affair. 

I don’t deal with lying well. I don’t understand using lying as a tactic or tool, either of attack or self-defense. So it’s hard to assume someone is lying without some kind of surrounding information. When a man has a long, distinguished career, with no apparent evidence of sexual dysfunction, it would be cruel to jump to the conclusion these accusations are true. It is also difficult to get into the heads of someone who would put herself forward with a lie, simply to destroy someone. So I don’t dismiss the women, but I do find their timing and details suspect. 

Then we get to the media narrative about Cain: he doesn’t answer the accusations well. In future posts I’ll cover some of the other media narratives and why we shouldn’t heed them. Unfortunately, this one strikes me as accurate. Here, for Cain’s use, is an example of a clear answer: “I categorically deny that I have ever behaved in a way that could be construed as sexual harassment by these women or any others. It happens in business that people in power can be a target of disgruntled employees who sue with baseless accusations. These nuisance lawsuits are occasionally settled because that is more efficient and cost-effective than litigating. While you may disagree and would have preferred there be no settlement, because settlement leaves my reputation vulnerable, I acted in a way that I thought was best for my organizations.” 

Instead, he said there may have been a settlement, but he didn’t know. And then he said we know the accusations were baseless, because when they were investigated they were found to be baseless. But—he presumably didn’t need an investigation to know that; he already knew they were baseless. What he may have meant was, “While I, of course, knew the accusations were baseless, investigations verified that.” 

Then there was the new accusation this week, about the affair. Let me speculate on how Romney would handle such an accusation. Following laughter, he would say, “That is absolutely false. Everyone who knows me knows it’s false. I carry out my life in a way that prevents even the appearance that such behavior could be part of my character. Ask anyone who has known me well during my entire life.” And thousands of people would indeed verify as to this aspect of his character. 

Cain, instead, failed to categorically deny, and said the accuser was an acquaintance, someone he had thought was a friend. He said something about his lawyers’ giving him information about what was supposed to be in the story. Then a day or two later he claimed that his (or any other candidate's) private consensual sexual life is none of the media’s business. And then it comes out that since the accusation he hasn’t talked with his wife about what really happened. Really? Not even a phonecall of reassurance? It looks bad. 

There’s still a chance this was nothing. I have a hard time believing a person of his business acumen would have the hubris to run for president—as his first elected office—when he knows his behavior has been so bad that a single true revelation would completely destroy his chances. Would such a man take that risk? If so, he’s not wise enough to be the most powerful leader of the free world. 

The sexual accusations aside, there are other stumbles that trouble me. A singular example is the way he handled an accusation of racism against Perry. Perry’s family leased hunting land for some decades. A rock near the entrance (not actually on the property, if I understand correctly, but only next to the entrance) contained an unacceptable racial epithet, as part of a place name of the adjacent property. About three decades ago (but I don’t know how long after the family began leasing the property) Perry and his father covered up the offensive word. Enough of their covering had worn away that it was possible to see part of the word and ascertain what it had been.  

The media went to Cain with the information that Perry had a bad word on his property he hadn’t promptly covered up. It was a set-up. Cain didn’t perceive it. Instead he answered that, if it was true Perry had neglected to do something about that word, he was indeed racist. Instead of doing due diligence, he gave the knee-jerk reaction the media was seeking and accused a decent, respected man with a long history of contrary evidence, of being racist. When you’re the lone black man on your side, with the idea of showing conservatism is not equivalent to racism, as the media conspires to say, then that was a serious gaffe. 

With my advantage of hindsight, I suggest Cain could easily have said, “I have a hard time believing my esteemed opponent Rick Perry is a closet racist. Let’s assume we don’t have all the information yet.” 

I didn’t write off Cain because of this error. But I did become more skeptical. My guess is that the accumulation of these errors—along with the possibility that he may be guilty of any of the sexual accusations—will end his campaign well ahead of the first primary state, maybe within a week. Overall, I think he has been a valuable addition to the political debate. I wish he had been a better man.

Too Much to Explain All at Once

There are times when I have things I want to post here, but there is always more to organize and say, so I wait. And then more stuff happens, or more information pours in. So I need to quote Inigo Montoya (we quote The Princess Bride often in our home): “Let me esplain. No, there is too much; let me sum up.” Today I sum up what I want to do over time, in future posts.

One point I’d like to write about concerns the political primary race for the presidency; longer answers make things clearer than shorter answers. I keep getting that reinforced, but with every reinforcement it gets more difficult to pass along. I need links to video and audio, and/or transcripts. Do I cover it by person, or by issue? I’m undecided.  

A second point I’d like to write about—and these won’t be mutually exclusive—is my concern about damage already done during this primary. I don’t think the damage is insurmountable, but it’s unfortunate.  

On the bright side, the candidates as a group are considerably more conservative than we had four years ago. Anyone we choose will be a better choice than our current president, simply because philosophically our candidates believe in constitutional government, with the limits enumerated therein.  

But in past elections—several—we have been pushed to nominate someone “electable.” In political speak that means “moderate,” assuming those swing voters in the middle are more likely to choose somebody that isn’t very ideological one way or the other, ignoring how successful elections have been when candidates (e.g. Reagan) ran with a clear conservative philosophy. This mistaken notion gave us McCain in 2008, to some extent George W. Bush in 2000 (although in some ways he just turned out to be less conservative than how he ran), Bob Dole in 1996.  

So now, everyone is so determined not to be pushed toward less conservatism that there is an innate distrust of anyone in the lead. If someone leads, it must be because the “establishment” wants that person, and we don’t want that. Or, alternatively, if someone leads, it must be that that’s who Obama wants to run against, so we can’t choose that person. So there’s a tendency to dismiss anyone who leads: we won’t be fooled into supporting Romney, so we must support someone else; and then as soon as each other-than-Romney candidate reaches a leading position, they can’t maintain it.  

Last night while we were talking about this, my son Political Sphere said, “So you know who the next anybody-but-Romney candidate of the week will be, right?” Yes, I answered: Huntsman. Because he hasn’t had a turn yet. 

Is this shuffling of leading candidates because they’re not good candidates? I don’t think so, generally. I think it’s more the distrust of anyone leading. I think there is an irrational belief that the only fair way to choose a candidate is to have every candidate rated equally by polling data and media coverage and any external factor at the time of a single primary election day, so we all get equal say. 

This isn’t going to happen. So, we can only study each candidate for ourselves, using as much real information instead of external pressure as we can find. And once we have gone through that due diligence, share what we know. 

Whichever I choose, my endorsement is not likely to sway many people. But I am going through the process, and I’m trying to do that thoroughly. So I plan to share that process over the coming weeks and months in the hopes that the reasoning might help others in doing their own reasoning. 

In general I don’t think of Spherical Model as a political blog. Politics is just a way of doing our part as citizens to maintain/regain our freedoms. But those freedoms have so eroded, and seriously so during the past few years, that our economy and civilization are threatened. So, if moving back up into the northern hemisphere (in the Spherical Model) requires spending some time on the nitty-gritty of politics, we can handle it.