The Straw Poll in Ames is only one week away. I can’t make up my mind who to cast a vote for. But I have several thoughts about the candidates and a few non-candidates.
Rick Santorum made a trip on Friday to Newton, Iowa and met with about 30 folks in a townhall style meeting at the YMCA. He gave a wonderful defense of getting the government out of the healthcare business and the need for the option of catastrophic health insurance instead of having a third party pay for care that isn’t even needed and costs the user almost nothing. He reminded us that the window to fix Social Security is now (when Baby Boomers are just starting to retire). He also defended very well his (almost) no exceptions view of abortion. He also took a shot at unnamed legislators, suggesting that emphasis on the short term in the budget crisis alone was not the route to go. A balanced budget amendment is important.
He also defended his endorsement in 2004 of pro-abortion Senator Arlen Specter, by saying that he secured a promise from Specter not to hold up in committee any of Bush’s Supreme Court Nominees, including Samuel Alito.
In an awkward but short discussion of his only exception to allow abortion (when the life of the mother is at stake) Santorum offered a strange scenario. I had suggested that there are almost no cases when such an exception needed to be invoked, because if an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother and is not done, both mother and baby would die, if the baby is not viable. On the other hand, if the baby could live outside the womb, there is no need for an abortion, as a Cesarean section could be done and perhaps both saved. Santorum offered that such a decision is sometimes necessary in a certain case (that frankly stunned me). What, he asked, if the abortion was necessary to save the life of the baby and required killing the mother? First, I have never heard of such a situation ever occurring. Second, while he might be technically correct that a life decision would have to be made, this case obviously has nothing to do with abortion. The doctors and mother would be choosing to save the life of the baby.
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I am still waiting for confirmation on Tim Pawlenty’s position on the exceptions of rape and incest, granting the mother the right to kill her child in order to punish the criminal father. This would be a deal-breaker for me. I have not been able to confirm his position, however. Readers who are familiar with Pawlenty’s position are welcome to comment. Please provide links if you have them. Governor Pawlenty did not deny that position when challenged with it at the last debate.
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Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is coming back to Iowa in September, but has otherwise been mostly out of the news since her suddenly ended bus tour and autobigraphical movie which got bad reviews (no surprise there!) and tiny attendance (big surprise there). Acccording to CBS News, one writer (Scott Conroy) said that “though Palin has been off the radar recently, Conroy warns not to discount her yet. ‘ I’m told that she’s basically been immersing herself in policy and studying up,’ he said of her absence.”
I hope that the story is NOT true. Running for president is not like taking a chemistry exam. Cramming won’t help.
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I had wanted to write about Governor Rick Perry’s big prayer meeting in Houston today, but never got to it. The biggest problem is that many of the main organizers of the Perry event are from the same church that gave us “The Kansas City Prophets“.
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Mike Huckabee may end up with a big presence in Ames next weekend after all. First, his HuckPac will have a booth set up at the straw poll. Second, Governor Huckabee is apparently going to broadcast his show at 7:00 pm from Ames. It is unclear whether it is going to be taped or live.
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Don’t forget, there is a place this year for write-in candidates at the Iowa Straw Poll.