One British eye on the US Elections: Getting into power is more important than being faithful to your ideology... First we had New Labour, now the US presents New Republicans!
Romney wins across the board in the four elections leading up to Super Tuesday, dubbed that because 10 states will be going to the polls to cast their votes and it just happens to be on a Tuesday!
Romney bagged wins in Arizona with a sizeable lead, in Washington, where Ron Paul came second (he often does better when there's a caucus rather than a primary), in Wyoming and in the all important Michigan. Finishing with only 3% less than Romney, means that Santorum will actually pick up half of the delegates available in Michigan. Any one candidate needs to get 1,114 delegates to win the Republican Party nomination.
Prior to Super Tuesday, its fascinating to see the rise and fall of yet another conservative candidate. Prior to last week, Santorum was seen as a serious contender against Romney. The pressure was on for Romney to win in the state he was born in, Michigan, where his father had been governor during the 1960s. There was quite a few days of back and forth from the press biding for time, mostly because of the two week gap between Maine's elections and Arizona and Michigan's.
The death knell for Santorum's raging momentum came in stages. The first of which came with a poor performance during a pre-election debate in Arizona.
I had previously thought that Rick Santorum was almost untouchable in his crystal clear, tidy whitey Conservatism. Not the case at all. He desperately tried to defend his support for certain bills while he was Senator when Bush Jr. was in power, but to no avail. The biggest 'crime' being his support for No Child Left Behind. A controversial bill that fitted in nicely with Bush's 'Compassionate Conservatism'. It extended the budget of the federal Department for education and vowed to essentially 'leave no child behind' no matter what their ethnicity or social standing may be. Being condemned for supporting a bill that was helping people... Is he not enough of a selfish, racist, sexist, homophobic arsehole, he has to openly encourage illiteracy amongst the poor too?????
Well apparently yes, he does. So he did. Now calling for a decrease in national funding for education, Santorum has been claiming that colleges are nothing but farms churning out liberal left wing hippies – well if going to university or college makes me enlightened and free to make my own educated and reasoned moral choices please by all means burn me at the stake, I'm a danger to society.
He has also been hinting that home schooling your children is a much better alternative to state education – and to that I say, its nice to have the choice but its unfair to impose it or expect it of people. For a start home schooling is only a good idea if parents have the time not only to educate their children but to ensure that they still get to socialise. Also, its often the case that parents aren't always capable of home-schooling their children due to lack of eduction on their part. Its not for everyone. I know lots of cases where children have been home schooled for the right reasons, because of bullying, certain teachers attitudes or it might be the case that actually the school system can't provide the kind of attention some children need. However, when the right wing start pushing the idea you've got to question their motives.
Santorum has educated his 7 children in a controlled environment, and clearly taught them as he and his wife see fit – conditioning their children to believe in Creationism, reject global warming and see any sexual activity beyond reproduction as a sin, that's if they've actually taught them anything about sex at all... I predict a couple of Palin-esk teen pregnancies in their future. I'm sorry, I don't care how much some people live in fear of God, nothing much stops people from humping when the timing is right – its an impulse, and one that Santorum and his missus have acted upon at least SEVEN times – something tells me they didn't plan seven kids... I mean who plans on having seven kids, especially in the West... I mean, an even half dozen yeah, but seven? All I'm sayin'...
Santorum's views have proved to extreme. He's been too honest. He's laid all his conservatives cards on the table and people have shit themselves. Republican's are certain he can't beat Obama. Not only will the independents shy away from him, but even moderate Republicans will think twice about voting for a man who thinks contraception is a sin that should be made illegal. He paints this 'every man', middle class, hard working guy image of himself, but the people who identify with that side of him, hell, they can't afford to have a baby every time they wanna shake the bedroom furniture.
Romney may not always be in line with their beliefs but he has far more potential to beat Obama this November, and his party have realised they have to get behind him or things could go very wrong from here on out.
