Although not many people in high places may notice what I’m doing, I’d like to ask the following questions to three of the surviving GOP presidential contenders. First, why did Mitt Romney, as late as 2002, respond to a questionnaire from Planned Parenthood indicating that he fully supported Roe v. Wade and favored state funding for abortion?
According to his stated positions at the time, which were reported in the Boston Globe, Romney also favored allowing minors to obtain abortions without parental consent. Whatever one may think about these issues, Romney has been flip-flopping on social questions more often than he wants us to believe. Supposedly he had moved from wiggling somewhere to the left of Teddy Kennedy on abortion, while running unsuccessfully against him for the Senate in 1994, to being a “family-issues conservative” a few years later. By 2002, according to this frequently recounted narrative, he had undergone l sea change. As the Santorum campaign tried to point out during the recent Michigan primary, this change is not at all evident from Romney’s record; or else this change came later, when Romney’s presidential ambitions became stronger and he had to contend for votes from the Religious Right.
Second, if Santorum is as gloomy about the moral state of his country as he appears to be from his campaign speeches, how do we explain that he switches gears abruptly when he discusses America’s role in the world? Then we become a shining city on a hill and a chosen people required to bring the human rights we exemplify to the rest of humanity. This schizophrenia is characteristic not only of Santorum but of those Religious Right spokesmen and politicians I’ve been listening to. I wish they could make up their minds. Either we’re going to hell in a hand basket; or we’re so glowingly virtuous that we have a mission to make everyone exactly like us. Which is it?
Actually it’s both. There is a tendency in American Protestantism, going back to the 17th century, to depict one’s community and finally, one’s country as both sinful and saintly, depending on the lesson being taught or the goal being sought. Although a Catholic, Santorum is seizing on the same mixed rhetoric, depending on the policy under consideration. Thus we are reprehensible in some social issues but also God’s Elect when it comes to plunging into foreign wars. Another obvious factor here is the neoconservative influence on the GOP and the Religious Right, which is exercised through Fox, Wall Street Journal and other such vehicles of opinion. The Religious Right, which I have the impression is especially addicted to Republican opinion sources, is quite likely to absorb the neoconservatives’ big idea, which is a continuing crusade for democracy against all antidemocrats.
This idea fits the notion of American exceptionalism and the religiously based Zionism, both of which are typical of the Religious Right. And so candidates like Santorum and Gingrich, who have a competition going about who can take the most over-the-top neoconservative line, do well with the Religious Right for foreign- policy as well as social-issues reasons.
Third, why does Ron Paul (who is far from a fool) believe he can cut a deal with Romney? From what I’ve been reading and hearing, Paul has refrained from criticizing Romney and has aimed his fire at Romney’s rivals because he thinks he can get Romney to agree to make Ron’s son Rand, who is a Senator from Kentucky, his vice presidential running mate. This will never happen. Neither establishment GOP bigwigs like Karl Rove nor the Rupert Murdoch-neocon media would ever permit such a deal to come about. Right now, for better or worse, these are Romney’s allies, whom he will have to depend on after his nomination.
The Pauls, father and son, are poison to that establishment, which supports all things they oppose, such as an interventionist foreign policy and further military adventures, and a massive welfare state that provides patronage for the GOP faithful and programs for GOP voters. This establishment sees in Romney the “moderate” that it wants, not someone who would seriously reduce the size of government or practice military retrenchment. Even in a number two spot, Ron Paul or his like-minded son would not fit the job requirement.
The only way Ron Paul can have any clout at the national level is through a third-party challenge. He has no reason to imagine that the GOP will make room for him or his son. A better way to shake up things than by living with an empty hope is to seize the spoiler’s role. Make it hard on the GOP establishment to go on ignoring the real small-government conservatives. But this is only possible if Ron Paul acts boldly, by causing the GOP to lose disastrously in November.
William Dalton 
CD File 
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Publuis Cato 
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bondservant 
Dennis 
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paul gottfried 
I agree the whole Ron Paul/Romney axis seems to make no sense, but I think it’s obvious why Paul snr. would never destroy his son’s future “career” in the party (and I think it’s admirable both Paul’s know how destructive it is to view politics as such a thing-a “career”) by running as an independent. It’s simply suicidally insane to do that; he could win as much as a fifth or even a quarter of vote (though that’s debateable, Paul-mania has certainly cooled in the GOP primaries) like Perot did, but not carry a single state, he would TOXIFY not only his surname, but Old Right libertarian conservatism itself going forward into 2016, 2020, etc., which would positively THRILL the Kristols, Kagans, and Max Boots of the GOP; -finally, genuine libertarianism would be dead, and all from the selfishness and vanity of a single seventysomething politician they could blame it all on! Nothing would thrill the neocons more medium to long-term; does anybody really think that the Kristols et al in the party really believe Obama is someone they can’t abide for four more years? Kristol actually said as much back in ’04, that he would happily vote for a John Kerry over a never-going-to-happen Pat Buchanan or Buchanan-like figure who was GOP nominee! (This is why I find it so frustrating arguing w/dopey left-wingers at “get-togethers”-I’m not hip or rich enough to go to many “cocktail parties”, sadly-who babble to me how Bill Kristol and the rest of the Fox News crowd are the sine qua non of conservatism, btw.)
Actually, I guess i should amend that; there is the Party and then there is the establishment con movement, or neoconservatism for short. Kristol and folks like him, NR-niks, etc., are obviously more in the latter; yes, he’d rather see the GOP whether Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich in the White House, all the better to fund all his little Machiavellian think tanks/plans, but does anyone get the idea that he and Hannity and other neocons like them really believe it when they drag out that line, ONCE AGAIN, “this is the most important election in our lifetimes”? I don’t know. With collectivized health care as a “right” now, it IS true that this election feels dangerously different, but still. Myself, I find it impossible to spot the genuiness or lack thereof anymore in the neocon movement, so long has it been full of you know what. What IS clear or seems clear to me is that Paul snr. may never get to be president, but Paul jnr. could possibly do so with time, a sea change revolution in the thinking of regular Americans who support the “conservative movement” and a lotta luck. The GOP, to be sure, “would never make room for him” voluntarily, but it’s conceivable Jnr. could/would only get the nomination by outwitting and frustrating the powers that be in a future nominating contest, and by, let’s face it, being a MUCH smarter politician with the media and his image than his father was ever, EVER going to be. For all there is to admire in him, Ron Paul is hardly the best messenger for his message; I found myself wanting to kick the television in these last few months from the number of times he has just HANDED the horrible Michael Gersons, Charles Lanes, and Rich Lowrys of the world (and let’s not forget Limbaugh-who has treated Ron Paul atrociously when he’s talked about him) a excuse to tell us all how crazy/dangerous he was and why it was so imperative/urgent that we NOT even consider supporting him. Paul snr. is simply a AWFUL politician, no two ways about it. That may make him more appealing as a person of principles, but this is a competitive contest at end of day as well.
I DO think there is something going on w/Romney-Paul, though, question is what is it? I also think the Lewrockwell.com people and other paleolibertarians/cons have an idea what it is and are rather less than genuine w/their readers by pretending all the Romney-Paul agreement talk is just conspiracy nonsense. Who knows? Not me. Other than the rather simple, not very visibly useful to my eyes “plan” of just being #2 when Tampa rolls around in delegates so as to extract…what, exactly? Certainly not a veep position for his son, that’s fer sure. All this kid gloves w/Romney treatment just for a prime time speaking spot? And the neocons in the movement and the Party are going to fight Paul tooth and nail to even give him that, no matter how many delegates he has! AND even if he gets that, Ron Paul is NO Pat Buchanan in the oratorical gifts department. No matter who writes it, it’s hard for me to see him delivering a speech that is as remembered, for better or worse, as Buchanan’s ’92 Houston culture war speech. We’ll see, I guess.
On a semi-related note, Professor Gottfried, is there any chance your new book put out by Cambridge Press on Strauss and the conservative movement is going to come down in price eventually? Know small print runs of books may sometimes be in obscure price ranges, but really want to read it, and can’t afford $80-$90 for it, which is what Amazon and B&N have it at. Any info is appreciated-thanks.