The folks at Reason.TV took on these issues in their newly released parody video (click here to view in YouTube):

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UPDATE: Americans for Prosperity brings us this current look at the contrast between Reagan’s vision of America and Obama’s lack of such vision (click here to view in YouTube):

Related Posts:

• Reagan at 100
• One Small Voice: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
• Campaign Ads & The Sting of Battle
• A Time For Choosing. Again.
• Is the Republican Party Ready for Gary Johnson?

Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don’t, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs. | Galt’s speech

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Event Alert: NFIB and Associated Builders and Contractors welcome Dr. Bob Graboyes to discuss health care issues in Albuquerque on Thursday, January 12 at 7:30 a.m. Additional events follow on the 13th in Santa Fe and 17th in Las Cruces for details visit the website here and be sure to register today.

As you probably all know by now, Romney squeaked by Santorum to achieve victory by a mere 8 votes yesterday. Today, Matt Welch has a compelling column at CNN on Why Romney’s front-runner status is nuts:

 In the 2008 Republican Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney received 30,021 votes, 25% of the total, good for second place against a socially conservative evangelical (Mike Huckabee), who within seven weeks would become enough of a nonfactor in the presidential race that he appeared on “Saturday Night Live”mocking his own electability.

In the 2012 caucuses, after four more years of introducing himself to a recession- and Washington-weary America, Romney received 30,015 votes, 25% of the total, good for a razor-thin, eight-vote win over a socially conservative Catholic (Rick Santorum), who has acomparatively weak national campaign organization outside the early-primary states.

Yet Iowa arguably derailed Romney in 2008 while shoring up his front-runner status this time around. GOP politics have become so fluid, so unpredictable, so bizarre, that the main point of the game is more about survival than winning.

* * *

This may be enough to help Romney survive against three competitors who are more excitable. But it also sets up one whale of a paradox: After 39 months of consistent public hostility to bailout economics, after the rise of the tea party movement, after town-hall opposition to “Obama care,” after the long-shot Scott Brown win in Massachusetts, after the 2010 limited-government resurgence in the House of Representatives … after all of these unmistakable signs of public — let alone Republican — sentiment, the alleged party of limited government may be on the verge of nominating someone who is running to President Barack Obama’s left on Medicare, whohelped pave the way for the Obama policy Republicans hate most and who has no real plan for cutting the biggest growth items in the federal budget.

Over at Volokh, Ilya Somin declares Rick Santorum as “this year’s Mike’ Huckabee”:

This year’s election was supposed to be something new and different. However, Rick Santorum, the big winner in this year’s Iowa GOP primary is remarkably similar to the big GOP Iowa winner of 2008: Mike Huckabee. Like Huckabee, Santorum is a hard-core social conservative whose big government proclivities extend far beyond social issues. I covered Huckabee’s record in this December 2007 post. Santorum is remarkably similar, perhaps even worse. For the details on Santorum, see this post by David Boaz [HT: co-bloggerDavid Bernstein], and Jonathan Rauch’s thorough review of Santorum’s 2005 book laying out his political philosophy. As Rauch noted, Santorum rejects what he once dismissed as “this whole idea of personal autonomy,” not to mention “the idea that people should be left alone.” He doesn’t just think that freedom should be heavily regulated; he’s against “the whole idea” on principle.

Santorum does have chutzpah. Despite his record, he just gave a victory speech where he emphasized that the main issue in this campaign is “freedom.” If that’s really what it’s about, Santorum’s campaign will end up the same way as Huckabee’s did. I’m no great fan of any of the other remaining GOP candidates. But none of them is as much a big government conservative as Santorum is.

Read more here. Also on Santorum, a poster over at Red State explains some issues with Santorum’s view of the Constitution:

I see Santorum as being more a national activist than a constitutional conservative. Some might even call him a statist when it comes to his ideas about what is right and wrong. Being more a national activist than a constitutional conservative means Santorum is willing to impose his one size fits all ideals upon the whole country through the national government regardless of what the Constitution says.  Here’s an example of Santorum’s very unconservative view of the Constitution:

Luntz: Should the states be able to say no to Washington?

Santorum: I’m a very strong supporter of the 10^th amendment […], but the idea that the only things that the states are prevented from doing are only things specifically established in the Constitution is wrong.

Our country is based on a moral enterprise. Gay marriage is wrong.  As Abraham Lincoln said, states do not have the right to do wrong.  And so there are folks, here who said states can do this and I won’t get involved in that.

 I will get involved in that because the states, as a president I will get involved because the states don’t have a right to undermine the basic fundamental values that hold this country together.  America is an ideal. It’s not just a constitution, it is an ideal. It’s a set of morals and principles that were established in that declaration, and states don’t have the right, just like they didn’t have the right to do slavery.

I have to ask, am I the only one that wonders if Santorum has actually ever read the 10 amenmdment?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Prior to the 13^th Amendment, the states did have a right to allow slavery to exist in their territory, and it is only that amendment that denied them that right. I wonder is Santorum trying to revise history too?  For him to suggest that there is some other shadowy list of natural principles or ideals that actually prevented states from allowing slavery, sets us all on a slippery slope where the Constitution’s meaning is based less on its historic textual meaning, and instead is more open to arbitrary interpretations and revisions inspite of and contrary to the text. If we disregard our written Constitution in favor of unwritten natural law, then the future of our rights will be even less certain, and establishing what is or isn’t our (natural) rights will be increasingly determined by (as in cases of establishing the terms of verbal contracts)  judges rather than the people.

Full column here. From the libertarian-leaning side of the GOP, a few words on Ron Paul:

For Ron Paul’s most ardent supporters, last night’s third-place finish in the Iowa caucus was anundeniable disappointment. The dream of boomeranging from an Iowa victory to a New Hampshire resurgence to an anything-is-possible Super Tuesday has now gone to re-write.

Being exposed as a state front-runner for three tantalizing weeks proved about two weeks too long, as the media and Paul’s competitors hammered away at his foreign policy views, his support among and alignment with non-Republicans, and his foul old newsletters. Exit polling showed clearly that late-breaking voters broke hard away from Ron Paul.

But Paul fans and supporters of limited government more broadly have many reasons to be cheered by last night’s results. Here are seven:

1) Paul more than doubled his vote over 2008, while Mitt Romney’s stayed exactly the same. Seriously, Romney got 30,000 votes (25 percent of the total) in 2008, then 30,000 votes (25 percent of the total) in 2012. Paul vaulted from 10 percent to 21, from 12,000 votes to 26,000. His message of freedom, limited government, attacking the Federal Reserve, and ending wars foreign and domestic is undeniably on the grow.

2) Paul’s delegate- and caucus-focused strategy means that he will likely punch above his electoral weight. The campaign focused not just on doing well at the caucus, but making surePaul-friendly humans get nominated as county delegates, so that when the 25-delegate pie is eventually divvied up Dr. No will get more than projected.

Read all seven reasons here.

Last night’s results have already clearly narrowed the field as Bachmann announced the end of her campaign and speculation that Rick Perry will do the same soon (although according to Perry on Twitter, not just yet). The WSJ described the overall Iowa contest in  today’s editorial:

Iowa’s corner of the electorate cast the first verdict of the 2012 Presidential campaign Tuesday night, and the results look more like an opening skirmish than the coronation for Mitt Romney that much of the media had prepared.

As we went to press Wednesday morning, the polls showed a dead heat between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, with Ron Paul a close third and Newt Gingrich a distant fourth. Mr. Romney retains a huge lead in New Hampshire, which votes January 10, but his failure to win a larger share of the vote than he did in 2008 suggests that GOP voters don’t view the former Massachusetts Governor as inevitable.

Many Republicans—especially party elites—have been coalescing around Mr. Romney as the most “electable” candidate, by which they seem to mean the one with the fewest obvious flaws. But electability is a slippery concept, especially 10 months from November. Democrats said the same thing about John Kerry in 2004, while the media were convinced that a right-wing former movie actor was unelectable in 1980. Voters would do better to drop the pundit game theory and choose the best potential President.

On that score, Mr. Romney deserves credit for his doggedness and discipline. However uninspiring, those are useful traits in a candidate or a President. The man who rescued the 2002 winter Olympics has proven he can assemble a team and adapt to the blows of a modern campaign. He has been ruthless in attacking the competitors who were his biggest threats, Rick Perry and Mr. Gingrich, attacking from the right or left if it worked.

Yet Iowa’s flirtation with so many “non-Romney” candidates shows that a majority of Republicans still find him less than convincing. The media want to attribute this to anti-Mormon bias. But the polls show that Mr. Romney’s Mormonism is a much bigger issue among Democrats than within the GOP.

In an exception to our normal policy regarding Political Diary, here is the post-game analysis from the diary:

Romney’s Iowa Paradox

The paradox of the Iowa caucus result is that Mitt Romney showed political vulnerability but also may have strengthened his prospects for the nomination. This is one more sign of the relative weakness of this GOP field.

While Mr. Romney won by eight votes in the end, he failed to exceed his share of the vote from 2008. Iowans knew him very well, yet three quarters of voters kept looking for an alternative, moving from one disappointing conservative hope to another. Mr. Romney did well among older voters, moderates and those who said they were somewhat conservative, according to the entrance polls. But he did poorly among young people, tea party supporters and independents. The former Massachusetts governor has some major coalition maintenance to do if he wins the nomination.

Yet Mr. Romney continues to benefit from the failure of any of his competitors to consolidate the conservative vote. Ron Paul has collared the free-market libertarians and many right-leaning independents. He can’t win the nomination, and he has probably reached his high-water vote total at 21%, but Mr. Paul can continue to take 10% or more of the vote that might go to another non-Romney.

Rick Santorum is the latest to have a chance to emerge as the main conservative alternative, and he’ll get a fresh look from voters. But he’ll have to compete with Mr. Paul and Newt Gingrich, who plans to stay in the race. The former speaker is a double-edged sword for Mr. Santorum. Mr. Gingrich may help Mr. Santorum by targeting Mr. Romney, but he’ll also make it harder for Mr. Santorum to get Mr. Romney in the one-on-one match that would give the Pennsylvanian the best chance to win.

Perhaps the main question is whether Mr. Santorum’s message can galvanize enough voters to begin to unite the social and economic wings of the GOP. He’ll win the social wing for sure, but the economy is this year’s biggest issue — even in culturally conservative South Carolina, where the jobless rate is 9.9%. My colleague James Freeman (see below) thinks Mr. Santorum began a successful economic pivot on Tuesday night. To win the nomination, he’ll have to press the issue and persuade voters that he’s a better economic messenger than Mr. Romney. Otherwise, Mr. Romney’s divide-and-conquer strategy will carry the day.

– Paul A. Gigot

‘Game On’

With those words Rick Santorum began his speech in Iowa last night, and the former Pennsylvania senator quickly made clear that he is ready to play well beyond the Hawkeye State. Dismissed by pundits as a social-issues candidate playing to a narrow base of religious voters, Mr. Santorum gave the strongest speech of the night as he pressed for policies to revive American manufacturing. He even managed to maintain rhetorical momentum while describing plans to eliminate major federal regulations. Summing up President Obama’s economic policies, Mr. Santorum said, “This administration is crushing business.”

Particularly intriguing for economic conservatives, and perhaps disturbing for the White House, Mr. Santorum effectively tied heavy government burdens on business with the loss of middle-class jobs. He also spoke movingly of his working-class background as an immigrant coal miner’s grandson and made an explicit pitch to blue-collar workers in the industrial Midwest. If nothing else, Mr. Santorum demonstrated that if he wins the GOP nomination, he will force an overhaul of Mr. Obama’s campaign message. Mr. Santorum will strike no one as a Wall Street plutocrat.

If anything, his economic plan tilts too far toward Main Street factories, with its zero federal income tax rate for manufacturers. But other businesses would also catch a break, as their tax rate would be cut in half, while there would be just two individual income tax rates of 10% and 28%. As for the latter, Mr. Santorum noted that if it was “good enough for Reagan, it’s good enough for me.” No doubt it will also be good enough for many Republican primary voters.

– James Freeman

Team Obama’s Spin

Wednesday morning quarterbacks on Team Obama said they take comfort in Mitt Romney’s eight-vote victory over Rick Santorum in Iowa last night because it revealed a lack of enthusiasm for the former Massachusetts governor.

Mr. Romney “started the race with a quarter [of the caucus vote]. Ended it with a quarter,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod told Politico. “Four years later, he didn’t add any votes despite a vigorous commitment of time and money down the stretch.” Jim Messina, who serves as President Obama’s campaign manager, wise-cracked, “Where’s the enthusiasm?”

Compared with four years ago, Mr. Romney has spent very little time in Iowa, a place where retail politics is rewarded. Yet he managed to best rivals like Mr. Santorum, Ron Paul and others who focused much more on the state. The question isn’t why didn’t he break 25%. The question is why was he able to do as well as he did before while giving Iowans much less face time.

And while it’s true that Mr. Obama won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 with record turnout of 239,000, or roughly double the number of people estimated to have voted last night, it’s also true that Democratic voters are not nearly as excited about the president today as they were when he was a candidate four years ago. If Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, he will face a president whose current approval rating (42%) is lower than his disapproval rating (50%), according to a Gallup Poll taken last month. That’s the lowest approval rating ever recorded for an incumbent president at this point in his first term.

Perhaps the Obama campaign ought to be more worried about enthusiasm for the president.

– Jason L. Riley

Reason.TV has an interesting post-Iowa video up with its usual Ron Paul focus (click here to view in YouTube):

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My prediction for winner of tomorrow’s Iowa Caucuses: Rick Santorum.

From Political Diary last week:

Santorum’s Surge . . .

Rick Santorum has rocketed to third place in Iowa, according to the most recent CNN/Time poll. His 16% support in the survey of likely Republican caucus participants puts Mr. Santorum ahead of Newt Gingrich and behind only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

While this is Mr. Santorum’s strongest showing yet in public polls, other recent surveys also show him rising into double digits, suggesting the Santorum surge is real. And the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania could have significant upside beyond the Hawkeye State and beyond the evangelicals who are powering his rise there.

“All of a sudden, Rick Santorum looks an awful lot like Mike Huckabee,” Iowa GOP activist Craig Robinson tells the Journal. Mr. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, was the surprise winner in Iowa in 2008 when he attracted strong support from the Christian right. But that turned out to be the high point of his campaign. Voters elsewhere discovered that Mr. Huckabee wasn’t particularly conservative and that, despite his laudable knowledge of scripture, he lacked depth when addressing a range of policy issues.

In the case of Mr. Santorum, even Republicans who don’t go to church may find something to like. He made his name in politics by exposing the House bank scandal in Congress and then launched a vigorous attack on the Clinton health-care plan. During his two terms in the Senate, he was outspoken on behalf of lower spending and lower taxes. Though he has hardly mentioned economic policy in recent debates beyond his odd suggestion of making manufacturing companies tax-exempt while continuing to tax other businesses, Mr. Santorum actually has a plan to relieve the tax burden on all companies and on individuals, too. If he is able to finish third or higher in Iowa and establish himself as a contender, Mr. Santorum will be capable of reaching voters that Mr. Huckabee never could.

– James Freeman

. . . And Self-Limiting Strategy

The polls say Rick Santorum’s support is rising in Iowa, breaking double digits for the first time. He’s benefitting from endorsements by prominent evangelicals, and perhaps he’ll be this presidential cycle’s cultural conservative who does better than expected in the Hawkeye State. The question is whether he has the money and message to do well in New Hampshire and beyond, and on that score skepticism is in order.

Mr. Santorum has focused his entire candidacy on Iowa, visiting all 99 counties and stressing the cultural issues that delivered the state caucuses for Mike Huckabee in 2008 and boosted Pat Robertson in 1988. Mr. Santorum is all moral values all the time. When I interviewed him as part of an educational forum in November, the former Pennsylvania senator spent nearly all of the half hour talking about the moral failure in the family and schools. At every turn he quickly changed the subject from school choice (which he favors) or national standards (which he opposes) to the culture and the need for a president to address those issues from the White House bully pulpit.

This will pay off if Mr. Santorum manages to surprise and win the caucuses or perhaps place a close second. The publicity would earn him a closer voter look in New Hampshire. But if he’s going to have a chance to beat Mitt Romney, he’ll have to consolidate conservative voters of all stripes. This will require a larger message than culture decline, especially on the economy, which is the top voter concern. Mr. Santorum’s economic message is focused on a revival of manufacturing, which is also oddly narrow. America does need to make and export more goods, but what it really needs is faster economic growth. By running as a cultural conservative above all else, Mr. Santorum may find it hard to pivot past Iowa and reach a broader GOP electorate.

Like Mr. Huckabee four years ago, he will also need to raise more money very fast to compete in South Carolina and beyond. It’s a tall order, and an unlikely one.

– Paul A. Gigot

I welcome your thoughts, agreements and disagreements, or predictions in the comments section. Also don’t forget to vote in the PubliusNM poll.

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National

Matt Welch attended Vaclav Havel’s state funeral and provides a fascinating look in his recent post:

Such was Václav Havel’s genre-straddling life and thoroughgoing conception of freedom that it seemed as natural as tartar sauce on fried cheese to bookend a portentous, Dvo?ák-haunted National Requiem Mass in Central Europe’s oldest Gothic cathedral with a loose-limbed, hash-scented rock and roll celebration at the Czech Republic’s most storied music venue, all while the non-VIPs on the streets of Prague (and their counterparts outside the capital) lent the most dignity of all to the three-day National Mourning by creating ad-hoc candlelit shrines in whatever patches of cobblestone reminded them of the man who made them most proud to be Czechs.

It was a remarkable memorial, one that–like Havel himself–could not have happened in any other city or country. Yet the celebration offered enough bread crumbs for non-Czechs to stumble upon the promise of forgotten political alchemies lurking just outside our daily view. I was there to pay my respects; here are some observations and pictures.

You could not go anywhere in Prague last week without hearing Havel’s hippiesh Velvet Revolution epigram, “Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.” Most foreigners tend to focus on the “truth” part of that equation, since Havel wrote and spoke so memorably about how the simple act of “living in truth“–i.e., calling things by their proper names, refusing to go along with the rituals of coercion, staying true to your authentic sense of self–inevitably expands the zone of freedom and puts authoritarians on the defensive.

Read the whole piece here.

In the January 2012 Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum has an interesting look at America’s development into a national-security state:

The private papers of the late George F. Kennan, Cold War architect and diplomat extraordinaire, reveal his anguish over the way his famous 1947 warning about Soviet expansionism helped transform the America he loved into one he no longer recognized: a national-security state. A half-century after a similarly historic warning—President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s speech about the dangers of a powerful “military-industrial complex”—Todd S. Purdum shows how completely Kennan’s and Eisenhower’s worst fears have been realized, warping almost every aspect of society, deflecting attention from urgent problems, and splitting the country into two classes.

The full article (which is fairly long) is worth a read. A PubliusNM reader provided this article along with an interesting speech by John Quincy Adams on U.S. Foreign Policy:

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

 

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

 

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

 

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

 

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

 

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

 

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

 

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

 

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

 

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

 

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

 

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

 

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….

 

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….

 

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

 

When John Quincy Adams served as U. S. Secretary of State, he delivered this speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence Day.

Which brings us to current national politics. The big news this week in the 2012 presidential race is Gary Johnson’s switch to the Libertarian Party:

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson said on Wednesday he is dropping out of the Republican presidential race and is seeking the Libertarian Party nomination for president.

“We are getting fed up with the two-party system,” Johnson said at a news conference at the state capitol in Santa Fe, where he was joined by some 50 supporters and by Libertarian Party chairman Mark Hinkle.

Democrats, Johnson said, have backed off on social issues such as gay rights and Republicans “are no longer stewards of the pocketbook.”

Johnson said that he’d been “snubbed by the Republican Party” and ignored by the national media.

As a long-shot candidate for president, Johnson had proposed cutting government spending, reducing taxes and legalizing marijuana.

As governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, Johnson vetoed so many bills — some 750 — that he was later nicknamed “Governor Veto.”

Hinkle did not endorse Johnson, but the Libertarian Party released a statement welcoming Johnson to the party and commending him for “stopping the expansion of Big Government” when he was governor.

Full article here, and Reason has the text of Gary’s announcement email here. In other campaign news, CNN has a new poll out with some interesting results:

A new survey of people likely to attend Iowa’s Republican caucuses indicates that the former House speaker’s support in the Hawkeye State is plunging. And according to a CNN/Time/ORC International Poll, one-time long shot candidate Rick Santorum has more than tripled his support since the beginning of the month.

Twenty-five percent of people questioned say if the caucuses were held today, they’d most likely back Mitt Romney, with 22% saying they’d support Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Romney’s three point margin is within the poll’s sampling error.

The poll’s Wednesday release comes six days before Iowa’s January 3 caucuses, which kickoff the presidential primary and caucus calendar. The Iowa caucuses are followed one week later by the New Hampshire primary.

A new CNN/Time/ORC poll of likely primary voters in New Hampshire indicates that Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, remains the front-runner, far ahead of his rivals for the GOP nomination.

More here, and more on recent polling from Reason here. Reason’s morning links have some additional campaign updates:

• Onetime Michele Bachmann campaign leader Kent Sorenson is now supportingRon Paul.
• Mitt Romney still ”uneasy with off-the-cuff remarks, unnatural at chitchat, and spare with his emotions.”
• Rick Santorum is surging in Iowa; Newt Gingrich is plummeting.

The daily video here at PubliusNM has often been courtesy of ReasonTV and the folks there have now created a few playlists including one of their top five most popular videos of 2011 and the top five best interviews of 2011. Visit the ReasonTV YouTube Playlist page for more top five lists, and for today we’ll provide the second most popular video of 2011, a look at Peter Schiff’s trip to Occupy Wall Street representing the 1% (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Heath Haussamen has a list of NM’s top 10 political stories of 2011, starting with Bingaman’s retirement announcement and including looks at Roundhouse dynamics, judicial scandal, and the Richardson investigation, among others. Read the full list here.

For additional NM updates, check out various recent posts on Errors of Enchantment.

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Objectivism is a philosophical movement; since politics is a branch of philosophy, Objectivism advocates certain political principles—specifically, those of laissez-faire capitalism—as the consequence and the ultimate practical application of its fundamental philosophical principles. It does not regard politics as a separate or primary goal, that is: as a goal that can be achieved without a wider ideological context. | The Objectivist Newsletter, Jan. 1962, 1

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National

Jeb Bush’s column in yesterday’s WSJ is making the rounds:

Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: “The right to rise.”

Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn’t seem like something we should have to protect.

But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.

That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this. Freedom of speech, for example, means that we put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.

But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles of growth and loss, of trial and error, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself.

Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedoms through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations. We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it. We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws. We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved. Each time, we demand “Do something . . . anything.”

Read the full column here. Naturally, this has led to a resurgence of speculation that another Bush will seek the White House in 2012. Jeb clarified his position on running:

The talk Monday came a few days after unsubstantiated reports bounced around the political world that someone — it was never clear who — might have been polling, or push-polling, on Bush’s behalf in New Hampshire. Reporters got in touch with former top Bush White House aide Karl Rove, who emailed Bush himself for comment.

“I am not push-polling, or polling, and I am not running,” Bush emailed back to Rove. Later, Bush added that he does not know of anyone who might be polling or push-polling on his behalf. The answer is definitive, Rove said: Bush just isn’t running. “Please, get grounded,” an exasperated-sounding Rove suggested.

Other well-connected insiders say the same thing. “Absolutely not,” says one. “I do not believe for a minute that [the article] signals any intent or plan on his part to enter the political fray.”

More here. In related news, Emily Ekins tells us that 54 Percent of Americans Fear Government Action Will Hurt the Economy:

Reeling from the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, politicians and candidates alike seemed to think everyone agreed that government needed to do something to combat the crisis. Now in 2011 the Reason-Rupe poll asked Americans what concerned them more—that government would fail to take action or that the government would take action but in so doing make things even worse. In response, a majority of Americans said they fear that government action will make things worse, rather than better, while 40 percent said they are afraid that the government will fail to take action.

This lack of confidence in government’s ability, or even capability, is reflected in Congress’ low approval rating of just 13 percent. Confidence in President Barack Obama is roughly split, with 49 percent approving of his performance and 47 percent disapproving.

Continuing the look at the death of Kim Jong-Il, Ira Stoll tells the stories of some of his victims:

The pictures accompanying the news of the leadership change in North Korea are those of the dead dictator, Kim Jong-Il, and his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-Un.

But there are some other Koreans whose names and photos, though absent from the front pages, tell the real story.

Ri Hyon Ok was a 33-year-old mother of three who was publicly executed by the North Korean government on June 16, 2009, for the crime of giving away bibles. Her husband and children were banished to North Korea’s vast political prison system the day after she was killed.

Son Jong Nam was tortured by North Korean authorities and imprisoned for three years, from 2001 to 2004. He lost 70 pounds while in captivity and emerged walking with a permanent limp. Arrested again in 2006 after police found bibles at his home, he was sentenced to death by firing squad.

Soon Ok Lee is a survivor of the Kaechon prison camp. She testified on April 30, 2003, at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights that women political prisoners in North Korea “were unconditionally forced to abort because the unborn baby was also considered a criminal by law.” She testified, “Women in their 8th or 9th month of pregnancy had salt solutions injected into their wombs to induce abortion. In spite of these brutal efforts, some babies were born alive, in which case the prison guards mercilessly killed the infants by squeezing their necks in front of their mothers. The dead babies were taken away for biological tests. If a mother pleaded for the life of her baby, she was publicly executed under the charge of ‘impure ideology.’”

Kang Chol Hwan is another survivor of the North Korean prison camps. He met with George W. Bush in the Oval Office in June 2005. He’s spoken of how when one prisoner was hanged, “thousands of prisoners were made to form one line and passed by the hanged person and threw stones at the dead body, shouting, ‘Let’s get rid of the people’s traitor.’ And because of throwing so many stones by thousands of prisoners, the faces and muscles were all torn up. Some women with weak heart, they didn’t obey and didn’t throw the stone. Then the officers condemned them, saying your ideology is doubtful. And beat them.”

And those are just a few whose names are known in the West. As the American special envoy for human rights in North Korea stated in a January 2009 report, “The names and stories of most of the approximately 200,000 political prisoners in North Korea are unknown outside of the country.”

The full column is here. In today’s WSJ, there are two related columns. First from Melanie Kirkpatrick looking at The World’s Most Repressive State:

A few minutes after the news of the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il flashed across computer screens on Sunday night—Monday morning on the Korean Peninsula—I received an email from a North Korean defector. The man, who is now living in Seoul and is a Christian, was exultant: “God blesses all of us,” he wrote. The defector’s sentiments will be shared by many, especially his long-suffering countrymen.

The best-known aspect of Kim Jong Il’s legacy is a nuclear North Korea. During his rule, which began in 1994 after the death of his father Kim Il Sung, the younger Kim accelerated the nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs initiated by the elder Kim. He went on to proliferate both technologies to Iran, which today would not be on the brink of being a nuclear power if it were not for his assistance.

Kim Jong Il will also be remembered as a master manipulator of the Western powers, especially the U.S. The history of the failed denuclearization agreements says it all. On Pyongyang’s part, it is a history marked by lies, broken promises, and clandestine programs. On the part of the U.S., the history is marked by gullibility and wishful thinking. North Korea’s path to developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them would have been far more arduous had Bill Clinton and George W. Bush not accepted Kim Jong Il’s promises of future good behavior in return for economic benefits.

The late dictator leaves another legacy too: presiding over the world’s most repressive modern state. Kim Jong Il’s name belongs on the list of the most evil tyrants of our time.

Second, John Bolton discusses what comes next:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s death opens a period of intense danger and risk, but also potentially enormous opportunity for America and its allies. Kim’s health had obviously been poor for some time, and his regime has worked to ensure an orderly transition to his son, Kim Jong Eun. The Kim family and its supporters, with everything obviously at stake, will work strenuously to convey stability and control. Indeed, the official North Korea news agency has already referred to Jong Eun as “the great successor to the revolutionary cause.”

But the loathsome Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not a constitutional monarchy like Britain. While DPRK founder Kim Il Sung was powerful enough to impose his son, no guarantees exist that the North’s military, the real power, will meekly accept rule by his utterly inexperienced grandson.

Under the surface in Pyongyang, the maneuvering has almost certainly already begun. There is no reason whatever to believe that opinion among the military leadership will be unanimous, either to support or oppose the regime’s succession plan. In fact, the early reports are that Kim Jong Il’s death went undisclosed publicly for days, perhaps indicating a power struggle already under way. Many generals may simply not accept that Leader 3.0 is competent or merits their support.

Today’s WSJ is related and called Breaking the Kim Dynasty.

For today’s video, Remy’s latest (click here to view in YouTube and here to view lyrics):

New Mexico

Paul Gessing has posted a link to his year end radio conversation discussing 2011 and previewing 2012. Visit Errors of Enchantment here for more.

Yesterday, Heath Haussamen noted Richardson’s refusal to comment on the grand jury investigation of his conduct:

Former Gov. Bill Richardson refused to comment earlier today on a pending grand jury investigation into an accusation that he had supporters pay off a woman to keep quiet about their alleged extramarital affair.

Richardson was asked about the grand jury probe by KOB-TV’s Gadi Schwartz, who ran into him at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. Capitol Report New Mexico’s Rob Nikolewski recorded video of the encounter.

Richardson’s response when Schwartz asked if he had any comment on the probe? “Merry Christmas.” Then the former governor left the building while the reporters followed him.

Visit NMPolitics.net here to view the video.

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National

Two deaths yesterday are generating some interesting news. First, Vaclav Havel, heroic anti-communist dissident in Czechoslovakia. The Economist has an “in memoriam” column that is a good read:

Havel practised what he preached. He himself was denied higher education, as the scion of a famous bourgeois family. Others might have curried favour by writing plays praising the regime. But he worked as a stage-hand, and studied drama in his spare time. As Czechoslovak communist rule eased in the 1960s, his plays were performed, and gained public acclaim. By 1968, he was a well-known and successful playwright.

For him and the rest of the country’s cultural elite, the Soviet-led invasion posed a sharp problem: emigrate, collaborate, or face the consequences. Philosophers became stokers, and poets street-sweepers. Havel took a job in a brewery (which he wrote about in his play “Audience“). In the mid 1970s he moved into active opposition to the regime, defending the underground rock group Plastic People of the Universe and, in 1977, signing the dissident declaration “Charter 77″.

The late 1970s were tough years for the captive nations of the Soviet empire. Havel was jailed from 1979 to 1984, during which he wrote the letters to his wife, Olga, that later became part of perhaps his best-known book. He also spent many days under arrest and interrogation. Out of jail, his every move, visitor, letter, phone call and utterance were subject to scrutiny by the StB, the secret-police servants of Czechoslovakia’s communist masters.

* * *

Havel was the de-facto leader of the Czechoslovak dissident movement, but it was not a role he enjoyed. He hated the intrusive phone calls from newspapers and radio stations, often retreating to his country cottage for some peace and quiet. He kept his appointments list on a small scrap of folded paper, sometimes entrusted to his beloved friend Zden?k Urbánek, whose stately good manners and quavering English could deter even the pushiest television crews (many would turn up unannounced, determined to interview the “opposition leader” on the spot, regardless of convenience or even agreement). His habitual and even plaintive refrain was that he was a playwright, not a politician. His only desire was for a political system in which he could do the only job that he felt truly qualified to do.

The second death came late yesterday of Kim Jong-Il, dictator in North Korea. Reason’s Matt Welch has a good related post, complete with disturbing video out of Korea:

One of modern history’s greatest monsters, the grand crab of the Hermit Kingdom, is dead of heart failure at 69 after a 17-year reign of terror.

As in most totalitarian monarchies, the death leaves a potential succession crisis in its wake. Son Kim Jong Un, the foreign-educated, maybe-in-his-late-20s annointed successor and known Michael Jordan fan, is said to lack a certain gravitas, and, more importantly, the full confidence of the military. Whatever happens next to the pulverized North Korean populace, it could hardly be worse.

Reason on Kim Jong-Il here. Of special note is John Gorenfeld’sgreat 2005 look into the dictator’s work as a drama critic and librettist, one of many bizarre cult-of-personality traits that made Jong-Il the unlikely breakout star of Team America World Police. As Nick Gillespie wrote in 2004, “North Korea remains a site of cosmically black humor, too real to be funny, a human nightmare incapable of being fully processed.”

Ilya Somin’s posts on Havel and Kim are worth reading as well.

In GOP primary news, Ron Paul has officially taken the lead in polls in Iowa:

A survey by left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) finds the Texas congressman now leading for the GOP nomination in Iowa, where voters cast the first ballots of the 2012 presidential contest on Jan. 3.

Paul today also announced on his website that he raised more than $4 million since Friday in his latest “money bomb,” aimed at helping him in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — which all hold early caucuses or primaries.

Paul’s rise comes as Newt Gingrich fades. The former House speaker has dropped nine percentage points nationally since the beginning of the month, according to the Gallup daily tracking poll.

Note that the Public Policy Polling survey is just one poll, and polls are a snapshot in time.

In Iowa, Gingrich is leading Paul by an average of one point, according to several recent surveys compiled by RealClearPolitics. Mitt Romney is third in the Hawkeye State, according to the RCP data.

Read the full article here. Speaking of poll numbers, Obama continues to decline in popularity:

A majority of adults say President Barack Obama does not deserve a second term but are evenly divided on whether he will win re-election next year, says a new Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights some of the campaign obstacles he faces.

Although the public would prefer Obama be voted out of office, he fares relatively well in potential matchups with Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Another bit of good news for the Democrat: For the first time since spring, more adults said the economy got better in the past month than said it got worse.

The president’s approval rating on unemployment shifted upward – from 40 percent in October to 45 percent in the latest poll – as the jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent last month, its lowest level since March 2009.

But Obama’s approval rating on his handling of the economy overall remains stagnant: 39 percent approve and 60 percent disapprove.

Heading into the 2012 campaign, the poll shows the challenges facing Obama as he tries to win a second term among a public that does not support his steering of the economy, the most dominant issue for Americans, or his reforms to health care, one of his signature accomplishments. Yet voters appear to be grappling with whether to replace him with Romney or Gingrich.

For the first time, the poll found that a majority of adults, 52 percent, said Obama should be voted out of office while 43 percent said he deserves a second term. The numbers represent a clear reversal since last May, when 53 percent said Obama should be re-elected while 43 percent said he didn’t deserve four more years.

Full article here. On a related note, the Republican Policy Committee explained last week just exactly how Obama is making it worse:

George Will again writes about economic liberty this week, as only he can:

In 1927, seven years before the board game was created, Washington state decided to play monopoly. It gave a private interest the exclusive right to operate a ferry on 55-mile-long Lake Chelan in the northern Cascade Mountains. It apparently will defend this folly until Judgment Day, when state officials will get an earful from the Creator who — we have Jefferson’s word for this — endowed everyone, including Jim and Cliff Courtney, with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Courtney brothers’ happiness would be enlarged if they could operate a competing ferry. But 84 years ago Washington state asserted a principle much favored by all of America’s governments:It may parcel out certain economic liberties sparingly and only to those who can prove to government that their exercise of their liberty will satisfy some government-concocted criteria.

That principle lacks constitutional warrant and repudiates the nation’s foundational philosophy. Hence the national importance of the Courtney brothers’ litigation, which asks courts to correct judicial mistakes of 1873 and 1938.

Read the full column here and read about the Courtneys’ lawsuit here.

Today’s video is a tribute to Vaclav Havel, a look at the fall of communism and the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

New Mexico Watchdog has the story of the altercation between Reps. Stapleton and Espinoza:

During a break in Wednesday’s Legislative Education Study Committee, Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) angrily confronted Rep. Nora Espinoza (R-Roswell), shouting “Don’t mess with me” and accusing Espinoza of “carrying the Mexican’s water on the fourth floor,” referring to Gov. Susana Martinez.

Back on Oct. 28, KRQE-TV aired an investigative piece from Larry Barker that said Stapleton did not take leave from her job as an administrator at the Albuquerque Public Schools system and received pay while attending legislative sessions. (You can click here to see that story.)

I’m pissed,” Stapleton said as she confronted Espinoza during a lunch break at the committee meeting, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Espinoza got a few words in before Stapleton said, “You said I’m corrupt. Prove it!”

“I’ve been falsely and biasly accused,” Stapleton told reporters a few minutes later. “It was a biased story and my colleague added to it by saying I committed corruption.”

Stapleton said she believes Espinoza was set up by people in the governor’s office to criticize Stapleton because she has resisted many of the governor’s educational reform bills. “From what I’ve heard from the blogs across the state,” Stapleton said, “the fourth floor [where the governor's office is located] is behind it.”

When asked about the comment, “carrying the Mexican’s water,” and how some people could consider that offensive, Stapleton said, “If it is, I didn’t mean it to be inflammatory,” adding that she is part Spanish.

* * *

Update: Just got done talking to Espinoza, who said she was startled by Stapleton’s outburst.

“It caught me by surprise,” Espinoza told Capitol Report New Mexico. “I was shocked when she came and attacked me. She doesn’t feel that she did but … everyone there could see it, the loudness of her voice … That’s an ethics violation, first of all, being a legislator. That is wrong, that is totally wrong.”

Stapleton is part of the Democratic House leadership, holding the position of Majority Whip.

Espinoza said she was surprised because, “I never mentioned her [Stapleton] in my criticisms. My comments were aimed at Winston Brooks,” who is the APS superintendent who told Barker in his Channel 13 report that he was changing the school district’s policy about granting leave with pay to APS employees and administrators.

Full story here. Heath Haussamen has the latest on the Richardson federal grand jury investigation:

Two high-profile politicos with ties to Bill Richardsonapparently testified Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating the former governor.

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

“A former deputy campaign manager with former Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign and an Albuquerque restaurateur and developer appeared before a federal grand jury looking into possible wrongdoing by the state’s former chief executive.

“But neither Amanda Cooper nor Jimmy Daskalos had anything to say as they entered and left the Pete V. Domenici federal courthouse Tuesday in Albuquerque.

“Cooper is the stepdaughter of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and worked as Richardson’s deputy campaign manager during his presidential run. Cooper also worked on Richardson’s 2006 re-election campaign for governor.

“Daskalos, who has owned Yanni’s, a prominent Albuquerque restaurant, with Richardson insider Nick Kapnison, was a fundraiser for the former governor.”

The Albuquerque Journal added that neither Cooper nor Daskalos would comment on the situation. Grand jury proceedings are secret.

Full article here.

For those who wonder about 2012 in NM, it is looking “safe” for Obama according to Heath Haussamen:

After surveying New Mexico voters recently, a left-leaning polling company says President Barack Obama’s re-election chances in the state look good.

Of course, we’re talking about the group Public Policy Polling, and I’ve already written about the controversy surrounding their work and this specific poll.

At any rate, PPP’s survey found the Democrat Obama leading all Republican candidates by wide margins. In two-person races, Ron Paul came the closest to challenging Obama, with 51 percent saying they would vote for Obama, 38 percent saying they would vote for Paul, and 12 percent being undecided.

However, add former N.M. Gov. Gary Johnson into the mix as a libertarian – Johnson is consideringabandoning his GOP bid for president to do just that – and things get even worse for Republicans. With the three candidates being Obama, Johnson, and Republican Newt Gingrich, for example, Obama won with 45 percent to Gingrich’s 28 percent and Johnson’s 20 percent. In a three-person race that included Republican Mitt Romney instead of Gingrich, Obama won with 44 percent to Romney’s 27 percent and Johnson’s 23 percent.

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Tim Lynch at the Cato Institute has a review of how healthy our rights are today, and it is quite sobering:

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Government officials, however, have insisted that they can gag recipients of “national security letters” and censor broadcast ads in the name of campaign finance reform.

The Second Amendment says the people have the right “to keep and bear arms.” Government officials, however, make it difficult to keep a gun in the home and make it a crime for a citizen to carry a gun for self-protection.

The Third Amendment says soldiers may not be quartered in our homes without the consent of the owners.  This safeguard is one of the few that is in fine shape — so we can pause herefor a laugh.

The Fourth Amendment says the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government officials, however, insist that they can conduct commando-style raids on our homes and treat airline travelers like prison inmates by conducting virtual strip searches.

The Fifth Amendment says that private property shall not be taken “for public use without just compensation.” Government officials, however, insist that they can use eminent domain to take away our property and give it to other private parties who covet it.

The Sixth Amendment says that in criminal prosecutions, the person accused is guaranteed a right to trial by jury. Government officials, however, insist that they can punish people who want to have a trial—“throwing the book” at those who refuse to plead guilty—which explains why 95 percent of the criminal cases never go to trial.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases where the controversy “shall exceed twenty dollars.” Government officials, however, insist that they can impose draconian fines on people without jury trials.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Government officials, however, insist that a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense is not cruel.

The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others “retained by the people.” Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what rights, if any, will be retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people. Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what powers they possess, and have extended federal control over health care, crime, education, and other matters the Constitution reserves to the states and the people.

Cato has prepared a related quick video that is similarly sobering (click here to view in YouTube):

Each year in Arizona, a group of folks celebrate Bill of Rights Day together and Patrick Henry routinely appears to speak. In 2010, Patrick Henry’s presentation was captured on video, so here is that entertaining and informative piece, the speech begins at about 5:30 minutes into the video (click here to view in YouTube).

Here is part 2 of the Henry speech (click here to view in YouTube):

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