Why I'm Voting for Rick Santorum in the SC Primary

Tomorrow, in the South Carolina GOP Presidential Preference primary, I will be voting for Rick Santorum.  Here’s why.

I need to start out by saying that I haven’t been totally thrilled with any of the four remaining candidates.  All of them have obvious weaknesses of character and/or policy which will make their race against Obama less of a lock than it ought to be.  The Republican Party needs a leader of the Reagan type, who, like him in 1980, would win 40+ states and carry a mandate with him to Washington.  But since we have four remaining candidates from whom to choose, and since any of them will be an improvement over the current president, I must choose from among them.

Rick Santorum, on the whole, represents my views the most consistently.  He has been consistently and passionately pro-life, and wrote the bill that ended partial birth abortion.  On social issues, he and I are of one voice.  He is also a firm believer in the Second Amendment (The NRA rates him A+).  He opposed TARP, voted against McCain-Feingold and Frank-Dodd, and receives low ratings from both the ACLU and the AFL-CIO.  While I am concerned about the trouncing he took in the 2006 Pennsylvania Senate race (and, for that matter, the trouncing he may get here in SC tomorrow, if the polls are valid), he is more demonstrably opposed to Obama than either Romney or Gingrich.  His biggest liability in my eyes is that he does not come across as a leader.

Newt Gingrich, at the moment, would be my second choice.  I agree with him on most issues—but he occasionally throws one out there that makes me scratch my head.  His personal character history is a serious problem and, even if he has sincerely repented and stays on the right track, will be a detriment in the race.  (Obama, for all his flaws, has no hint of marital infidelity.)  I am also concerned that his ego may become a liability.

Mitt Romney seems to be a conservative now, but my gut just doesn’t like the fact that he wasn’t while he was the governor of Massachusetts.  I think he can be a great executive, and if he is the GOP nominee, I will vote for him in November.  But for now, I’m going with the most consistent conservative.

Ron Paul is problematic.  His voting record is often meritorious and often puzzling.  The ACLU rates him pretty favorably—that's a problem.  His vicious and untrue attack ads concerning Santorum (being shown ad nauseam this week on SC TV stations) trouble me.  His foreign policy ideas are dangerous to the future of our country. 

Please educate yourself on the candidates and then take the opportunity to vote.

Newt on Lincoln

The context of this quote is a speech given recently by Newt Gingerich (view the speech here or view a transcript here; it runs at least 20 minutes but it is good stuff!) just after the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, on the Left's Religious Bias. This piece on Abraham Lincoln is great.

And then maybe by middle school, we could have them actually read Lincoln’s second inaugural, which while you are here in town, if you get a chance, go to the Lincoln Memorial, stand there, and read out loud – it is only 703 words, the shortest – actually it is not the shortest. It is the second shortest inaugural address. March of 1865, Lincoln, who has been in the pressure cooker of the Civil War, has seen a war which killed 620,000 young Americans in a country of only 50-some million people. And in 703 words, Lincoln refers to God 14 times and quotes the Bible twice.

And I challenge any college in America and any high school in America to figure out how you are going to explain Abraham Lincoln without having people read that and understand this man read the Bible every afternoon in agony because he knew what he was doing was causing enormous human suffering. And he believed desperately that he had to find a justification and a cause which would bring the country together, and which to this day we remember from things like the Gettysburg Address. But read that sometime and ask yourself, how can you possibly describe the American Civil War and not encounter the real Abraham Lincoln?

The very, very bad immigration bill before the Senate

This week the United States Senate continues to debate an immigration bill that is very contrary to the wishes of most ordinary, law-abiding Americans. In part, it will either explicitly or practically give amnesty to a very large number of illegal immigrants—people whose very arrival here constituted a violation of our laws. The consequences of such a law are very troubling, especially where social welfare and voting issues are concerned...not to mention terrorism. Has it occurred to any of the bill's supporters in the Senate that they may be granting amnesty to people who could potentially want to murder large numbers of us?

I am especially annoyed by the fact that our national government, in the over 5½ years since 9/11, has essentially failed to make any decent attempt to control who enters our country legally, except perhaps via airports. And we all know that the terrorists will try to enter the country via airports (probably even using their real names). Then there are the budgetary reasons: Do illegal immigrants contribute more financially to our states, counties, and cities then they sap financially from them? I very much doubt it.

But the fact is still the fact: Illegal immigration is illegal, and the federal government needs to deal with it—wisely, not foolishly. I read a good article (read the full text here) on the subject from Newt Gingrich; here is a summary of some of what he wrote (with my commentary blended in, too):

• Control the border! Build fences, hire more Border Patrol (and give them authority to do their jobs aggressively), use technology—whatever! Just do it!
• Get serious! Go after the companies that continue to "hire" illegal immigrants, and punish them to the fullest extent of the law...and then toughen the law.
• If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, immediately deport him. Period.
• Make English the official language. Legal immigrants should have some sort of way to learn the language, of course; but in order to get to vote, immigrants must pass a test in U.S. History in English.
• Improve the temporary guest worker and visa programs that we have, and check on those whose visas expire.
• Yes, some of the illegals who are here are working and obeying our laws and taking care of their families. And, yes, they should be allowed on the path of citizenship. But in order to properly obey and respect our laws, they should have to return to their country and file their paperwork—as we would want their countrymen to do.

I would also add that America needs to be extremely careful about immigration from Muslim countries. Islam is not a religion that is compatible with American ideals, and despite the politically correct drumbeat of multiculturalism, the truth is that more Islam here does not make our country a better place. And, of course, most of the potential terrorists in our country are Islamic. (When was the last time a Canadian tried to blow us up?)