Morning Jolt - Santorum Gets a Warm Welcome in the Bayou

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

March 26, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. Santorum Gets a Warm Welcome in the Bayou

2. 'I Won't Have to Worry about Putting Gas in My Car!'

3. Can We Change a 'Righteous Mind'?

4. Addendum

Here's your Monday Morning Jolt!

Enjoy.

Jim

1. Santorum Gets a Warm Welcome in the Bayou

Judging from Louisiana's primary results, I'm guessing Mitt Romney ended last week by issuing a statement declaring that he completely supported the suspension of New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton for a year and that he felt the temporary disbanding of the franchise would be justified as well. What, did he propose a ban on crayfish? Spill some olive oil into the Gulf while cooking?

Rick Santorum won the Louisiana primary Saturday, solidifying his support among conservatives in the Deep South as he faces a tough next couple of weeks in state competitions that are predicted to favor frontrunner Mitt Romney.

The former Pennsylvania senator won 49 percent of the vote, with Romney coming in second with 27 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in third with 17 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul finishing last with 6 percent.

"People in Louisiana came through in a big way," Santorum said from a brewery in Green Bay, Wisc. "You didn't get the memo. We're still fighting. . . . I'm not running as the conservative candidate for president. I am the conservative candidate."

Santorum said Romney called to congratulate him.

"I told him I was in (Wisconsin.) He said he was out in California raising money," Santorum said. "I said leave a little bit for me. . . . We've always had cordial conversations."

"Hey, thanks for the call, Mullah."

Actually, I guess I can explain the Huey Long faces among the Bayou State's Romney supporters. Few states have more deeply rooted traditions of populism in their politics than Louisiana, and Romney is pretty much the anti-populist candidate. Is there a public figure in American life less capable of a Willie Stark-style demagogic rant? "Your will is my strength! Your need is my justice! They want to ruin me because they want to ruin you! And I won't let them!"

I'm probably not quite doing justice to populism to summarize it as "your life stinks, it's somebody else's fault, so empower me to punish them" but there's clearly an element of scapegoating in it. As we see from the president's appearances, Axelrod & Company have decided to go all populist, all the time: "the richest 1 percent," "fair share," etc. I hope Team Romney is ready to dismantle these arguments. Because there's always the chance that after four years of economic disappointment, enough Americans will be frustrated enough to take it out on abstract entities such as "the rich" -- instead of the president whose policies have failed to live up to the hype.

"Winning a primary with only a plus 5 delegate advantage is not going to make much of a dent in Romney's lead," observes Rick Moran. "Wisconsin, which holds its primary on April 3, is vital to win if Santorum is going to remain part of the conversation. Maryland and Washington, D.C. also hold their primaries on the 3rd and Santorum has little chance in either. If he is shut out a week from Tuesday, even some of his strongest supporters might question why he is remaining in the race."

I like the way the Left Coast Rebel is dealing with a primary that has left him with two options he doesn't like:

I'm done complaining about the longstanding Republican Party three-ring-circus Presidential primary race. For all I care, Mitt "ultra-liberal" Romney and Rick "Sanctimonious-RINO" Santorum can duke it out to the bitter end.

I would still love to see a brokered convention but am aware that the phrase Jeb Bush 2012should give me extreme pause on the brokered option.

I plan on supporting more than complaining going forward. As I have no horse in the presidential race, I'm going to instead switch gears and spotlight liberty candidates for 2012. You'll see changes here in the coming months.

On this note, I just saw that the Republican Liberty Caucus has endorsed Ted Cruz for the 2012 Texas senate seat race."

2. 'I Won't Have to Worry about Putting Gas in My Car!'

At Hot Air, Tina Korbe spotlights some comments from Tim Graham on how the media is discussing the current high gas prices.

It's no surprise at all, but still worth a comment that the media have a double standard on the issue of gas prices, just as they do on the issue of civility and countless other issues. On "Your World with Neil Cavuto" [on March 23], the Media Research Center's Tim Graham outlined the differences between media coverage of high gas prices under George W. Bush and gas prices under Barack Obama. Bet you can guess which president received more leniency!

This really isn't a hard or complicated issue to understand. A wide variety of factors contribute to the price of gas. The president doesn't have control over all of them -- but he does have significant control over energy policy in the United States and energy policy is one of the factors that contributes to the price of gas. It makes sense, for example, that if oil and natural gas companies have to pay more in regulatory compliance costs, they will price their products to compensate for the increase in regulatory compliance costs.

Does it make sense to place all the blame for high gas prices on the president? No -- but neither does it make sense to excuse him, as though he has nothing to do with them. He should be held accountable for the policies he has put in place. As I've written repeatedly, nowhere are the president's crony capitalistic tendencies more in evidence than in his energy policy. He rewards his preferred providers and punishes his least favorite. Caught in the middle of that is the consumer, who, under luxurious circumstances, surely cares about the environment, but, in tight times, cares most about affordability.

The blogger Scared Monkeys takes a trip down memory lane:

The fact of the matter is that the MSM will willfully and purposely lie for President Obama. Is it any wonder why these folks have little to no credibility anymore? The MSM is all in for this President and it has become obvious to most. What was bad for Bush, should also be bad for Obama. However, if the MSM ever took an even keeled approach to reporting the news and the impact of Obama's policies on "We the People", his approval rating would be in the 30's. Instead, they set the bar lower for Obama and change the narrative altogether.

I wonder how Peggy Joseph feels these days about her comments she made in 2008 about now that Obama is the President she will not have to worry about putting gas in her car. Peggy, just a reminder for you that gas prices are presently $3.89, they were $1.84 when you made your comments. Hey Peggy, how's that "Hopey-Changey" Obama will pay for your gas working out for you?

By the way, my bet is that a large number of folks on the right remember Peggy Joseph's comments from 2008, and most on the left don't remember seeing her at all (if they ever did). "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about my mortgage. If I help him, he's going to help me." Conservatives seized upon that anecdote because it confirmed our worst suspicions about the voters who prefer Democrats: They believe A) the purpose of government is to give them free stuff, and B) the government can and will give them free stuff.

I plugged "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car" into Google and found 48,700 results.

Not every person who voted for Obama thinks this way, of course. But a sufficient number of Americans do, leaving us wondering how we change their minds. Moving on to the next, surprisingly relevant item . . .

3. Can We Change a 'Righteous Mind'?

I'm reading Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, which was reviewed by William Saletan in Sunday's New York Times. The opening paragraphs might intrigue some readers on the right:

You're smart. You're liberal. You're well informed. You think conservatives are narrow-minded. You can't understand why working-class Americans vote Republican. You figure they're being duped. You're wrong.

This isn't an accusation from the right. It's a friendly warning from Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who, until 2009, considered himself a partisan liberal. In "The Righteous Mind," Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational. If you want to persuade others, you have to appeal to their sentiments. But Haidt is looking for more than victory. He's looking for wisdom. That's what makes "The Righteous Mind" well worth reading. Politics isn't just about manipulating people who disagree with you. It's about learning from them.

One key conclusion from Haidt's research is that most people think backward. In other words, they come to a conclusion based on a gut or "irrational" assessment, and then work backward to look for supporting evidence and reasoning. As Haidt put it in an earlier book:

The mind is divided in many ways, but the division that really matters is between conscious/reasoned processes and automatic/implicit processes. These two parts are like a rider on the back of an elephant. The rider's inability to control the elephant by force explains many puzzles about our mental life, particularly why we have such trouble with weakness of will. Learning how to train the elephant is the secret of self-improvement.

This is a long way of that old saying, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into." But can we change people's minds in a non-reasoning manner?

4. Addendum

PourMeCoffee: "There will be no live coverage of the Supreme Court's hearing on the constitutionality of Obamacare this week because the Founding Fathers felt cable news was too sensational and only watched Charlie Rose."