THE STUMP JANUARY 18, 2012
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Monday night's debate in Myrtle Beach was an unsettling affair to watch, with a crowd that was arguably more raucous and malevolent than any of the other hopped-up audiences at this year's Republican debates. At moments, one couldn't help but wonder if the Union would've been better off ceding its vanquished opponent in 1865 to Mexico, the mere mention of which drew lusty boos from the spectators on Monday.
But the New York Times editorial board missed the mark when it weighed in with its judgment in today's lead editorial on the dangers of "preaching division in South Carolina." It chided not only Newt Gingrich, who brazenly played to the crowd with his "food stamp president" riff against moderator Juan Williams, but also Rick Santorum. Santorum, the editorial declared, "also got in on the game, responding to a question about high rates of black poverty with a lecture on the importance of work, high school graduation and marriage. Unfortunately, he said, the Obama administration refuses to encourage those kinds of good choices."
This is an unfair pairing. Gingrich's riff was one big dog-whistle to Southern white resentment of entitled and lazy minorities living off the dole. Santorum's was his umpteenth reiteration of a relatively wonky argument that he makes at just about every stop on the trail -- citing a Brookings study that noted that people who graduate high school, have a job and get married before having kids are very unlikely to be living in poverty. Santorum invariably follows up this citation by arguing that the Obama administration has not done enough to encourage people to achieve that three-legged stool, particularly the marriage part of it; this is a debatable point, but it's also an entirely predictable one from a social conservative like Santorum, and hardly out of bounds.
Most of all, though, it seems odd to be chiding Santorum for playing to unpleasant racial dynamics when he spent several minutes early in the debate arguing on behalf of restoring voting rights to ex-convicts. It served the purpose of throwing Mitt Romney back on his heels for a few moments as he scrambled to compute what the proper answer was on this touchy issue, but it was also about as likely to win Santorum votes in the GOP South Carolina primary as cutting up the Confederate flag in front of the state Capitol for napkins. Yet there he was, saying this:
SANTORUM: Governor Romney's super PAC has put an ad out there suggesting that I voted to allow felons to be able to vote from prison, because they said I'm allowing felons to vote, and they put a prisoner -- a person in a prison jumpsuit.
I would ask Governor Romney, do you believe people who have -- who were felons, who served their time, who have extended -- exhausted their parole and probation, should they be given the right to vote?
WILLIAMS: Governor Romney?
ROMNEY: First of all, as you know, the PACs that run ads on various candidates, as we unfortunately know in this --
SANTORUM: I'm looking for a question -- an answer to the question first.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: We have plenty of time. I'll get there. I'll do it in the order I want to do. I believe that, as you realize that the super PACs run ads. And if they ever run an ad or say something that is not accurate, I hope they either take off the ad or make it -- or make it correct. I guess that you said that they -- they said that you voted to make felons vote? Is that it?
SANTORUM: That's correct. That's what the ad says.
ROMNEY: And you're saying that you didn't?
SANTORUM: Well, first, I'm asking you to answer the question, because that's how you got the time. It's actually my time. So if you can answer the question, do you believe, do you believe that felons who have served their time, gone through probation and parole, exhausted their entire sentence, should they be given the right to have a vote?
This is Martin Luther King Day. This is a huge deal in the African-American community, because we have very high rates of incarceration, disproportionately high rates, particularly with drug crimes, in the African-American community.
The bill I voted on was the Martin Luther King Voting Rights bill. And this was a provision that said, particularly targeted African-Americans. And I voted to allow -- to allow them to have their voting rights back once they completed their sentence.
For a Republican candidate to be talking like this when Republican state legislatures are doing their darndest to suppress black turnout, by non-convicted voters much less by felons, is a big deal. So, credit where credit's due, New York Times.
follow me on Twitter @AlecMacGillis
15 comments
I am with you on this Alec, I loathe Santorum for many of his positions and his holier than thou attitude (and his corruption) but he is consistent and he is sincere and on this issue is 100% in the right. Did you also notice how Romney never did quite answer the question, he simply said he is against allowed felons convicted of violent acts getting the vote back which is ridiculously broad, two 18 year olds getting in a brawl with each other should both lose their vote forever? And it was evasive as well since he never did answer the question as to other felons. Romney is a complete fraud of a human being, he is the worst Republican (presumptive at this point) nominee I have seen in a long, long time. And considering how bad shrub was that is a hell of an accomplishment.
- blackton
January 18, 2012 at 1:35pm
"At moments, one couldn't help but wonder if the Union would've been better off ceding its vanquished opponent in 1865 to Mexico, the mere mention of which drew lusty boos from the spectators on Monday." No - Mexico had and has enough problems, and doesn't deserve all the headaches that South Carolina would have given it. Some other, more malevolent country, deserves South Carolina. Maybe Iran?
- wildboy
January 18, 2012 at 2:55pm
Blackie is right, Santorum definitely deserves credit on this one.
- GSpinks
January 18, 2012 at 4:43pm
Santorum got one thing right by accident. Bush got one thing right when he appointed Ben Bernanke head of the Fed before the Wall Street crash (without Bernanke we'd be in a deep depression--he's an expert on the Crash of '29). But I'm not impressed with one out of a hundred. Bush is a religious nut who said, as president, that we don't need government rules--the only rules we need are in the Bible. As president, Santorum would be just as bad or worse. I don't care what he says in a debate.
- magboy47.
January 19, 2012 at 3:09am
Santorum's also been the only one talking about social mobility. I've liked Santorum for a while now, though I completely disagree with him about a number of issues. Romney, Gingrich, the rest of the lot of them, though, are completely insincere. Here's hoping Perry's departure and Gingrich's desire for an open marriage gives Santorum another opportunity to continue his campaign.
- polcereal
January 19, 2012 at 12:36pm
...Santorum got one thing right by accident... Why by accident? Explain what you mean here. It sounds awfully condescending, as though Santorum just lucked into this position and doesn't deserve credit for it. Why do you think that rather than it being a sincere thought through position on Santorum's part? What does you being impressed by one out of a hundred have to do with anything raised by the main post and what for that matter does your recoil at the prospect of a Santorum presidency have to do with anything raised by the main post? What it was about was credit where due.
- basman
January 19, 2012 at 1:51pm
Most of these also-rans have said at least one or two substantial things I can approve of. Perry with his critique of "vulture capitalism" sounds almost like a progressive. (Good for him, even if I suspect he is rather foggy on specific knowledge about how private equity firms actually operate.) Ron Paul says some things that I can entirely get behind - such as pointing out the disproportionate number of blacks imprisoned for drug offenses, the futility of the "war on drugs", and the wisdom of having the congress actually pass a declaration of war, after appropriate debate, before we start bombing or otherwise taking belligerant action agaoinst other countries. (His recent attempt to distinguish "military" from "defense" spending sounded a bit phoney however, & seemed clearly an attempt to sweeten his previous statements on pruning military expenditures to make them more palatable to the very pro-military South Carolina audience.) Santorum, in the present case, is also right on the money. I'm having a little harder time coming up with a sincerely held belief expressed by either Newt or Mitt, beyond hackneyed platitudes, which I can applaud, however. Romney especially is far too calculating in his responses. You can almost literally see the wheels spinning in his head when he's asked a question, such as Santorum posed to him about ex-felon's voting rights, as he tries for the most politically advantageous pose to stike before the audience he faces.
- Haole45
January 19, 2012 at 3:50pm
If you're going to argue moral (yes, moral in the civical-social sense), practical and expediential then why not gay marriage? The reason's obvious, certainly, but isn't there a double standard?
- Tgossard
January 19, 2012 at 4:04pm
Tom, isn't Santorum wrong, just plain wrong, on gay marriage, but at least partly right on the felon voting thing. Is this a double standard or just being wrong and partly right on two discrete social issues. I say partly right because I think there is a point to the argument that for the most egregious crimes, even doing the time isn't sufficient to be allowed to vote. I have mixed feelings about that, mind you, and can see the argument the other way.
- basman
January 19, 2012 at 4:42pm
basman, If everybody stuck to the main post, there wouldn't be much discussion on this site. Sure, my point was tangential, but so are other comments by me and many others here. As Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) said in The Maltese Falcon, "Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice." I guess I'm out of practice. My bad. I judge a politician by all of his expressed opinions. Santorum's ideas are almost all rooted in unthinking, sometimes bizarre, ideology. I can't imagine him sitting down and ruminating about felons who've done their time being allowed to vote. His position might have to do with the Christian idea that a sinner can ostensibly be forgiven (and saved) right up until the moment of her or his death. A commendable feeling (except in the case of someone like Hitler). I guess "by accident" was the wrong term to use. Santorum may have come to his conclusion by reading the New Testament, which was not accidental on his part. In any case, he was right (as was Jesus) and I was wrong. Again, my bad.
- magboy47.
January 19, 2012 at 5:45pm
Or, as the Catholic Santorum might say, mea culpa.
- magboy47.
January 19, 2012 at 6:58pm
Itzik, I do think Santorum is right about felons voting. I was only commenting on marriage because it's a hot button for me being gay and I wrote in haste because it was time to go shopping before leaving on vacation and feeling pressed for time, if that makes any sense.
- Tgossard
January 19, 2012 at 7:25pm
Well let's put it this way, Tom: if you're busy shopping because you're about to go on vacation, I plead guilty to envy.
- basman
January 19, 2012 at 7:29pm
Okay magboy 47. I'm divine: you're forgiven.
- basman
January 19, 2012 at 7:31pm
I think we should be careful to avoid demonizing people as incapable of logic or virtue because we disagree on them on many issues and behaviors. I do not like, admire, or agree much with any of the current GOP Presidential candidates, but as far as I know none of them are idiots or violent people or child abusers or any of a thousand other loathsome or grievous crimes or errors. The entire point of non-prejudicial behavior is that if you meet someone whose skin color, eye shape, religious belief, cultural background, mating preferences, and so on is very different than yours, you evaluate them on a case by case basis by what they say and do, and don't lazily condemn them for everything because you don't like a lot of what they do. It takes more effort and discipline, as being a better person usually does.
- skahn
January 19, 2012 at 11:09pm