Culture Clips - February 1, 2006
Mr. Romney Goes to Washington
It was late 2002, and governor-elect Mitt Romney of Massachusetts had a request. He asked a top aide to go over his campaign stump speeches and make a list of all the promises he had made to voters. The aide found that Romney had made 93 separate promises while campaigning, and another 7 in the days after his election. That made for 100 different vows. Romney looked over the list and asked that it be distributed to the members of his incoming cabinet, as well as all the various department heads in Massachusetts’s state government. It would serve as a blueprint for the next four years. According to Romney, he’s made sure he kept every promise.
That’s the type of leadership Romney, 58, tried to personify during his four years as Massachusetts’s Republican governor: a true-to-his-word problem solver. But Romney’s term ends next January, and a few weeks back he announced he won’t seek a second. That’s because another gubernatorial race would deplete his energy and resources for a much larger campaign: the 2008 presidential election. Over two years away from Election Day 2008, Romney refuses to declare his candidacy.
Romney is an impressive politician, ready to return to the national stage. He’s been there once before, in 2002, as the CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee. As CEO, Romney had to tackle the problem of Olympic corruption, and ensure the safety of the first games held in the post-9/11 world. He won on both counts. Romney was the public face of the games, shepherding athletes, television crews, and tourists through a successful event. Within a year, he was governor of Massachusetts.
It will take more for him to become the 44th president of the United States.
The first liability is religion. A devout Mormon, Romney’s faith is the subject of an uncomfortable and confused public debate, and has emerged as perhaps the top issue of his campaign to date (see Terry Eastland’s “In 2008, Will it be Mormon in America?” The Weekly Standard, June 6, 2005). The concern is that, while Mormons have enjoyed political success at the local and state level, they haven’t had similar success at the national level. In 1968, Romney’s father George was unable to secure the Republican presidential nomination. And in 2000, Utah senator Orrin Hatch’s presidential bid was over almost before it had even begun.
Romney takes all this in stride. He says that you can divide the American people into three groups. There are those who care only that a candidate has religious faith, regardless of the content of that faith. Then there are those who, “all things being equal,” wouldn’t vote for a Mormon, but who also realize that all things typically are not equal, and vote accordingly. Last, there’s the “very small slice” of people who wouldn’t vote for a Mormon, no matter what. Romney says that this last group is made up of no more than 2-3 percent of Americans. He estimates the second group at “11-15 percent.” Which means that for the “vast majority” of Americans, a candidate’s religion — or a candidate’s Mormonism — simply isn’t an issue.
Matthew Continetti
The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/006/636liiim.asp
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While it's impossible to know how any new Justice will vote on specific issues, every indication is that the new duo will fit somewhere along the Court's conservative-libertarian wing. With Judge Alito replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who in her later years had moved markedly left on the culture, we can anticipate more skepticism toward both racial preferences and campaign-finance restrictions on free speech.
We can also expect more respect for the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment, as opposed to the rigid invocation of the establishment clause's "wall" of separation between church and state. We'd also hope for greater respect for property rights, including a revisiting of last year's egregious Kelo decision, as well as a revival of the Lopez line of commerce clause cases showing more respect for federalism. Roe v. Wade may survive, or not, but we'd expect that individual states would receive more leeway to enact restrictions on abortion as per the wishes of their citizens.
This does not mean this will be a "conservative" Court, however. Four reliable liberals remain, as well as the protean Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has been making his own migration to the cultural left and the make-it-up-as-you-go jurisprudence exemplified by Lawrence v. Texas (on state laws on homosexuality) and Roper v. Simmons (on the juvenile death penalty). You can bet the press corps and liberal politicians will now apply their carrot-and-stick strategy of praise and castigation to push Justice Kennedy further to the left and retain a five-vote liberal majority. This will be especially true on the polarizing cultural disputes that are better solved democratically.
All of which means that the political battles over the Courts will continue. It is possible Mr. Bush will get another Supreme Court nomination before his term ends. Even if he doesn't, there will be many crucial places on the appellate courts to fill. There are eight appeals-court nominees awaiting action and a total of 15 vacancies, excluding Judge Alito's slot on the Third Circuit.
The White House and Senate should move with confidence and dispatch to fill these openings with judges in the Thomas-Scalia and now Roberts-Alito mold, while they still have the votes to confirm them. One thing we've surely learned from the past six months of Supreme Court debate is that elections matter to the courts as much as they do to the other two branches of government.
Opinion Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007870
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Smiting 'Daniel'
"Writing earlier this month about the premiere of NBC's controversial show, 'The Book of Daniel,' the Nashville Scene's Liz Garrigan observed, 'Something altogether anticlimactic happened. ... God did not smite Middle Tennessee or cast into stone those viewers who find intriguing the character of a fallible Vicodin-addicted clergyman.'
"Maybe not. But the market sure did. 'Daniel' hath been smote. ...
"NBC announced ... that it has canceled the show amid a torrent of protest from mostly religious viewers outraged by its caricature of Jesus Christ and the panoply of dysfunction masquerading as the family of the troubled Episcopal priest. ...
"Given the groundswell of protest, the show lasted only three weeks before NBC defrocked the comedic drama entirely."
Joel Miller
Washington Times
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