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Well, surprisingly to me, since this is all that the media has wanted to talk about lately, the topic of Mormonism did not come up tonight. Every media story I’ve read about Mitt for the past three days has been focused on the “Mormon” question, so I figured they would ask about it just because it almost seems illegal not to. Well, either they haven’t actually passed that law yet or these moderators hadn’t heard about the law, because they didn’t touch it at all. After the incessant pounding on the subject, that was a relief.

I liked the question posed towards the end to Mitt regarding the idea that he has changed his positions to become more mainstream in the Republican party (what his opponents charge) vs his stance that he’s changed his positions because he’s evolved. The moderator asked for one change of position that has made him less popular with the Republican party base, as a part of his “evolving process.” Romney said he could do that easily because there were many such issues, and one of those issues was the “No Child Left Behind” act. He said that when he ran for senator in Massachusetts in ‘94, he called for the elimination of the Dept of Education at the national level, which is a popular idea in the Republican party. He said that as he served as governor, however, he started to realize that the education system has many problems and that having some sort of government oversight keeps those problems in check (I am running entirely off memory here, so please don’t rely on what I’m saying as being 100%, but it was something along those lines).

He said that he strongly agrees and supports Bush in the No Child Left Behind act, because it held schools responsible and helped reward teachers for their job well done. He said that he knew that was not a popular Republican idea, but that he believed it anyway, because he firmly believed that America needs to do better in the education field.

I have to say: I disagree with Romney on this issue. He’s right - that isn’t a popular opinion to have as a Republican candidate! LOL! I don’t think that the federal government has the constitutional right to be in the schools at the local level, and I think that this kind of national control is not a good thing. But gosh darn dang it, I give him props just for actually answering the question and not dodging it as it would have been so easy to do. Multiple times tonight, the moderators had to say to various candidates, “Your time is up, and so I’m giving you another 30 seconds to actually answer my question” and then they had to repeat their questions. They never once had to do that Romney though.

I can think of another position that Romney has that the extreme right does not: He upholds the ban on assault weapons. Notice that I say “extreme right” not “Republican.” I don’t think many Republicans believe that assault weapons are a needful thing - who honestly goes hunting for deer with an assault weapon? No one. That kind of gun power is needed for one thing, and one thing only: To kill humans in large numbers. You can protect your family, you can hunt, you can go take out those varmints that Romney’s fond of hunting, all with just a rifle, or a pistol, or whatever. An assault weapon is not needed. The NRA seems to think that if they give up this small concession, that they’ll lose the war. I don’t believe that. Just like no one in the NRA is fighting to allow the common person to have grenades at their house to use whenever they want, I don’t think they ought to be fighting to allow assault weapons. No one but murderers need them.

So yeah, there’s two positions that I can think of that Romney has, that is not popular with the Republican base/extreme right wingers (and that includes my father. Hopefully he’ll still speak to me when he reads the preceding paragraph, considering he owns several rifles and is a card carrying member of the NRA. I have nothing against the NRA, and in fact would probably become a member myself if I had the money, but just because I support what they stand for doesn’t mean I agree with them on every issue. Wow, that sounds a lot like someone else I know). One of those positions I disagree with heartily, the other I agree with heartily.

That’s the beauty of America though - we don’t all have to line up in a straight line and say yes sir, no sir, I will believe that and only that, sir. We can have differing opinions, and still our country functions, and grows, and prospers.

I need to head to bed, but in case anyone missed the debates, check out Fox News here, where there is a simple list of all of the parts of the debate (it’s six different videos). I searched on YouTube and couldn’t find anything but excerpts. I don’t excerpts when it comes to things like this; I want the full debate so I can see for myself everything that happened and form my own opinion. Giuliani of course had that great smackdown on Ron Paul who really needs to just decide to be a libertarian already, and it was a great line by Huckabee (? I think) about John Edwards and the beauty parlor. That really was hilarious. I’m sad that Romney didn’t seem to get as much camera time, but I think that from here on out, the debates are supposed to be smaller and include less candidates, so that camera time should increase. Overall, I think Romney did great, and should consider the debate a victory.

UPDATE: Check out this follow up by Sean Hannity, where Mitt talks about “enhanced torture” more. Very interesting, and well worth watching.

Hava

PS Don’t forget about my appearance tomorrow, Wednesday May 16th, on Political Vindication at 8:00 pm Mountain time. It oughta be fun - tune in to hear my insights and thoughts on Mitt Romney for president! Don’t miss it!

Sorry. I just saw all these fun colors I can use in my posts, so I had to try them out. Rather pretty, like a rainbow…

It’s definitely time to go to bed!!! LOL!

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