To be clear, candidates are right to question Governor Romney on his healthcare record.  Obamacare is a hallmark of a failed presidency and Republican voters are interested in vetting their candidate on this important issue.  It is true that Governor Romney will continue to struggle with reconciling his record of healthcare reform in Massachusetts that paved the way for Obamacare, causing some to dub him a “co-conspirator” of the legislation that Republicans and conservatives universally loathe. But as the American public has seen time and time again, Mitt sure has his talking points down. And he excels at delivering them.  

As soon as Governor Romney is questioned about his record on healthcare reform, he launches in to a well rehearsed, well vetted, and very well thought out rebuttal that focuses on the importance of states’ rights and his commitment to undoing President Obama’s one-size fits all solution by executive order on day one of his presidency.  And then, like clockwork, Governor Romney pivots to talk about his real priority and his self-perceived strength: Jobs.

But what happens when instead of harping on Romneycare or Romney’s flip flopping on abortion, other candidates question Governor Romney’s until now, untouchable record on jobs?

Last night, we witnessed the first chink in Romney’s shiny armor of job creation as he was questioned by Governor Perry, Governor Huntsman, and even NBC’s Brian Williams.

After Rick Perry opened up the debate by touting his record of job creation, here’s Brian Williams’ question to Mitt about his record at Bain Capital:

“WILLIAMS: Let’s get a little more specific.  Bain Capital, a company you helped to form, among other things, often buys up companies, strips them down, gets them ready, resells them at a net job loss to American workers.

ROMNEY:  You know, that might be how some people would like to characterize what we did, but in fact, we started business at Bain Capital, and when we acquired businesses, in each case we tried to make them bigger, make them more successful and grow.  The idea that somehow you can strip things down and it makes them more valuable is not a real effective investment strategy.  We tried to make these businesses more successful.

By the way, they didn’t all work.  But when it was all said and done, and we looked at the record we had during the years I was there, we added tens of thousands of jobs to he businesses we helped support.

That experience, succeeding, failing, competing around the world, is what gives me the capacity to help get this economy going again.”

This was only the beginning of the hot water for Mitt.

The most candid back and forth of the debate was the sparring that occurred between Governors Romney and Perry:

Perry applauded Romney’s record of job creation in the private sector, but said he failed to accomplish job creation in the private sector stating “Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt.”  A talking point, we are very likely to hear again ad nauseum from the Perry camp.

Jon Huntsman continued to press Governor Romney on his record of job creation stating that “47th just isn’t going to cut it, my friend,” a reference to the rank Massachusetts had among the 50 states in creating jobs during Romney’s term.  This echoed this web video released by the Hunstman campaign earlier this week.

While Governor Romney faired well overall during the debate, the seismic shift is that until this point, Romney has effectively run a campaign focused like a laser on job creation and his unique qualifications from his time in the private sector.  And he has successfully owned that space in targeting Obama’s economic record.  Because until now, Republicans have shied away from questioning Governor Romney’s private sector bonafides, instead saving their ammunition for barbs against President Obama’s abysmal economic record.

Both Perry and Huntsman camps were savvy to avoid the trap of hitting Romney on the obvious – Romneycare, and instead hit his cakewalk election strategy where it hurts the most: on jobs.

The 43rd President knows how to make friends – fast. George W. Bush’s Official Facebook page launched yesterday, and in less than 24 hours, Bush became more popular than Al Gore, John Kerry, and Jimmy Carter (who has an official Carter Library page – and a mere 669 fans). In just one day, Bush had gathered more than 55,000 followers, surpassing many politicians with long-standing accounts. Among presidents and presidential hopefuls, Bush looks like he’ll easily catch up to Bill Clinton, who had nearly 328,000 fans at press time. Sizing up the 2008 election, pages from Joe Biden, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee (at several hundred thousand each) are also within sight. Not so easy to surpass? Tea-party and Facebook fan favorite Sarah Palin, who updates daily to a cool one million followers, and President Barack Obama, now past eight million followers.

While Bush’s joining the A-list on Facebook may surprise some, his popularity on the networking site and online has been growing steadily. Last February, a website called bushfans.com launched the “Miss Me Yet?” fan page, celebrating the highlights of the Bush presidency and criticizing the Obama Administration. It now has more than 160,000 fans. Even Bush team members have fared well in the high-school halls of Facebook popularity. “The Architect” Karl Rove, with more than 22,000 fans, is no one to sniff at. Laura Bush has been similarly successful; her relatively new page has a following of nearly 19,000.

So a lot of people want to be friends with Bush – but who is he friending? So far, the Decider is being selective, following fives sites, among them his wife’s page, his mother’s foundations, and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. His staff is equally choosey at the GWB Presidential Center Twitter account, which follows only Mrs. Bush and Southern Methodist University. However, that isn’t remotely discouraging the former President’s fans, as Facebook members continue to “like” him in droves; by this afternoon he was closing in on 100,000 fans. Bush seems to be getting the popular vote for 2010.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

Hofstadter’s argument, labeled as inherently flawed by most conservatives, went on to define and explain political paranoia in America by using “right-wing extremism” as his case in point. He called out the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, and the perpetrator of the Red Scare, Sen. Joseph McCarthy. All of those, according to the mainstream narrative, are examples of radical conservative ideas, or when the Republican Party goes too far.

But for all his slightly misguided assumptions, Hofstadter makes one very astute observation. “It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry.”

What Hofstadter meant by the “projection of the self,” was that when people go to extremes in fighting against some political enemy, they unwittingly take on the characteristics of the very enemy they are fighting. To make his case, Hofstadter points to the John Birch Society- saying that the style of its ideological crusade is similar to the way Communists seek to expand their message and influence.

Fast forward to the political climate of 2010 and not much has changed. Only now however, Hofstadter is being joined by people like Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman in warning against “right-wing extremism.” Whether it’s racism or fascism, the Left has been denouncing the radical right since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president.

They questioned whether America would be able to handle a black president. They wondered whether Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst of “You Lie!” was a symptom of repressed racism and bigotry. They characterized opponents of healthcare reform as obstructionists to President Obama’s agenda. And they marginalized an entire pro limited-government movement, the overwhelming majority of which is peaceful, law-abiding Americans.

Indeed, in his most recent and now widely-circulated New York Times column, Frank Rich wrote, “How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.”

What is interesting is that while Rich accuses Tea Partiers of exemplifying Hofstadter’s “projection of the self,” he also compares last weekend’s protest of the healthcare bill to a Nazi anti-Jewish program organized by Hitler that destroyed 200 Jewish synagogues, thousands of other Jewish properties, and left 91 Jews dead. And the worst anyone has been able to connect to the Tea Party movement is a few racial slurs and some inappropriate signs. The recent wave of threats and vandalism against Democratic lawmakers have not been encouraged or carried out in the name of the movement itself.

But the connect-the-dots game that is being played by the left, and the attempt to marginalize a legitimate movement reflects a lot more about the left’s anxieties than it does any potential threat posed by the Tea Party. In other words, Hofstadter’s self-projecting idea applies just as much to people like Rich as it does any alleged paranoid political faction.

In his piece, “The Paranoid Center,” Reason Magazine managing editor Jesse Walker explains it best.  “When pundits weave a small number of unrelated incidents into a “pattern” of crime, then link it to the rhetoric of Obama’s opponents, it becomes easier to marginalize nonviolent, noncriminal critics on the right…”

Today, the politics of paranoia rest just as much with Liberal commentators like Rich as it does with anti-government activists who resort to threats and menacing phone calls. But if Hofstadter’s reverse psychology of “self-projection” can be applied today, then what does it mean when Rich, et al, tries so hard to lump together peaceful anti-government conservatives with “right-wing extremism?”

When Hofstadter wrote “The Paranoid Style of American Politics,” he failed to turn the finger around and apply his own theory to himself and his audience. If he had, his analysis would be a lot more insightful. Today’s liberal pundits would be wise not to follow Hofstadter’s example and instead, stop trying to connect conservatives with violent fanatics. Because doing so is only participating in the extremism they claim to be against.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

But this isn’t Freaky Friday, and according to Bravo, these are real women. Orange County dweller and recently evicted Lynne opines during the opening credits: “It’s not enough to have money. You have to look good spending it.” That’s a nice motto for Kimora Lee Simmons and her mogul/model/mom millions, but it fits nearly-broke Lynne as poorly as her polyester sheath dress. The rest of the Orange County Housewives’ strictly blonde cast (Lynne being the sole peroxide-free exception) have their share of troubles, both real and imagined. Vicki, the only member who appears to really work, struggles with a possible diagnosis of cancer for her daughter. Tamra, always the center of the party in big bling and a radiation-bright tan, has a tumultuous private life and a verbally abusive husband. Then there’s Gretchen, a blonde bombshell with a laugh like a jackhammer, perpetually on the husband hunt, and Alexis, a scalpel-happy Stepford Wife who keeps the home fires burning and her husband’s slippers at the ready. But mostly, they spend their days in self-indulgence, gossiping, fighting, and fighting about gossiping. As the official website says:  “The ladies show no signs of slowing down, and shopping, dining, drinking, dancing, plastic surgery and working out continue to remain at the top of their list of priorities.” Well, thank goodness.

As distractions from our own meaningful lives, The Real Housewives of Orange County should be a perfect diversion. Incompetence is amusing. But instead of holding up the Housewives’ bad-behavior as the enthralling, shocking aberration that it is, Bravo seriously expects women to want this lifestyle – and they appear to be right. The original Real Housewives of Orange County show has spawned a franchise that extends from coast to coast. There are Housewives shows in Atlanta, New York, New Jersey, and soon, possibly DC, all with equally outrageous “real” housewives. An avid fan-base for these shows has earned the OC Housewives a twenty-five percent increase in viewers in just the past season.

Now, Bravo offers the chance to emulate the Housewives’ lifestyle by winning shopping sprees, purchasing themed merchandise (such as leopard-print baby rompers), viewing bonus footage online, and following Housewives’ blogs. There’s even a spin-off Watch What Happens show, a post-Housewives analysis program that should really be called Re-Watch What Just Happened. Drink like Housewives, dress like Housewives, shop like Housewives. Be all you can be.

Ironically, the modern American woman appears to be longing for a dream world that resembles the 1950s culture their mothers clambered to escape. Many women would like to live in a TV-generated fantasy filled with jewelry and drama, where intrusions by actual reality are medicated with champagne and shopping (Sex and the City, anyone?). These Real Housewives of Orange County are the unwitting anti-feminists, mostly “kept” women who neither toil nor spin. Rather than the bold, carefree adventurers they imagine themselves to be, the Housewives of OC are hold-overs from another era, when women were expected to be child-like, clingy, and helpless – not powerful, mature adults who command their own destinies, or at least behaved themselves for upwards of 15-minutes at a cocktail party. With most childcare and household management left to the hired help, the Housewives spend their courtesan-like days indulging in beauty treatments and surgeries, whining and primping, drinking and dancing. And yet, in work-ethic America, even lay-abouts have a conscience. In one episode, Alexis is insulted when Vicki points out that she doesn’t work. The ensuing fall-out fuels fights for the rest of the season, because ultimately, Alexis knows work is good. She just doesn’t know what it is.

After awhile, those once-exclusive community gates of the opening credits seem to be keeping the Housewives in, rather than the commoners out. It is downright painful watching Lynne, a fanatical shopper about to be evicted from her pricy rental home, blame her husband for their financial misfortunes. Carefully dabbing at tears, her sharply manicured nails dangerously close to inflated lips, Lynne demands to know why her husband doesn’t love her enough to get her what she wants, finances be damned. Later in the episode, herself and her two daughters practically homeless, she splurges on a pleasure trip with girlfriends. There are twenty-first century lessons here for the men too. Instead of wooing doe-eyed, child-like creatures, they have more to gain from dating responsible adults who don’t think a “budget” is a type of parakeet.

Ultimately, women who emulate the Real Housewives are missing the point. As absurd as the OC Housewives are, they are caricatures, not fantasies. Even Housewives daughter Alexa vents in the season finale, “everyone wants to pretend everything is so glamorous and perfect when in reality it’s not.” Their tans may be fake, but their pain and cluelessness are real.

In public, OC Housewives like Tamra (motto: “Housewives come younger, but they don’t come hotter”) appear to have it all, but the cameras also reveal the blemishes under that caked-on foundation. She can’t help remarking of her husband, a real catch who threatens to hit her in the show’s final episode, “I’m scared he’s going to get mad at me. I’m scared all the time.” With the Real Housewives of Orange County show, the fascination is not in watching real people surmount real challenges, but in watching adults recede into adolescence. These are not the women of our future; they are the women of our past. Let’s leave them there.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

For opponents of the healthcare bill, using Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence as justification for government takeover of the healthcare industry is just as sad as it is ironic. It is sad because on Sunday night, Pelosi and 218 of her colleagues in the House acted on their gross misinterpretation of that great founding document. But the question that all should be asking is whether or not the Founding Fathers would approve of the healthcare bill.

Simply put, the answer is a resounding “No.” For any student of the political thought of the American founding, the exercise of power by the Democrats in Congress and President Obama is enough to warrant another revolution. Where classrooms once taught that the British parliament circa 1763 is the foremost example of misuse of power and the dangers of disregarding the constitution, one now need look no further than the 111th Congress.

Yes, the process was bad. Deals were struck and bribes were made. Congressional leaders arm twisted and moderate Democrats caved. But if the Founding Fathers were alive today, those would only be minor issues. For in the grand scheme of things, what the Democrats accomplished was not a mere piece of legislation or the overhaul of a huge sector in the economy. It was getting away with a tyranny of the majority with the complete disregard to the American voter.

It was the tyranny of the majority that passed legislation that expands the powers of government more than any other since the 1960s, and all in an openly corrupt, dishonest, yet unapologetic manner. Worse still, the process exemplified the fact that to Democrats, government is an entity entirely separate from the will of the people and can in fact, be opposed to it.

The philosopher John Locke- who was a source of inspiration for many of the Founders- wrote in his Second Treatise on Government that government is derived from men in the state of nature voluntarily agreeing to form an authority to execute the laws of nature. And that is essentially, where the idea comes from that government gets its powers from the “consent of the governed.”

James Wilson- a Founding Father who signed the Declaration of Independence and was one of the original six members of the U.S. Supreme Court – wrote in 1791 that it was the business of the federal government to protect rights, and that under a properly functioning government, people would be more free than they would be in the state of nature. Of course, that concept is hard to grasp because the argument could be made that a perfect government has never existed. Nevertheless, it is still a valid point that deserves consideration in today’s political climate. Does this healthcare reform bill leave Americans more free?

In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote that voluntary associations and relations among people were a major cornerstone of any Republican society. The healthcare bill however, does not allow for voluntary relationships. It demands, among other things, that individuals pay for health care for fellow citizens.

Thus it is fair to say that the healthcare bill itself, and the way in which it was passed would not sit well with Jefferson, Wilson, or any other of the attendees of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and American revolutionaries. Government, in its correct form, should exist to protect individual rights. But by interfering in the economy and forcing individuals to buy health insurance, the government is doing nothing but violating rights.

Moreover, the Founders created a Democratic Republic for many reasons; one of them being that they wanted above all, to ensure that the rights and will of the minority were not trampled.

With the battle over healthcare reform however, Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, managed to pass legislation despite the very serious, genuine, and legitimate objections raised by their Republican colleagues and the unfavorable opinion of the bill from the American public. The Democrats have been clear- public opinion and the rights of the minority do not matter. Is there now no recourse for the tyranny of the majority?

Some say that the late Sunday-night vote in the House was a historic moment. They are right. It was a defining moment in U.S. history that will forever impact the freedom and liberties of future generations. The country came to a fork in the road, and Congress went left. So where does the country go from here?

Megan McArdle, econo-blogger at The Atlantic, explains it best: “The check that we have is that politicians care what the voters think. If that slips away, America’s already quite toxic politics will become poisonous.” In other words, if politicians can get away with misleading the American people and then ignoring them, America will no longer be the country the Founding Fathers created.

It might be time for another speech from Patrick Henry; or maybe a pamphlet or two by Thomas Paine.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

NCLB, an initiative that was put forth by President George W. Bush and signed into law in January 2002, was based on the theory that setting measureable goals and standards for each grade would improve among other things, testing scores in public schools.

Eight years later, NCLB has largely proven to be one massive failure. The act only resulted in increased federal government spending in education by billions of dollars, the illusion of school choice, no real punishment for failing schools, and the introduction of standardized testing as the ultimate litmus test for success or failure.

So President Obama is right when he says NCLB has got to go. However, that promise would be a lot more comforting if the president didn’t already have an abysmal track record when it comes to education.

Consider the DC voucher program, for example. The program, which was authorized by Congress in 2004, gave qualified students up to $7,500 to attend private or charter schools in the district, allowing them the chance to escape some of the worst public schools in the nation. The program almost immediately became a success among students, educators, and parents alike.

For perhaps the first time, low-income students in the District of Columbia were given the opportunity to attend better schools. Yet last April, President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the Democrats in Congress changed all that.

When the program first began, Congress made funding past the 2009-2010 school year dependent on re-authorization by Congress and the D.C. Council. So, Duncan decided to inform families that since there was no guarantee that the program would exist a year from now, it would be better to not allow any new participants.

Thus, letters were sent out to 200 families who had just gotten into the program, notifying them their scholarship was being rescinded. Of course, in doing so, he also effectively killed the program before it could get any kind of a fair hearing. This was all done of course, with the president’s approval.

Next came Obama’s community college initiative- a plan that was proposed last summer. In it, Obama called for $12 billion of taxpayer money to be invested in community colleges, and an increase in Pell grants for low-income students. To pay for this, a bill was passed on September 17, 2009, that effectively cancels all government subsidies to private lenders making college loans. Instead, the federal government has taken over as lender.

There are many reasons why that bill and the community college initiative are disturbing to free marketers. Not only do they increase government spending and intervention in education, it also tries to make college more accessible by making it easier for prospective students to obtain loans. That same tactic was tried once before with prospective homebuyers.

Reforming NCLB is the next item President Obama has set his eyes on in his overhaul of the education system. His plan involves dividing schools into three categories that are something along the line of “Excellent,” “Good,” and “Poor.” The better a school is, the more it is allowed to be completely autonomous and innovative. Poor schools are punished with strict government control and oversight until improvements are made.

The task now is for Obama to convince Congress that his plan is better than NCLB- which shouldn’t be hard to do. Almost anything would be an improvement over Bush’s initiative. But while the change in education law is likely to occur, given Obama’s record with education reform it remains doubtful whether any actual improvements will take place.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.