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Con-Man-in-Chief: Barack Obama's "masterful marketing of emotions"

"Stephen Colbert sent me an email, and Stephen Colbert is the young person's Oprah," the sophomorically witty young Obama voter above right — signalling membership in the tribe of cool! — answered The Blaze reporter Benny Johnson's question "What issues brought you out to vote today?"

"Was this election truly a rebuke of conservatism and its principles?  Or was it a function of the masterful marketing of emotions, niche issues and even revenge?" ponders The Blaze reporter Benny Johnson, who asked young voters waiting in line at a polling place in Boston's South End Tuesday "some simple questions concerning why they showed up today to perform their civic duty." While Karl Rove implodes and pundits examine the entrails of changing demographics vs white people who didn't show up at the polls vs the cold technical brilliance of President Obama's ground game to explain Mitt Romney's epic loss, Johnson goes directly to the source, where unself-aware cult members regurgitate the party line: 

The answers usually began with a declaration of unwavering support for the president. So what were the issues that animated them in the campaign? Their answers were largely couched in generalities, warm pockets of feel-good social "rights" issues, that sounded line-and-verse like Obama campaign talking points …

To any conservative wondering where they went astray this cycle, observe the religious-like conviction of the voters here when rattling off their liberal talking points. However, beyond the rhetoric, how much do these eager voters know about our American government?

Their answers are sobering. "I mean, I think we have to keep going in the direction we're going, forward," said one pretty young thing who had swallowed the Kool Aid. More anecdotal findings from Conservatives4Palin's Mel Maguire:

One of my teenage relatives has been telling me what her classmates are saying, and none of them has so much as a marginal grasp of the issues. Many of them supported Obama because he’s black, and others were convinced that Romney was going to make abortion and contraceptives illegal.  Many even said they wanted their parents to be able to keep collecting food stamps, and they believed Romney was going to end the program because he didn’t care about the poor. None of these things are true, but we now have Bill Maher comparing us all to Nazis.

Unlike the anti-statist Tea Party surge of the 2010 midterms, this time the Gramscian march through the institutions is the big winner. Like the Constitutionally-challenged voters cited by Johnson and Maguire above, the bright young leaders — and followers — of tomorrow, immersed in the politically correct, identity-politics matrix of academia, popular culture and the lamestream media, seem unaware of their having succumbed to the mind-numbing brainwashing perpetrated upon them by the Con-Man-in-Chief and his fellow travelers.

Update: Arnold Ahlert at Jewish World Review is on the same page:

If it can't be reduced to 140 characters for Twitter's sake, it no longer matters.

We must protest, however, that a well-written tweet can be a work of art in the "Less is more" sense.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Haley Barbour knows what women like

The view across the studio in the early morning light as Haley Barbour disarmed the ever loaded-for-bear Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe, the daybreak show that — like an accident just up ahead on the highway — you can't not watch. Mika wanted to talk "women's issues." Joe, aware of what sets her off, wanted to talk sports. Haley knew the way to postmodern feminist Mika's beating heart: "I want to talk about women." What a charmer. And there's meat on those bones.

"Barack Obama is the great uniter of the Republican party," the brilliant former Mississippi Governor and Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour cut through Mika Brzezinski's "war on women" false narrative on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning. In Sun Tzu fashion, he slayed the MSNBC dragon without firing a shot. A swooning Mika didn't know what hit her.

Instalanche!

NAOMI WOLF, CALL YOUR OFFICE.

Crossposted at Riehl World News.

"I am big. It's the media that got small." Andrea Mitchell channels Norma Desmond

"A horse got me out of bed ... and living life," Ann Romney told the Ocala Star-Banner recently, referring to how horseback riding, and specifically the art of dressage, has helped her overcome some of the debilitating symptoms of MS. “Horses are great teachers. Horses are great companions. They bring us great joy," she enthused, but you'd have no idea of the depth and richness of her involvment were your primary "news" source MSNBC and Sarah Palin's "lamestream" media. Yes YOU, Lawrence O'Donnell. (CNN photo)

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," quips Lisa B on Twitter, locating the perfect fictional equivalent of old-media delusions of grandeur in Gloria Swanson's "Sunset Boulevard" portrayal of faded silent-movie star Norma Desmond, descending from denial into madness:

I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

Or, as faded lamestream-media stars like Andrea Mitchell — who was caught by new-media star Sooper Mexican the other day smearing Mitt Romney by twisting his words into the JournoList narrative of choice — might put it:

I am big. It's the media that got small.

She's right. It's those annoying gadflies Juan Williams calls "just bloggers" and our fellow soldiers in Glenn Reynolds's Army of Davids, wielding our rhetorical weapons of choice through social media old and new, who are as mad as hell and are not going to take this any more!

Who is big? The Anchoress twitters the answer in response to a snotty New Yorker whine about Ann Romney's horse sense, "Do we have to cheer for Ann Romney at the Olympics":

What a small question.

Update: Almost forgot. Ms. Mitchell has been honing her journalistic "objectivity" skills for decades: This from "The Tribal Filter on Green News," Insight July 23, 1990:

There was applause from the pressies in conclave assembled, after which Andrea Mitchell, an NBC correspondent, said that "clearly the networks have made the decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy."

 Update II: Teresa nails it in the comments:

When I saw the story pop up yesterday all I could think was... people still watch MSNBC? Really? Or are a few people listening in so they can grab twitter fodder?

Update III: David Hogberg ponders the question "Which end of the horse is Lawrence O'Donnell":

Surely O’Donnell has assistants who can look this stuff up for him. Or was it just too tempting for him to score cheap political points to bother with the research showing the benefits of hippotherapy on multiple sclerosis?

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Rom?

"Actually, Mitt is a very funny guy," a warm and engaging Ann Romney told "E.T" host Nancy O'Dell the other night, explaining "He doesn't comb his hair when we're, you know, not going places. It's like all over the place … Maybe we need to take a picture of what he really looks like when he's not working." Mrs. Romney won our heart and mind three weeks back with her decisive victory in the Democrats' faux "War on Women." Like Sarah Palin, she "fights like a girl." Click here to watch full interview.

“The fact that he didn’t talk about his campaign I thought was very touching to me," newly promoted Greenland, NH Police Chief Tara Laurent told ABC News, describing her unexpectedly emotional response to Mitt Romney's "secret trip" — reporters had not been notified — to the town's police department yesterday. The Republican presidential candidate had come to offer his condolences for the loss of veteran Police Chief Michael Maloney, killed three weeks ago while serving an arrest warrant:

Everyone here is in the grieving process, and anyone who is willing to come in and acknowledge that and make the officers and everyone feel good is welcome …

It seemed genuine, he wasn’t here to tell us to vote for him.

"This is what exhausted looks like (pic of nate coming home other night)," twittered Romney son Matt the other day, doing his part in the family-wide effort to humanize Mitt Romney in the hearts and minds of a skeptical electorate.

"It seemed genuine." The chief's sentiment recalled another Granite Stater's words half a decade ago when then Senator Barack Obama visited neighboring Portsmouth, NH with pandering promises of hope and change:

“I don’t think he came here with a political speech. He came out to celebrate New Hampshire, and we Democrats have been waiting so long for this,” said Andrea Goldberg, a longtime activist and state human service worker.

“I think he was genuine, charismatic …"

As we commented at the time in our prescient post "Did Obama just call me a racist?":

There's no question Obama knows how to pour on the charm and make Democrats "feel good about themselves"…

Swept up in the locals' devotional hysteria, however, the media didn't seem to notice. Folks hear what they want to hear.

“Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” quipped candidate Romney yesterday in response to his opponent's craven attempt to "hog credit" — a disgusted Navy Seal's words — for last year's Osama bin Laden raid. Above, campaigning yesterday with running-mate longshot Sen. Kelly Ayotte in Portsmouth: "Campaigns enjoy generating 'veepstakes' speculation because it provides an extra dose of local and regional media coverage in battleground states such as NH," explains Seacost Online's Michael McCord. This small-government Tea Partier liked what Romney was saying: "Regulators are multiplying like 'proverbial rabbits' under Obama’s administration, and small business owners, such as commercial fishermen, are suffering from strict government regulations and rising fuel costs." (Rich Beauchesne photo)

Is that what's happening to us now? Among the walking wounded emerging from our Republican-primary foxhole to look around at what's still standing, are we hearing what we want to hear from the Romney campaign now that we've given up the ghost of our preferred candidate? As we twittered through the continuing fog of battle yesterday:

Slow to warm up, I'm appreciating @MittRomney more each day as he becomes the voice of sanity in the madness that is #Obamaworld.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Santorum in Gettysburg: A new birth of freedom?

Rick Santorum talked to supporters at a rally (above) in Moline, Illinois yesterday on the eve of Tuesday's primary, which he's projected to lose to Mitt Romney. Tonight Santorum is in the "next must-win state, Pennsylvantia," where he gave "his own Gettysburg address," following Romney's victory speech, which picked up on Santorum's signature theme. More on that below. (Charlie Riedel / AP Photo)

"The issue in the presidential race is not the economy," but an oppressive government that's taking away people's freedom, Rick Santorum told a Rockford, Illinois rally yesterday on the eve of tonight's primary, even as "polls show the economy is the foremost issue for American voters." But polls, like interviews, are only as good as the questions asked, and we think the WSJ's William McGurn is onto something when he speaks of a candidate "disdained by a media [pollsters included] that literally cannot comprehend what he is saying." Counting himself "among the conflicted," McGurn weighs the pros and cons of "The Improbable Mr. Santorum": 

That he is where he is, despite his baggage is more than the latest manifestation of Anyone But Romney. It suggests that a sizable part of America hungers for a leader willing to address the connection between human freedom and larger truths, difficult as that can be.

The press would have us believe that these are zealots itching to make contraception illegal. In reality, they are folks who understand that the combination of expanding government and a permissive society is, in the long run, as lethal to the American Dream as bad economic policy …

Outgunned in both staff and money, disdained by a media that literally cannot comprehend what he is saying, disliked by many in his own party and loathed by the opposition for the same thing — his beliefs — well, there is something admirable about a man who takes it all and refuses to be silenced.

The media may not get it, but it looks like Romney himself is paying attention, as Fox News analyst Dana Perino noted moments ago, dissecting the frontrunner's victory speech:

There's a new theme that he's starting to use: Economic freedom.

Sounds like Romney's channeling Rick Santorum's "connection between human freedom and larger truths," as Santorum himself reiterated just now in his own after-primary speech following Romney's (rough transcription):

The foundational issue in this race, the one that is the cause of the other maladies we are feeling, all boils down to one word, and that's the word freedom.

Governmor Romney is now adopting that theme in his speech tonight, but I've been focussed on this theme in town halls and gatherings across the nation for months. And I know the anxiety people have about an ever-expanding government that is trying to trample our freedoms, whether economic or religious, building a dependency, and if Obamacare is implemented, every single citizen will depend upon the government.

The people I've talked to want someone to stand and fight, not because it's what some pollster tells them to say or because it's on a teleprompter. They want someone who's going to take that power in Washington and give it back to the people

Santorum wrapped things up by referring to some of his rivals' flip-flops, including Gingrich's infamous climate-change endorsement sitting on a couch in front of the Capitol with Nancy Pelosi, then closed the deal with this zinger:

I'm not going to change with the climate.

Update: Speaking for the talking-head community Wednesday morning, WaPo token "conservative" Jennifer Rubin pegs us:

Sure, there are bitter dead-enders who insist Santorum is still in the fight and who are certain if the voters only understood that Romneycare has an individual mandate Romney’s support would crumble. But these will, if they haven’t already, be seen as cranks.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

It's the ObamaCare, stupid! "I believe Rick Santorum is our man"

"There is hope for our Nation again / Maybe for the First time Since we Had Ronald Reagan," home-schooled Tulsa, Oklahoma sisters Camille and Haley Harris of First Love Band (above) sing their hearts out in a foot-tapping, All-American video that's gone viral: "Yes I believe Rick Santorum is our man! / Game ON! He's got the Plan /  Lower Taxes, Raise Morale, To Put the Power in our Hands."

"This race is coming down to the economy, the deficit and control of your life, which is ObamaCare," an upbeat Daniel Henninger quoted Rick Santorum on the campaign trail Super Tuesday Eve in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, noting parenthetically that "there was no mention of contraception, gays or the role of women."

In August, no one thought this guy would be toe-to-toe with the Romney machine in March. What happened?

I went to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Monday to find out. Out of 1,189,530 votes cast the next day in bellwether Ohio, Mr. Santorum lost to Mitt Romney by only 10,288, at last count. He's doing something right, and what one learned in Cuyahoga Falls, an Akron suburb, is that it doesn't have much to do with the famous Santorum controversies over social issues. It's about ObamaCare. And it's about the idea of freedom.

A mind-focussing, dueling-videos embodiment of the cultural-wars divide: This season's wholesome Heartland hotties' First Love Band Santorum video (top of post) vs the steamy "viral video of 2007," Obama Girl's "Crush on Obama (above) that includes raunchy double-entendre subtitles like "Universal health care reform / it makes me warm … Up in the Oval Office you'll get your head of state … I like it when you get hard on Hillary in debate." Take your pick.

While mainstream media types were obsessing all week over an Obama-friendly, manufactured crisis — Don't ever let one go to waste! — that the White House and its fellow travelers were frantically trying to spin as a Republican "War on Women," Rick Santorum was quietly going about his rounds under the radar in towns like Cuyahoga Falls. Henninger explains:

In any other election, complaining about the size of government might be GOP boilerplate. Not now. Mr. Santorum put the current moment's elevated concern about government in broader context. Of regulation, he said: "There's been this huge explosion of the federal government … I've talked to so many business people who say, 'I could live with Clinton, Bush, it was a little better, but I'm spending all my time trying to figure out what this president is doing next to me.'"

Henninger nails it this morning on Fox:

The deficit, the economy and the right to run your life … I think Santorum has tapped into something that none of us had recognized.

I think he's finally found his way to an idea that resonates. Under Obama, government has gottten bigger and bigger. It's gotten too big. Obama is impinging on their space.

The day Santorum's status rose is the day he turned to Mitt Romney and took apart RomneyCare piece by piece. It is that word, the mandate, the forcing mechanism that resonates.

"Something that none of us had recognized." Ties in nicely with the Twitter hashtags of the week, #VetThePrez and #VetThePress as the late Andrew Brietbart's re-enspirited Breitbart.com and Michelle Malkin's new curator-rich Twitchy.com flood the social media space with the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

We know it's unfair, but compare this image of First Love Band's littlest player (above) with the sluttish Obama Girl of half a decade ago. :)

This just in on Fox as we go to press:

A good day for Rick Santorum. He swept Kansas caucuses with 57% of the vote.

"This election is about big things … We have to have a nominee who can get up there and draw a clear contrast with the President of the United States."

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Sarah Palin dazzles CNN poobahs

"If there's one particular issue that breaks the camel's back with respect to this election, that is the issue of Obamacare," says Oklahoma primary winner Rick Santorum this evening, addressing supporters in his neck-and-neck Ohio victory speech. "Once the government has control of your life, then they've got you." (Getty images)

"You lucked out," joshed Sarah Palin moments ago as she granted a spur-of-the-moment mini-interview to an ecstatic CNN reporter lurking on the fringes of the Wasilla polling place where Sarah and Todd were exercising their franchise this evening. Flashing only a metaphorical ankle in response to the reporter's question, the Mama Grizzly taunted:

"As I said, anything is possible and I don’t close any doors that would be open out there" …

Asked to list what she sees as the top campaign issues, Palin said it is a “combination of the economy and military needs” …

"Things are up in the air. I don't know. Anybody but Obama."

The boys and girls back at CNN headquarters were giddy — pardon our wordplay — peeing in their pants at the thrill of it all. One of them, possibly Anderson Cooper, seemed surprised at how alert Governor Palin was, articulate and up on current events, nothing like the clueless caricature spun out of thin air in the wake of Katie Curic's gotcha interview back in the fall of 2008. For those attuned to her dog whistle, Palin's vision of the Shining City has been out there all along. Bored with their own tired narratives, is the lamestream media ready for a fresh look?

As we go to press:

Rick Santorum has won the Republican primary in Oklahoma, according to exit polls, his second victory of the night after Tennessee.

Oklahoma is a key win over well-funded rival Mitt Romney, signaling that the GOP race is likely to extend long beyond this Super Tuesday.

Update: Newt's the one, Sarah tells Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News:

It is tough for me to spin out of a question like that when it comes from a Fox reporter. If it comes from another reporter, I can spin out of it. Since it came from you, I will tell you, I won’t sound like a politician and I will tell you who I voted for tonight … My preference tonight was for the cheerful one.

Crossposted at Riehl World View. 

How Obama learned to stop worrying and love the super PAC

Obama "SuperPac" flip-flops "performance wear for politicians determined to win at any cost." Romney "SuperPac flip-flops, available with a variety of quotations, not shown. Click here for larger image.

"If we fail to act, we concede this election to a small group of powerful people intent on removing the President at any cost," fast-talking campaign manager Jim Messina wrote in an email to the little people following a conference call with major bundlers last night, attempting to shift the blame for his boss's flip flop on super Pacs onto the opposition:

"The main engine of Romney’s campaign has an average contribution of roughly $150,000. The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules."

The President had "reversed course by deciding to encourage Democrats to donate to big-money groups that he previously denounced [back in August of 2010] as representing ‘a corporate takeover of our democracy’ in order to help his re-election bid":

Before giving the go ahead, President Obama bemoaned the "negative" tone of the super PACs, political action committees that have become dominant fundraising vehicles since the Supreme Court’s controversial ‘Citizens United’ decision two years ago.

"The real story here," notes our friend Pete of Datechguy's Blog, "isn’t that he is taking the money, but the whys and wherefores listed by Politico":

But that wasn’t enough, sources say, to pull in major players such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing and others into the game. And many top Democratic donors were afraid of giving to Priorities USA until Obama made clear he wouldn’t stand on the sidelines and criticize their efforts

Like our own Massachusetts Junior Senator Scott Brown's limousine-liberal challenger Elizabeth Warren, faux populist Barack Obama has depended upon the magician's trick of misdirection to draw our attention away from the major gifts of the influential "1 percent" to focus on the small contributions of the great unwashed "99 percent." Warren is still peddling that snake oil, but Obama has finally pulled back the curtain, signaling his own "small group of powerful people" that it's now okay to contribute to an outside super PAC supporting his re-election:

The Obama campaign’s decision to promote Priorities USA arrived soon after new fundraising reports showed that American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — two Republican super PACs associated with GOP strategist Karl Rove — raised a hefty $51 million last year while Democratic groups collared only $19 million.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Santorum: It's the authenticity, stupid!

"Unfortunately for [the MSM], Stacy McCain and I were there," writes Peter Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog, on the scene at a Rick Santorum Town Hall in Concord, NH yesterday in the run-up to Tuesday's primary. "I shot the entire exchange, and when you watch it, two things are clear: 1. Santorum is on the offensive, NOT the defensive. 2. The students are unable to cope with his arguments." (Jim Cole/AP)

"Is this any way to pick a president?" asks Charles Krauthammer rhetorically, answering his own question with a resounding "Yes!":

Absolutely. It works. It winnows. And it has produced, after just one contest, an admirably worthy conservative alternative to Romney.

We were thrilled to see the venerable Dr. K. had come to the same conclusion we had, as argued in yesterday's somewhat controversial (among our twitter friends) post, "Amazing Grace: Is Rick Santorum the new Sarah Palin?" The very adjectives we and Charles — May we call you Charles? — chose to describe the man of the hour are eerily similar:

Krauthammer: From the rubble emerges Rick Santorum. But he isn’t just the last man standing. He is the first challenger to be plausibly presidential: knowledgeable, articulate, experienced, of stable character and authentic ideology.

Willis: Now a larger audience is getting a taste of this authentic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, deliberative, experienced, articulate, principled, humorous and good-hearted man, very much a formidable opponent in any debate with the current Leader of the Free World. And this "flavor of the week" appears to be sticking to the ribs.

"But because he was such a long shot, his record did not receive much scrutiny," notes Krauthammer:

It will now. He is no austere limited-government constitutionalist. He participated in George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism, which largely made peace with big government. Santorum, for example, defends earmarks and supported No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. It’s a perfectly defensible philosophy — but now he’ll be called upon to actually defend it. (See Rush's defense, "Mantra: Santorum is a 'Big Government Conservative.'")

Enter, stage left, "The Meat Grinder." Brent Bozell:

Santorum, like the other authentic conservatives, are too “far right” to win. Ann Curry started the meat grinder. “So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking into north, looking into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state?”

Fortunately, the media isn't going to get away with it this time:

1. Intrepid bloggers and reporters like our gumshoe buddies Pete Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog and Stacy McCain of The Other McCain and The American Spectator are on the ground in New Hampshire holding the lamestream media's feet to the fire (See picture caption above).

2. Santorum's not a man to change his message to suit his audience. As Stacy writes: "Santorum is unapologetically the same staunch conservative in the Granite State that he was in Iowa and — judging from the applause during the town hall forum sponsored by the Southern New Hampshire 9-12 Project — God is still more popular here than some Republicans may suspect."

It's the authenticity, stupid!

Update: We love our Granite-State buddy Tom Bowler's comments:

Will Sissy Willis do it again? Having pushed Scott Brown across the finish line in the Massachusetts race for "the Kennedy seat" can she pull off a repeat for Rick Santorum?

Sissy, you might just make a believer out of me.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Amazing Grace: Is Rick Santorum the new Sarah Palin?

"I believe in free people and free markets," Rick Santorum told a spirited and well-informed town hall audience last night in Brentwood, a few miles down the road from our hometown, Exeter, New Hampshire. We caught the event in C-SPAN reruns this morning and were struck once again at the disconnect between old-media caricatures of "Soaring Santorum" and the man himself we're coming to know and admire through a full panoply of media, old and new. More on that below. Program Note: We're heading up to Manchester Saturday for "an evening of ruminating, riffing & debate watching" with National Review's Jonah Goldberg and company.

"The interest was palpable in Santorum’s first New Hampshire event since the caucuses," reports the Boston Globe as the former Pennsylvania senator steps up to the "very short but open window" of opportunity [Dana Perino's words on Fox this morning] to grab the nation's attention in this frenetically condensed primary season. First a few facts and then a bit of commentary:

The former senator from Pennsylvania has been a frequent, if under-the-radar, presence on the stump in New Hampshire for the past four months. But after surging to within eight votes of winning Iowa Tuesday, Santorum faced a standing-room only crowd at the Rockingham County nursing home hall …

The room, which had capacity to seat 160 people, was packed with voters and journalists standing in the aisles and lining the walls. It was a sharp contrast to his 100-plus previous town halls in New Hampshire, some of which attracted just a few dozen people … A campaign aide said Santorum plans to stay in New Hampshire through the primary Tuesday.

"This economy is suffering because this administration is crushing it with regulations," Santorum told town hallers last night. "Why are they doing it?" Because they know better than you. They don't trust you to make those decisions … The principle reason I'm in this race is because of Obamacare because I think Obamacare will turn every American into a dependent American … and the more dependent he can make you, the more power he has over you ….Obamacare is the tipping point." If you have the time, be sure to listen to the whole thing. See also James Pethokoukis's "Santorum vs. Romney is a conflict of conservative visions" for an enlightening discussion of two political world views, "traditional conservatism vs modern, free-market conservatism."  

"It's all about media and momentum," says Fox political analyst Larry Sabato, seemingly troubled that "the process is being rushed. One reason why no big themes are being developed is because there isn't time." But there IS time, Dr. Sabato, and there ARE big themes if you know where to look, that "panoply of media, old and new" where fans of the Shining City can disintermediate the lamestream media narrative at will: C-SPAN, blogs, facebook, twitter, not to mention the town halls themselves, under the radar till Tuesday's "unexpected" Iowa caucus results.

Now a larger audience is getting a taste of this authentic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, deliberative, experienced, articulate, principled, humorous and good-hearted man, very much a formidable opponent in any debate with the current Leader of the Free World. And this "flavor of the week" appears to be sticking to the ribs. As Fox anchor Bret Baier just retweeted:

RT @jeffzeleny Santorum not only draws big crowd, he holds their attention in Northfield. Long answers, but classic NH Q&A voters have been craving. #fitn

Like those NH voters, Tea Partiers like us — behind enemy lines here in Taxachusetts — have been craving "long answers." To our surprise, "Darwinian Libertarian" that we are, we haven't been so energized by a candidate's words and manner since that day in late August of 2008 when Sarah Palin burst onto the national stage.

Update: Bruce B. AKA Chickelit in twitter:

Santorum has many of the same archenemies in the media as Palin--so there's that similarity too.

BTW, I think your blogpost took heuvos. I hope you're not attacked.

Update II: Santorum's "Faith, Family & Freedom" tour schedule via our behatted men on the spot, longtime Santorum supporters Stacy McCain and Pete Ingemi. Here's the latest:

Axis of Fedora Update Manchester NH 12:50 p.m.

Greetings From the Granite State!

Crossposted at Riehl World View.