Evangelicals are in a civil war in Iowa. If they could unite behind a candidate, they could defeat Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in the Iowa caucuses, but they can’t. Part of the problem is that three candidates are running for evangelical support but Iowa simply isn’t big enough for the three of them. They’re splitting the vote. Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum are all making a play for the social conservatives they need to propel them onward. In 2008, sixty percent of the participants in the Iowa caucuses were evangelical.

Eight days ago Rick Santorum won the personal endorsements of two evangelical leaders—Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of the Family Leader, and Chuck Hurley, President of the Iowa Family Policy Center. The endorsements may have been just enough to push Santorum up in the polls—at Bachmann’s expense. Vander Plaats asked Bachmann to drop out and endorse one of the social conservatives.

The Bachmann team is simply imploding with the defection of a top aide to the Ron Paul camp.  She herself has said that it would take nothing less than a “miracle” to win. When you have to keep insisting that you aren’t dropping out—it may be time to drop out.  Look to Bachmann to exit stage left after Iowa. The question becomes who will she endorse.

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Thirty years ago, a group of mothers who had lost children to drunk drivers organized a group called MADD. They had a legitimate beef. There were too many drunks on the road.

To Americans at the time, drinking and driving was a national pastime. We would routinely take risks that are unheard of today. More than one state would actually allow you to have an alcoholic drink in your hand while  you were behind the wheel. (The joke was that in Texas, it was mandatory.)

The MADD lobbying and national awareness effort was quite successful, and within a few years, drunk-driving accidents had been reduced. Terms like “designated driver” started to sweep the national zeitgeist. The comedy boom of the eighties (where I cut my chops) was fueled in part by the crackdown, since comedy made it possible to be entertained in a bar, without becoming profusely incoherent.

But then something strange happened. The Mothers didn’t stop being mad. Rather than celebrate their happy victory, they cracked down even harder. They promoted seat belt laws and roadblocks. In 2000 they lobbied to get the legal blood alcohol down to 0.08% ; a level that most competent drinkers could handle safely. Comedian Doug Stanhope once joked that he was a better driver at 0.08% than his grandmother was completely sober.

Meanwhile the percentage of drivers getting arrested kept increasing, to the point where the stigma of a DUI conviction was no longer negative. At cocktail parties, people will sometimes play a strange version of Liars Poker, where they compare each other’s court recorded BAC, to see who has the highest.

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