The opportunity for them to embrace a teachable moment so as to explain, in layman’s terms, why the country has suffered under the current administration’s policies, and why their proposed platforms bring relief to individuals and business owners across the political ideological divide, is slowly fading into the history books as “what could have been.” It doesn’t have to be this way, but, then, the proprietary minions of the inside-the-beltway GOP establishment don’t much care for the notions of we “fly-over” types. They know all about campaign strategy. Just ask them.

If avoiding the alienation of the electorate’s goodwill wasn’t enough of a reason not to go so personally and caustically negative, there is the notion that in doing so a great amount of damage would be done to each of the candidates, so much so – and for no other reason than to win the nomination at all cost – that the Obama campaign would be handed a full arsenal of negative talking-point ammunition for the General Election campaign. Armed with this free opposition research, already tested for its maximum destructive potency, and close to a $1 billion campaign war chest, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, David Plouffe and Roberts Gibbs could get a mentally challenged three-toed tree sloth elected over the Republican challenger.

And while there is merit to the argument that the negative attack campaigning is “honing” the eventual candidate’s ability to confront the Obama campaign’s inevitable onslaught of attack ads and smear tactics, the fact of the matter is this: Axelrod, Jarrett, Plouffe, Gibbs and President Obama himself are infinitely more acclimated and proficient in the ways of Saul Alinsky than anyone on the Right side of the aisle, short of David Horowitz. The idea that any Republican candidate can compete in the arena of Alinsky negative political campaigning is a reality only in the realm of the absurd. Only a megalomaniac of a Republican campaign strategist would even entertain such a ridiculous notion.

Proof positive that the attack and smear campaign strategy currently being employed by the GOP primary candidates is doing more harm than good comes in the poll numbers. Yes, Mitt Romney’s attack ads aided his campaign in Iowa against Newt Gingrich. And yes, Newt Gingrich’s attack ads helped him in South Carolina. And again, attack ads helped Mr. Romney beat Mr. Gingrich in Florida – even though it cost him close to $17 million to achieve that victory. But, in the end, it was Rick Santorum who – without spending millions of dollars – swept the caucuses in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri. Out of all of the Republican candidates, Santorum has waged the least negative campaign where attacking his fellow Republicans is concerned. I suppose one could go as far as to say that not only does Mr. Santorum believe and adhere to the Ten Commandments, he holds faithful to the “Eleventh Commandment” as well, or, at least better than the others.

But aside from the GOP primary candidates’ poll numbers and approval ratings – and perhaps more importantly, we need to look at what happened to President Obama’s poll numbers while the mainstream media was fixated on the negative campaigning of the GOP primary candidates.

In December of 2011, at the quasi-official onset on the GOP Primary cycle, President Obama’s poll numbers were something that the “axis political powers” of Axelrod, Jarrett, Plouffe and Gibbs were starting to become concerned about. His disapproval rating stood at 51.4 percent while his approval rating was an alarming 43.2 percent. Yet today, in just two and a half short months, Mr. Obama has reversed those numbers. Today, Mr. Obama’s disapproval rating is 47.0 percent and his approvals are at 49.0, according to the RealClearPolitics.com average of the major polls as of February 9, 2012.

Traditionally, negatives, or disapproval ratings – the percentage of people sampled who voice a disapproval of the elected official’s performance – are much harder to turn around than approval ratings. When someone disapproves of the performance of an elected official it takes an incredible amount of “good behavior” on the elected official’s part or an extraordinary event to change that perception. This is also the case with voter turnout. It is always easier to motivate people to turn out at the polls to vote against someone or something. To wit, in 2008 Mr. Obama’s supporters were more motivated to vote against President George W. Bush than they were convinced by the obtuse and undefined notion of “hope and change,” a recycled campaign slogan from the Clinton campaigns.

It can be easily established that Mr. Obama didn’t execute a change of agenda to affect “good behavior”:

▪ His performance in Middle East diplomacy has been dismal; his alienation of the Israelis has resulted in a movement to the Right among the American Jewish voters.

▪ The American voter has finally come to the realization that the Obama Administration’s Labor Department has been “cooking the books” where the unemployment numbers are concerned; true unemployment, when those who have given up looking for work out of exasperation are calculated in, stands at 22.5 percent.

▪ And Mr. Obama has gone out of his way to offend not only Catholics with an incredible transgression against religious liberties in his contraception mandate, a mandate aimed at Catholic universities, hospitals and philanthropic organizations, he has motivated the whole of the religious community in the United States to rally against this element of Obamacare.

So, with the idea that Mr. Obama has turned his disapprovals around because he executed “good behavior” disproved, we can only surmise that something else affected this dramatic turn-around; something extraordinary. Now, what took place between last December and today? Could it have been Republican primary votes and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado? Could it have been millions of dollars spent on ads ripping our Republican candidates apart; ads that smeared the records and characters of those who would run against Mr. Obama in November?

As I stated in an earlier article on this very subject:

“Mr. Gingrich, you’re a professor (and not a fake activist professor, like the one currently inhabiting the Oval Office)…seize the teachable moment to explain to the American people why Capitalism works, why limited government works, why American entrepreneurship is the best in the world when allowed to be free…

“Mr. Romney, seize the teachable moment. Abandon the negative campaigning and explain to the American people why Capitalism is good; why venture Capitalism serves a great purpose; and why redistribution of wealth only creates a non-motivated society that eventually devolves into the Atlas Shrugged storyline.”

I meant it then and, with the reality that this ridiculous and self-serving negative campaigning is literally aiding Mr. Obama’s approval ratings, I mean it even more now. Our candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul – have a golden opportunity to inform and educate the American citizenry on some of the most basic and critical elements of Americanism; elements blurred by the bribery entitlement mentality of the Progressive Movement and, especially, the Obama Administration. Pray tell, what do you really think this underwater mortgage homeowner bailout is all about? Why now? Think about it!!

There comes a time when even politicians have to come to the realization that they have an obligation to do what is right for the country before they do what is advantageous for themselves. That time, for the Republican Primary participants, is now. It is one thing to debate differences where issues and ideology are concerned. We the People expect and deserve that from those vying for public office. It is quite another to employ, narcissistically, the tactics of slash-and-burn politics for the sole reason of “winning.” We the People, the nation, in the memories of the Framers and the blood of true Revolutionaries – our children’s’ futures – do not deserve that.

Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin issued a warning to Mitt Romney Saturday, calling on the former Massachusetts governor to do a better job explaining his record to conservatives or risk dampening voter turnout in November if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.

In an interview with CNN and The New York Times before her speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Palin said she was confused by Romney’s declaration here on Friday that he was a “severely conservative Republican.”

“I wasn’t quite sure what the word ’severely’ meant,” Palin said.

She said Romney and his two main rivals – Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – should be given time to explain the flaws in their record until the Republican National Convention in August, when she said the nomination fight could ultimately be decided.

But Romney may have the hardest sale to make, she said, asking him to explain his “shifts in ideology” since he left the Massachusetts governorship.

“You have to have the tea party patriots enthused and energized in order to win this nomination, and more importantly in order to defeat Barack Obama,” Palin argued.

If conservatives are “dismissed and they are marginalized” by the Republican establishment, “they are going to be much less enthused and much less willing to put it all on the line for the GOP candidate in the general election.”

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster says Mitt Romney has won the Maine caucuses by a slim margin, giving him a much needed boost following losses in three other contests in the past week.

The former Massachusetts governor defeated Ron Paul, the only other GOP hopeful competing in the state. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich did not actively participate in the contest.

Party leaders announced the results Saturday. The caucuses began February 4 and continued through the week. Some Maine communities have yet to hold their caucuses, though party leaders say they don’t plan to count those votes.

Romney easily won the Maine caucuses in 2008.

Read more at the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Mitt Romney hoped to avoid a fourth straight election setback Saturday in the GOP presidential nomination race, but feisty Ron Paul could extend that losing streak with a victory in Maine’s caucuses.

Romney, the one-time front-runner, stepped up efforts to court Republicans in recent days, reflecting growing concern about the outcome of what has become a two-man race in Maine.

Neither Newt Gingrich nor Rick Santorum, who won in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado on Tuesday, is actively competing in Maine, where party officials planned to declare a winner Saturday evening.

Romney wants Maine voters to help in his struggle to convince his party’s conservative wing that he should be the candidate they back. The former Massachusetts governor said in a Washington speech Friday that he was “a severely conservative Republican governor.”

Paul, a libertarian-minded Texas congressman, is fighting to prove he’s capable of winning at all, particularly in a state where his campaign has focused considerable attention. He has scored a few top three finishes in other early voting states, but his strategy is based on winning some of the smaller caucus contests where his passionate base of support can have an oversized impact.

There is no reliable polling to gauge the state of the Maine election, which drew fewer than 5,500 voters from across the state four years ago. But Romney’s recent activities suggest a victory is by no means assured, despite the natural advantages of being a former New England governor competing in a state he won with more than 50 percent of the vote four years ago.

He changed his schedule Friday night to add personal appearances at two caucuses Saturday; he had planned to take the day off.

Read more at the Associated Press.

“It’s a coalition of different organizations including Occupy DC,” said James, an occupy protestor who joined the movement in late September from Orlando, Florida and emigrated to Occupy DC. “I think lots of organizations will be there too.”

James said the following of the Occupy CPAC plan:

The plan is for non-violent civil disobedience. We want to disrupt the conference and have our voices heard, have our message of the 99% against the 1% and have that voice take precedence. Things like CPAC have dog and pony shows, media circuses and it’s embarrassing. We’re supposed to be the most advanced democracy in the world and it’s embarrassing to have our political process look like a reality TV show.

It’s hard to say how many people will show up, but I think there will be a couple of hundred occupiers at least, and I heard at least three hundred people representing some unions, so my guess will be three to five hundred people. I hope it happens.

James also said that he hopes that Republicans will join their cause and said that during his time in Occupy Orlando there were “a couple” of Tea Party members and Republicans who occupied with them in Florida.

He added of the CPAC attendees:

I hope they realize we don’t take them seriously. They’re time is up–they just don’t know it yet. They are paper tigers and we are a scorching world fires, and by saying we, I mean the American people.

I would love it if people from CPAC came out and spoke to us as long as they were prepared to talk about the things we agree on and not the things we disagree on. We can agree to disagree on a lot of common issues, but when it comes to simple, common issues such as six banks running the country. I think we can find a whole lot of things to agree on with Republicans and libertarians. I’d like to see a non-violent, incremental revolution happen in this country. Something well thought out and move slowly.

Whether you’re on the right or the left, there’s so much posturing now. The Republicans know they’re not going to overturn Roe v. Wade in my lifetime so let’s get together and talk about reducing unwanted and teen pregnancies.

People ask what are you going to for the occupation? So, I ask well what are YOU going to do to change things because sitting at home and watching Dancing at the Stars and buying things online from IKEA? That’s not going to lead to a better future for your children.

Occupy DC protestors invited Big Government into their library at McPherson Square which includes a collection of historical and political biographies and texts. Under the American flag a piece of Occupy artwork hangs with Lady Justice's scales of justice - a dollar sign outweighs an infinity sign suggesting in America money outweighs everything else.

In it’s exclusive interview with James, Big Government tried to get a sense of what some of the general feelings were about the various CPAC speakers as well as President Obama. James said that he can only speak for himself on these issues, but explained he “could almost stomach” former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney when he was in office, but was now disappointed, and felt even greater disappointment with the other candidates:

ON RICK SANTORUM: “That’s just an embarrassment to our country that this guy is leading the Republican primary. He’s an intellectual lightweight. I’m not an elitist but even if you aspire to public service you should have a level of service and passion and be deeply informed on the issues.”

ON MITT ROMNEY: “On Mitt, it’s hard to say. I spent some time in Boston when he was governor there and that Mitt Romney I could almost stomach him. He was more of a centrist, he was balanced and reasonable, and now… why do we believe these things that politicians say? He was once reasonably pro-choice and believed in at least in some compromise on universal health care and led of the most liberal state in the country and now he’s indistinguishable from Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum.

WHY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS NOT COMMITTING TO ROMNEY: “The right-wing Christian base is looking for a reason, any reason to demonize him because he’s a Mormon. They’re showing their true colors, they’re wholly owned by radical, fundamentalist Christians and that cannot be good for the United States of America.”

ON NEWT GINGRICH: “Gingrich. Smart guy, really, really smart guy but I don’t agree with almost any of his political positions, and there was a time when he showed intellectual prowess, but his personal foibles are such that he shows he’s not suited for political office. Three wives? Come on. I’m the most open minded person in the world when it comes to social issues, but you want someone with strength and convictions, and he doesn’t. He’s lived his life like a drunken frat-boy.”

ON RON PAUL: “Ron Paul is the crazy uncle at both CPAC and Occupy DC. He has supporters on all sides of the spectrum. He’s personally good for the process because he does have very few common sense ideas but when you look at his intellectual underpinnings, he’s a little crazy. He’s unforgiving on certain social issues and it’s amazing how many people support him. You can’t be an Objectivist and a Christian at the same time.”

ON PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Obama sickens me, he’s the biggest disappointment of my life. I’m an anarchist but I vote because I still have to live in this system. On election-day, I felt sick, but I voted for him because he did seem like a different kind of politician. He gained his Senate seat just as a launching pad, but I believed him. I believed he was going to be a new politician, a new type of president, but he’s now just a big war criminal as George W. Bush as far as I’m concerned. When he appointed Geithner I was like, really? You’re going to get former Goldman Saks people? Obama had the opportunity with his force and personality as the first black president and really riding into office on a wave of hope and goodwill, there were a lot of slightly left Republicans even, but he’s never taken advantage of the bully pulpit he was given.”

ON THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT: “I think the most important thing about the occupation is that we are horizontal. We truly don’t have leadership. We represent such a broad sect of society we only agree on a few things and those things will come up to our general assembly process and sometimes they become part of the official position of Occupy. If you’re an occupier you’re not just encouraged but required to do the best thing for the occupation. As long as you’re not talking about violently hurting another human being, I may not join you, but I’ll stand in solidarity with what you do. I think what the occupation will achieve is not change but rather space for a chance. By hitting the 1 percent from every angle we are going to disrupt it and create that space for chance.”

James concluded the one hour interview by saying that he actually “pine(s) for the days of William F. Buckley, when there were intelligent people who would debate the issues with convictions.” He concluded, “There was a generation of conservatives. Many of them were well spoken, their arguments were well reasoned and they came from personal conviction and by and large you could, the American public could carry on a conversation that mattered without it devolving Jersey Shore.”

Fear the sweater vest!

So much for Governor Mitch Daniels’ “truce” on social issues. Rick Santorum refused to raise the white flag on his principles and charged ahead. Tonight he celebrates a trifecta victory in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, all but shattering the myth of Romney’s inevitable cruise to victory in the presidential primary.

I’ll admit it. I didn’t see it coming. To be sure, this victory comes with caveats, as I wrote here. Santorum picked up only five delegates tonight and has 22 delegates to Romney’s 106, but it’s a move in the right direction. (The delegate count is here.)

But Santorum understands something that few of the other candidates can put into words: that the power to mandate is the power to compel and compulsion must be grounded on something higher than the mere will of the sovereign. This is a very effective argument against Barack Obama, but it it also a very effective one against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who also supported the Wall Street bailouts, cap and trade (taxing breathing) and of course, the individual mandate in health insurance. Both Gingrich and Romney are essentially progressives in their view that there is nothing government mustn’t do.

Santorum is totally correct when he says that government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything away or to force you to accept their “gifts” on their terms. We got a vision of what an Obamacare regime will look like this week when the Obama administration forced Catholic universities, hospitals and other church-affiliated employers to implement a new policy that requires health insurers to offer birth control coverage. For Catholics and many Americans who rightly argue that life begins at conception, forcing their institutions to provide the morning after-pill is tantamount to forcing them to countenance abortion.

The truth has always been that the left were the aggressors in the culture wars and this week they dug their trenches and prepared their assault on three key issues: homosexuals, the murder of the unborn, and compulsory subsidizing of birth control. Each of these issues is tied to the freedom of conscience and each of these issues is a battleground that the left has chosen. Suddenly the pushy Catholic, as the left would describe Santorum, doesn’t seem so pushy when the Catholics get pushed around. So much for if you like your health plan you can keep it. The fine print was apparently: you can only keep your health plan if we like it. Oh, and if you are a charity that doesn’t want to fund our left-wing causes, we will hack your websites, destroy your reputation, and threaten your employees.

Santorum knows all of this. Like Gingrich, he gets that we are in the fight of our lifetimes against an adversary that wants to wipe out our way of life. Romney doesn’t understand this impulse, alas, for all his bromides about America.

When Santorum speaks of the liberty of the Constitution, Santorum knows what the Ron Paul fans do not: that liberty is not license, but the right to live a good, virtuous life. Which is what Santorum, in contradistinction to Newt’s personal life and Mitt’s business and political life is exactly what Rick has led. What Gingrich and Santorum reveal is that Romney cannot win in the South and Midwest.

Santorum would be right to return to these wells again. Liberty is about more than choice, it is about choosing the good and sticking to it, even if you might lose an election. Santorum knows all about this and fought the good fight in 2006, only to lose to Bob Casey (an allegedly pro-life Catholic Democrat) by 17 points in a bad year for Republicans. Let’s not forget that Romney lost his U.S. Senate bid to Ted Kennedy by 17 points in a terrific Republican year in 1994 by essentially rejecting Reaganism. Pennsylvania is a moderately blue state; Massachusetts a blue state, but only one candidate compromised his principles.

It’s that argument over principles where Santorum is most strong. Here’s to hoping he dusts it off again in going after the mandates that RomneyCare put on Massachusetts residents. As a then-teetotaler and one-time resident of Massachusetts, I always found it somewhat odd that Mitt Romney, a practicing Mormon, was forcing insurers, underwriters and businesses in Massachusetts to cover the costs of alcohol rehabilitation for their employees.

It would be bad if that were the only mandate, but as of late 2011 there were some 42 other mandates, including clinical trials, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, diabetes, and, yes, contraceptive services. Only eight were added since Romney left office and of those eight, three governed things that are a lot harder to assail against than alcoholism. Who, after all, wants to be against mandates for prosthetic devices (for the cripples), childhood vaccination (for the kids), and early intervention (for everyone who wishes he had caught the disease before he was felled by it)? This is the central problem of mandates. Everyone wants to mandate something and thanks to public choice economics, the benefits of getting a mandate approved are a lot more concentrated than the benefits of resisting all mandates. Think of it as medical earmarking.

Returning to tonight, with his sweep of the caucuses, Santorum is starting to look an awful lot like the candidate (Barack Obama) who won the caucuses, only to go toe-to-toe with a well-funded machine (Hilary Clinton).

If history is our guide, Mitt Romney is looking an awful lot like Hilary Clinton and Rick Santorum is looking an awful lot like Barack Obama. Now it is on to Arizona and Michigan. Romney is ahead in both states, but will his lead hold after Santorum’s major victory tonight? And will Santorum survive the negative assaults that are going to come his way?

Santorum has better take out his bullet proof sweater vest.

“The new debate in the Republican party needs to be between conservatives and libertarians,” says Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “A lot of the libertarian ideas that Ron Paul is talking about…should not be alien to any Republican.”

Yet right after the 2010 midterm elections, the influential Tea Party favorite proclaimed that “you can’t be a fiscal conservative and not be a social conservative,” a comment that was widely viewed as a slap at libertarians. And South Carolina’s junior senator is also a staunch pro-lifer, has favored a constitutional ban on flag burning, and is on the record saying that gays shouldn’t be allowed to teach at public schools.

More recently, DeMint has been leaning libertarian. His new book, Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse, is a warning to the nation that we need radical spending cuts (including putting defense spending on the table) or else face economic oblivion. And he was instrumental in getting Tea Party Republicans elected in 2010, including the most libertarian member of the caucus, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who also wrote the foreword to DeMint’s book.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch sat down with DeMint for a wide-ranging discussion about fiscal vs. social conservatism, cutting spending, the GOP presidential nomination, whether the Tea Party still matters, and much more.

Approximately 29 minutes.

Shot by Meredith Bragg and Jim Epstein; edited by Epstein.

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