1. I will be debating Ronald Bailey tomorrow night in Mary Lyon Hall at Wheaton College, MASS at 8 p.m. I’m told it’s 40 miles from Boston and 30 miles from Providence. Ron is very entertaining and a great guy. The issue is whether indulging Ron’s desire to live forever will constrain individual liberty. The pro-choice thing doesn’t work out when choosing for indefinite longevity. I won’t be judgmental on whether Ron deserves to live forever.
2. On the debate: Of course Romney “won”; he knows stuff and makes sense. He still ranks high on the competence and specificity meters. Santorum and Gingrich aren’t really contenders. Leave it Bachmann to play the 6-6-6 card, although I did like “the devil is in the details” line.
3. It really is true that the 9-9-9 plan isn’t so good. The Democrats will decimate it if Cain becomes the nominee. But that doesn’t mean, as I said before, that it’s so repulsive to actual likely Republican primary and caucus voters.
4. Christie’s endorsement of Romney was surely the responsible thing to do. The media is playing up the likelihood of Romney-Christie ticket now. That would actually be according to my personal tastes. It might even make sense. The southern and evangelical vote is already locked down. Let’s have a ticket that reaches out to the rest of the country—a ticket free from evangelical baggage.
5. But the endorsement could be regarded as too soon. And it might backfire. Nobody has voted yet. If Cain really is the only alternative to Romney (as, I gotta brag, I said earlier than most), then I have to notice, once again, that he’s ahead in lots of particular states. His debate performance was good enough. Nobody is on fire for Mitt. Our thoughts return to the conventional wisdom that whoever is one-on-one against Mitt gets the nomination. And a southern black evangelical entrepreneur with formidable rhetorical and even singing gifts might be just the ticket for the actual voters.
6. I only mention out of vanity that I was right to say that Perry was and remains Texas toast.
7. Marc Guerra, America’s leading theologian, emailed me that saying 9-9-9 out loud sounds too much like Colonel Klink (the hapless Nazi) on HOGAN’S HEROES to ever be taken seriously.
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