Romney Duels With Santorum in Republican Debate

Outside the Mesa Arts Center, people gathered on Wednesday to watch the debate taking place inside. It was the final one on the Republican primary calendar. More Photos »

MESA, Ariz. — Mitt Romney challenged Rick Santorum’s credentials as a fiscal conservative in a fiercely combative debate on Wednesday, trying to redefine Mr. Santorum as part of the problem in Washington and regain his footing in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination.

A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.

With the Arizona and Michigan primaries only six days away, followed quickly by a dozen more contests, Mr. Romney arrived here at a critical moment of his candidacy armed with a detailed indictment of Mr. Santorum’s record in Congress. Mr. Romney sought to dismantle his rival’s claim to be the authentic conservative in the race.

“While I was fighting to save the Olympics, you were fighting to save the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ ” Mr. Romney said, drawing upon a noted symbol of government excess to drive home his point against Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator.

It was Mr. Santorum’s first time in the cross hairs as a leading candidate, an uncomfortable position that has set back other Republican challengers. He did not recoil or wither under pressure, but he was placed on the defensive again and again, with Mr. Romney and Representative Ron Paul of Texas acting as a tag team in critiquing his record in Congress.

They criticized his earmarks, his vote for a provision that financed Planned Parenthood and his support of the No Child Left Behind law, President George W. Bush’s signature education plan now out of favor with conservatives. By the end of the night, the scrutiny seemed to wear on Mr. Santorum, who was taunted with boos when he said he had voted for the education program even though “it was against the principles I believed in.”

He explained that he had done so because of its importance to Mr. Bush, saying: “Sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader.” That line provided an opening for Mr. Paul, who declared: “He calls this a team sport. He has to go along to get along, and that’s the way the team plays, but that’s what the problem is with Washington.”

The landscape of the Republican presidential campaign — reshuffled yet again since the last time the candidates debated on Jan. 26 — came into sharp view here on stage at the Mesa Arts Center. It was the final scheduled Republican debate on the calendar, but unless a presumptive nominee emerges swiftly, debates could take place throughout the spring as the party’s nominating contest becomes a drawn-out fight for delegates.

If Mr. Romney came across as a persistent prosecutor, jumping in eagerly to make his points, Mr. Santorum was defensive yet did not lose his temper as others have in the hot seat.

From the start, it appeared that Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum had a shared goal: turning the night, and the race, into a two-man contest. But Newt Gingrich came alive yet again, not as an angry combatant but as what he described as a “cheerful” alternative, enthusiastically challenging the moderator, John King of CNN, and turning questions to his own purposes.

The candidates sat behind a table for only the second time in the long-running series of debates, rather than standing behind lecterns, which at times made them seem like squirmy schoolchildren scrunched into classroom desks.

The economy — the dominant issue to most voters — took a back seat to a host of other topics in the wide-ranging debate, which dwelled on social issues, immigration and the arcane world of Congressional voting records. Mr. Romney played up his status as the only candidate on the stage who had never served in Washington, but Mr. Santorum would not let his rival take credit for balancing the budget as governor of Massachusetts, which is required by state law.

“Don’t go around bragging about something you have to do,” Mr. Santorum said. “Michael Dukakis balanced the budget for 10 years. Does that make him qualified to be president of the United States? I don’t think so.”

Mr. Santorum parried the barbs from Mr. Paul as he has all year, often laughing and shaking his head. But the exchanges between him and Mr. Romney were sharper.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Santorum told him at one point.

“Wait — wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait!” Mr. Romney said, cutting in as Mr. Santorum attacked the Massachusetts health care plan that Mr. Romney signed into law.

Mr. Romney managed to bring before Republican primary voters an issue that has been a sore subject between Mr. Santorum and conservatives for years: his support in the 2004 Republican primary in Pennsylvania for Senator Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey, his conservative challenger.

Michael Barbaro contributed reporting.

View the original article here

Room for Debate: Beyond Race in Affirmative Action

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Republican Debate in Arizona Billed as the Season Finale

That was the position that political junkies found themselves in on Wednesday as CNN prepared to televise the 20th Republican presidential debate of the 2012 nomination race. There are no more debates on the conveyer belt — an abrupt change for a campaign season that has been punctuated by one every nine days on average from September to the most recent debate in January.

Some in the television news business deemed Wednesday’s debate a “season finale.” Charles P. Pierce of Esquire magazine suggested in a blog post that it be titled “A Very Special Episode,” a promotional line for TV shows that is now mostly a parody of the medium.

“They should invite the whole cast back, all the people who left the show for their own spinoffs, the way they brought Rhoda and Phyllis back when Mary Richards got fired at WJM,” Mr. Pierce wrote, alluding to the classic sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Ever since the very beginning, last May 5 on the Fox News Channel, candidates advanced and retreated on the basis of the Republican debates; so, too, did television channels and moderators. Individual debates drew as many as 7.6 million viewers (ABC, Dec. 10), happily surprising executives who saw their networks’ reputations and finances benefit.

And now, suddenly, the show’s over?

Stay tuned, as they say.

CNN billed the Wednesday debate in Mesa, Ariz., as the final meeting of the four remaining candidates before the voting on March 6, Super Tuesday. There was to have been another on March 1, but last week Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Representative Ron Paul declined CNN’s invitation.

Television news executives have expressed optimism that if the Republican campaign lacks an unassailable front-runner after Super Tuesday, some of the remaining candidates will accept new invitations to debates.

“Front-runners are the ones who, typically, look at debates as events that pose more risk than reward,” Sam Feist, the Washington bureau chief for CNN, said in a telephone call from Mesa.

Chuck Todd, the political director for NBC News, said he suspected that “we’re going to go back to a more realistic debate schedule of one every month-ish.”

NBC, he said, is planning “at least one” more debate, though it has not yet proposed that to the Republican campaigns.

“There’s no point in asking them now,” Mr. Todd said. “They’re not going to make a decision until they absolutely have to.”

NBC’s debate in Florida on Jan. 23 attracted 7.1 million viewers, the second-highest total since May.

But, broadly speaking, the ratings for the debates did not climb a lot over time; CNN’s most recent debate, on Jan. 26, drew 100,000 fewer viewers than a debate it co-hosted in October, months before any caucuses or primaries had been held.

Perhaps political devotees were tuning in each time, but casual viewers were not — a suggestion made by some executives and backed up by polls that show relatively low levels of interest in the campaign among most Americans.

That was the punch line, at least, for Jimmy Fallon last week when he told the viewers of his late-night show that CNN would let some viewers ask the candidates questions on Wednesday.

“It’ll be awkward,” he said, “when they’re like, ‘This question’s from Mark in Texas.’ Mark asks: ‘What else is on?’ ”

View the original article here

Economic View: Gay Marriage Debate Is About Money, Too

• If Pat and Chris want to form a business partnership in your home state, should their sexes play any role in determining whether that partnership is legal?

• Should the government play any role in deciding the rules regarding religious ceremonies like christenings and bar mitzvahs?

If you answered “no” to both questions, you are on your way to solving the same-sex marriage debate in the United States.

Early this month, a federal appeals court panel declared unconstitutional a California ballot measure making same-sex marriage illegal. Although the decision produced headlines and strong emotional reactions on both sides, the case boiled down to a single question: Are same-sex couples entitled to call themselves “married”?

Nothing else was at stake, because same-sex couples in California are eligible to form domestic partnerships that grant, in the court’s words, “virtually all the benefits and responsibilities afforded by California law to married opposite-sex couples.” Same-sex couples already had the right to live together, have sex, adopt children and so forth. They just could not call themselves married. Clearly that word is important to people on both sides of this issue.

At the federal level, however, the fight is not just about words; it is also about money. Federal law bestows a long list of rights — more than 1,000 — on legally married couples. Spouses may give each other unlimited bequests tax free, and they are permitted to file joint tax returns. If one spouse is a citizen, the other can become a citizen, too, and spouses get special treatment from Social Security. For some couples, a lot of money is on the line. That’s why you are reading this column in the business section.

People in domestic partnerships, as well as gay couples who were legally married in a state, cannot get these federal benefits. That’s because of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which says, “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” So, although the headlines are being made by legislation and court decisions at the state level, the financial aspects of same-sex marriage are, for the most part, controlled at the federal level.

The Defense of Marriage Act renders the positions of some politicians logically untenable. For example, in a Dec. 15 debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, Mitt Romney said: “I’m firmly in support of people not being discriminated against based upon their sexual orientation. At the same time, I oppose same-sex marriage.” Under current law, that is like saying 2+2=5.

President Obama’s view is not explicitly contradictory, but he still has a quandary. He says marriage is between a man and a woman — though he says his view is “evolving.” But unlike Mr. Romney, President Obama does not support the Defense of Marriage Act and has instructed his legal team not to defend the law in court. Still, he has not spelled out what he thinks should happen if the law is ruled unconstitutional.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem, one that, based on their stated views, both Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney might support, along with anyone else who answered “no” to my two opening questions.

Congress should amend the Defense of Marriage Act to replace the sentence I quoted earlier with the following: “Wherever the word ‘marriage’ appears in any federal statute, replace that word with the phrase ‘domestic partnership between two people valid under the laws of the state where it was obtained.’ ”

I am not a lawyer, so I will not try to spell out all the details of how this would work. But here is a rough outline of a plan: In my ideal world, all states would follow the federal lead. The legal unions that are now called marriages would be called domestic partnerships, which would be offered to same-sex as well as heterosexual couples. But if some states are unwilling to enact such statutes, same-sex couples who live in those states could simply go to a state that does offer same-sex domestic partnerships, and would then be treated as such by the federal government, with all the attendant financial benefits and responsibilities. Companies can choose the state in which they incorporate, so couples should have that privilege, too.

Marriage, of course, would continue, but would no longer be regulated by the government. Instead, weddings would become like many other important ceremonies from graduations to funerals: private matters. (Conservatives may applaud now.)

And anyone who believes in freedom of religion should support this proposal, because religions would have complete freedom to decide their criteria for marriages. One church could decide to marry only heterosexual members, while another might choose to marry only same-sex couples who are Cubs fans. Our founding fathers would be proud.

IT is worth remembering that interracial marriage was still against the law in some states until a unanimous 1967 Supreme Court decision declared such laws unconstitutional. The case, Loving v. Virginia, was brought when the police entered the bedroom of the wonderfully named Mr. and Mrs. Loving, hoping to find them engaged in sex, also against the law for mixed-race couples at that time.

That such laws — and police actions — were still in place less than 50 years ago seems mind-boggling today. Even more astonishing is that similar laws and police actions were applied to gay people until a 2003 Supreme Court ruling, Lawrence v. Texas. In the not-too-distant future, people will be saying the same about our current marriage law. Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage. The times they are a changin’.

Although I think this proposal is reasonable, I don’t expect the current Congress to pass it anytime soon. That’s too bad, because, by failing to act, Congress will force this matter to be handled by the courts, which will be addressing these issues in coming cases. Those who are opposed to “activist courts” should take note that the inherent inequality of the current system, and its likely unconstitutionality, combined with Congressional inaction, is what will require action by judges.

Richard H. Thaler is a professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

View the original article here

Scientists debate mutant bird flu risk at WHO

A microchip inserted under the skin has been shown for the first time to successfully deliver a bone-loss drug to a small sample of women, according to US-led research published Thursday.

View the original article here