Thoughts on the Debate Last Night

I have to commend the political commentators for devoting two hours to yet another debate last night (I primarily watched the Saints and Lions game).  It was an important debate for Rick Santorum as this was the first debate since his surprising second place finish in the Iowa Caucuses.  Santorum did seem to have a good night (probably because he no longer had to complain in every answer about the lack of attention by the questioners), but I wonder if he will be able to persuade anyone that he is a more viable candidate than Mitt Romney.  If he wants to beat Romney, he will have to finally hit him where it hurts and attack him on Romneycare and argue how it is against the natural law principles of the Constitution.  Because of his strong, principled pro-life stand, I have more faith in Santorum than anyone else in being able to marshal the strongest possible arguments against Romneycare.

Other highlights:  Rick Perry was finally able to remember that pesky third agency he wants to eliminate.  I think if Perry would have done this well from the beginning, he might have had a reasonable chance at the nomination.  Jon Huntsman finally got the opportunity to speak Mandarin.  Ron Paul questioned Newt Gingrich's military service, which got Gingrich fired up.  The ABC questioners--George Stephanopoulos, Diane Sawyer, and some local anchor--obviously thought that the economy was sound and of no major concern since the first quarter of the debate was focused on whether or not the candidates thought states could outlaw contraception.  Newt got in a brilliant point about how religious organizations that are against having homosexual couples adopt children are now being barred from offering adoptions and no one seems to shed a tear for them (or for the children who would go unadopted).  Stephanopoulos finally asked Ron Paul about the newsletters, and Paul, obviously miffed about the question, denied all knowledge and instead, talked about the racist nature of drug laws.

Here and here are some good takes on the debate.  Also, since the questioners did bring up the right to privacy that the Supreme Court found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of the Constitution in the Griswold decision, I will leave it to Hadley Arkes to answer:

George Stephanopoulos tried to set a trap for Rick Santorum by asking Romney whether states have the constitutional authority to ban contraception. Romney thought the question odd because no state, he said, has shown an interest in doing that. But of course they haven’t shown an interest in doing that, because the Supreme Court began to bar that kind of restriction in 1965 with the famous case of Griswold v. Connecticut.

Stephanopoulos was about to display his knowledge of constitutional law by recalling that the Supreme Court had found a right to privacy in the Constitution, a right that covered contraception. But Stephanopoulos did not know much beyond that slogan. The Court in that case emphasized a right of contraception for married couples. The liberal justice Byron White concurred, but he left open the possibility that the state could plausibly bar contraception as part of a policy to discourage “promiscuous or illicit sexual relationship[s], be they premarital or extramarital.” It may still be an open question whether a state may act to bar the sale of contraceptives to adolescents. And in dramatic contrast, there has been much talk of late of having local governments mandate the use of contraceptives for actors appearing in pornographic films or men having sex with strangers in bathhouses and clubs. The magic word “privacy” has not put contraception beyond the reach of the law and regulation. Rick Santorum has many good comebacks here, which he should master if the question comes back again. And it’s likely to come back, precisely because the Diane Sawyers and George Stephanopouloses know their constitutional law as something just short of messages read in fortune cookies.