I have to say, today’s story about the possibility of moving up the Florida Presidential primary tugs me both ways.  But there is a right answer.

First, Florida needs an earlier state primary desperately. Selecting party nominees in September is crazy, outdated, and greatly harmful to candidates’ ability to raise money and get their message out.  It should move up; and likewise, Florida’s much earlier Presidential primary should move up as well.

However, the chief effect of frontloading more and more primaries is to make the Presidency a toy for the very richest candidates:  the Clintons, the Bushes, the Giulianis, and no one else.  I’m criticizing none of those folks in saying this.  But honestly:  isn’t it at least possible that someday, some time, someone ought to have a chance to get their message out who is NOT the frontrunner in February of the year before?

Having Iowa a couple weeks before New Hampshire, heading from there — a bit slowly, more slowly if you ask me — to South Carolina:  all of this allows candidates to go to a variety of very different states and show their stuff without having to raise impossible money.  This used to be spread out over months, and it gave people across America a chance to get to know the men (and women) who might lead them.

No more, especially not if California and Florida put their primaries on Feb. 5th.

It’s time for the Parties to step in.  The old system was better, not least in that the old system didn’t require a vast Presidential field to announce two years before the general election.  Rules changes can fix much of this.  They should.

At least that’s my opinion, speaking for regular Americans.  I realize lots of social liberal fat-cats in both parties may disagree.

I’m on a conference call with Karl Rove right now, and he’s just outlined in brief what the President is trying to do with his health plan, widely attacked already as a tax hike even though no one has heard the State of the Union yet.

Well, I’d like to see more details just like everyone else; but what I hear sounds like anything but a tax hike, and a big step toward what we need:  a shift in the system toward greater tax breaks for individuals, small business owners and the uninsured who need to purchase health insurance, and a shift away from the old semi-socialist system that gives the whole tax break to giant Democrat donors, er, corporations.

In other words, as he’s done throughout his term, the President wants to use the free market to help the little guy.  And that’s our position exactly.

Stay tuned.  It will be interesting to see the plan itself.  But what Karl Rove just told me sounds very good.

P.S. No matter what the President announces in his State of the Union, his efforts to enact and expand Health Savings Accounts, the single greatest health care (and economic) reform of our time, have been excellent and continue to be a centerpiece of his plan.  Please sign our petition demanding the Democrats get this vital thing done.

Has anyone else noticed that the Roe v. Wade anniversary has been especially quiet this year?

First things first:  3,600 babies continue to die everyday in America by abortion.  With the amazing advances in science we’ve seen over the past few years, showing how very developed a “fetus” (Latin for “baby”) is at an extremely early age, there’s little room for anyone to argue anymore that these deaths are any different from an infanticide involving a one-month old child.  The point of Roe and Roe’s supporters is that none of that matters:  that the woman’s godlike power of “choice” should trump everything, the father’s rights and opinions, civilization’s historic view of the sanctity of human life, even (and especially) the life of the baby itself.

More people realize this than ever.  The polling has been going our way for years.  So why the quiet?

South Dakota is part of the answer.  As you probably know, South Dakota defeated an outright abortion ban (which was intended as a challenge to Roe) last fall.  However, all polls (including ours) showed all along that South Dakotans, despite the five-to-one funding advantage of Tom Dashle and NARAL, would have gladly passed the ban had it contained an adequate exception for victims of rape and incest.  For those who join Ronald Reagan in pointing out that an innocent baby’s life should not be taken as a sort of human sacrifice to atone for the sins of its father, I would suggest that for this argument, that misses the point.  A state nearly banned all abortions except the tiny minority involving rape and incest — a truly remarkable thing, astonishingly different from the mood of most people a couple decades ago.

Radical feminists realize what this means:  abortion-on-demand’s days are numbered.  And pushing loudly for the same old never-saw-an-abortion-we-didn’t-like agenda is a dangerous thing right now for them indeed.

But the right is quiet too, and I think that’s another thing altogether.  I think most of us are holding our breath.  The Supreme Court may be just one vote from overturning Roe v. Wade.  But it might be willing now; and depending on the President’s ability to appoint another justice before the end of his term, the entire issue may be thrown back to the states before we know it.

In other words, this may just be the calm before the storm.  It’s time to gear up:  we have a real shot at ending infanticide/abortion not just in our lifetime but in the next few years.

There is much to be done:  I encourage everyone to re-read a strategy piece of mine on this from several years ago which outlines some immediate needs (I would update it today to include efforts like the one in South Dakota as well). I would also encourage each of you to sign our petition demanding the Supreme Court uphold Congress’ nationwide ban on Partial-Birth Abortion.

But above all else, don’t give up the fight.  Whether through prayer, adoption, political action of whatever you feel called to do, the battle is nigh.  It is time for this holocaust to end.

The response since our Human Events story has been incredible!  There’s a real hunger in this country for politics that matters, and especially for conservatives with both a brain and a spine.  All of that’s been lacking for a long time; and it’s long past time we made it happen.

There’s still a lot of work to be done here (please pardon our mess).  As noted in the story, our site is still in beta in many respects.  However, tons of stuff is about to come online — you’ll be very pleased — and one of those things debuted this weekend:  our new email system, which is going to give us greater abilities to get you the information you need to know quicker and better than ever.  More on that later.

You are what makes all this run.  Keep the faith.  Republicans may have run in  the ditch last year, but conservatives have not.  We just need to help our country find its way.