Conservatives

A new poll from Gallup today finds that a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents find Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney "acceptable" nominees for the GOP. For Gingrich, 62 percent of those polled said the former House speaker was an acceptable Republican nominee, while 54 percent said the same for Romney. The remaining six Republicans, including former candidate Herman Cain, were deemed "not acceptable" candidates for the party's nomination.

Against Reform
by John Pepall
Toronto, 176 pp., $19.95

Canada’s Conservative party won a clear majority in last week’s federal election. So the Canadian constitution is safe, for now.

It’s not war but a “time-limited, scope-limited military action.” The United States has been in the lead, but will be stepping back, ASAP, in favor of command (supposedly) by a squabbling coalition of the not-so-willing. The objective of the “kinetic military action”—which is going to last days, not weeks, unless it does last weeks—isn’t regime change in Libya. Our broader objective, however, is to topple Muammar Qaddafi.

Mary Katharine Ham wonders if Krugman's Ph.D. is in Epistemic Closure, not economics. After reading this squib from Krugman, it's a legitimate question:

Conservatives are fond of denigrating Barack Obama as a foreign policy wimp, a president determined to demonstrate American weakness around the world, one begging for dialogue with dictators, and apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined.  Even if overdrawn, there has been justification for this line of criticism.

Ben Smith has an interesting piece in Politico on differences between conservatives regarding the Justice Department’s dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Conservatives came in first in Thursday’s election in Great Britain, but it’s their failure to win a majority that Republicans should examine for the lessons it teaches.  If the GOP listens, they’ll improve their chance of winning control of Congress in the congressional midterm election on November 2.

On Wednesday morning, it looked as though Gordon Brown might have stalled Cleggmania, inching back into second place in some polls. But then he met Gillian Duffy. 

Duffy, a senior citizen and lifelong Labour supporter, bumped into Brown as the prime minister was leaving a meet-and-greet in the town of Rochdale. Duffy told him she was almost ashamed to say she was a Labour voter, and while she would vote for Brown, she had concerns about the national debt, taxes, and immigration. The exchange ended amicably, with Duffy wishing Brown good luck as he climbed into his car. But the prime minister forgot he was wired for sound and lashed out at his aides for allowing Duffy to speak with him. Brown branded the exchange a disaster and called Duffy a "bigoted woman" as his car was leaving the scene.

The closer Britain gets to election day, the more uncertain things become. One uncertainty, however, seems to have been cleared up - Gordon Brown and the Labour Party are out of contention. 

The first debate resulted in Nick Clegg and the third place Liberal Democrats surging into close competition with David Cameron's Conservatives for first place. And while Cameron got a bit of a boost in the second debate, Clegg was able to maintain his rising status. As for Brown, he's now seeing some of Labour's lowest poll ratings ever, and he seems to be losing any chance of winning the most seats despite finishing third in the popular vote.

On this day, often dedicated to genuflecting to Gaia and her regulatory, busy-body apostles, it's worth remembering that capitalism bought us the luxury of having environmentalists in the first place, and the free market has greened large parts of the world without their help.

Don Boudreaux keeps a running log of his observations of this phenomenon under the heading "Cleaned by Capitalism."

Cato celebrates Earth Day in its way: