I say “for the moment,” because only a dopey pundit like me would assert that this race is over, as I did immediately after the Florida primary.

Nevertheless, things are looking good for Santorum. Events, again “for the moment,” are swinging his way, with Obama coming under heavy, and justifiable, criticism from conservatives and some liberals for crossing the line on religious freedom. The Obama administration issued what amounts to a diktat to Roman Catholics to toe the liberal line on birth control, even to the extent of paying for the contraceptives their faith finds immoral. For shame.

Santorum, the candidate most associated with religious faith, should profit from this execrable policy, especially in the short run. But definite perils are ahead for the Republican Party if it allows Santorum-style social conservatism to dominate the election. And those perils go well beyond the obvious that the campaign will be largely about the economy.

The greatest danger is that Rick Santorum will be singled out as the spokesperson for extreme right-wing religiosity and made to look like a bigot to the largest voting group in our country — the independents. This is particularly true in the area of gay rights, but not because those people favor gay marriage. The majority of them probably don’t. But most people these days have homosexuals among their friends, family, or work colleagues and don’t appreciate even the whiff of bigotry. It’s become a big no-no.

Santorum does not have a good track record in that regard. He is the only politician I know of who merits his own Wikipedia entry on the subject: “Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality.”

Some of the quotations at that site from the former senator are not pretty. In one rather notorious interview with Lara Jakes Jordan of the Associated Press, Santorum, defending his position on sodomy laws, which he apparently supports, or supported then, asserted he did not oppose homosexuals, but rather homosexual acts. In other words, it’s fine to be a homosexual, as long as you don’t have a sex life.

On the marriage issue, he picked a rather peculiar analogy:

In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.

On the day of the Minnesota caucus, shocking video from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas – broken here first at PJ Media – shows how easy it is to register NFL stars Tim Tebow, Tom Brady and practically anybody else to vote in that state.

No identification of any sort is needed, just a name! In fact, you can take 20 application forms home, fill them in, check the “no ID” slot and batch register people in absentia. Even local election officials are dismayed with the complete lack of authentication of any sort. On the video, they admit “We’re not the police.”

The above version is ten minutes. The uncut, one-hour version is now available below.

Minnesota voter registration form — note third slot for registering without identification.

Updated with uncut video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

They are Steve Grammatico, Bill Kotzbucher, and Jerry Jordan. All three gentlemen will receive iPad2s plus a three-month free subscription to PJTV.

We asked the three wizards how they arrived at their conclusions, by-passing thousands of competitors.

Steve Grammatico told us:

How did I formulate my predictions? I ignored the polls because they were all over the place and changing, it seemed, every ten minutes. I went with my gut. Took me about thirty seconds. Forgot to factor in the write-ins, but I guess that didn’t matter.

And then he added:

Actually, I did employ a stratagem, worked out over several years, involving bivariate analysis, interval variables, and the effects of stratified sampling on Likert Scale datasets. I’d be happy to entertain questions from Rasmussen and Gallup about my methodology.

You will not be surprised to learn that Mr. Grammatico is a satirist who has written for Big Government.

As for Bill Kotzbucher:

I heard about the contest through the PJ Media website. I’m a regular reader.

I entered the contest because my wife has recently observed that I never win anything. I’d like to tell you that I had a specific method but all I did was to recall a recent poll and then adjust to hit exactly 100%. In other words, it was mostly blind luck.

The only other thing I would like to add is that your site has some of the most intelligent conservative writing on the web.

No, we didn’t pay Mr. Kotzbucher to say that and he’s still only getting one iPad. As for Jerry Jordan, well, he didn’t share with us his methods, which may mean he is the man to watch in the next Nostradamus Contest.

That one, most probably, will be a real mind bender — Super Tuesday. I’d have enough trouble counting the number of primaries for that one, let alone predicting the percentages in all of them. Hell, I don’t even think I could predict who will be running at that point.

Nevertheless, a lot of people had fun with this contest, so we are pushing on to the next. No word on what the prizes will be, but watch this space. One thing I can predict — it won’t be an all-expense paid cruise on the Costa Concordia.

Meanwhile… big congratulations to the winners. I understand Mr. Grammatico is going to appear on PJTV to accept his award. At that point, he may explain what Likert Scale datasets are.

But I’ve seen a few fat ladies singing myself in the amusingly ersatz courtyard of Sheldon Adelson’s The Venetian hotel in Vegas. Sometimes it was Traviata, sometimes Aida, sometimes even Lucia di Lammermoor.

And, although I wasn’t in attendance this time, I think the fat lady was singing there again tonight, an aria bringing a quick conclusion to that opera called the Republican nominating competition.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m glad it’s over. This opera — not composed by Verdi, Puccini, or anyone close — was getting pretty screechy.

The candidates had nothing left to say. After all, three of them (not Paul, of course) pretty much agree with each other about everything of substance. The debates were no more than puerile exercises in name-calling, orchestrated and encouraged by the mainstream media. The rest of the candidates’ salvos, those outside the debates, again pretty much amounted to the same thing, trying to convince the voters the other guy was lying when he said exactly what the rest of them were saying. How edifying… Okay, I’m kidding. How mind-numbing. How self and mutually destructive.

So when the fat lady began singing the final aria, “Romney has won in Nevada! Romney has won in Nevada! From The Venetian to the Wynn, Romney has won!” I had no choice but to join the chorus — not because I think Romney is anything special (I don’t think politicians in general are anything special, not until they prove themselves against history in big ways like Reagan and Churchill) but because this opera has gone on too long. This is Wagner times ten.

It not only is over, it should be over. And if Republicans have any interest in winning against Barack Obama, they better make it over.

Because beating Obama is getting harder by the minute. The train is leaving the station, as the say, and that train is called lower unemployment numbers. In case you live on former planet Pluto, the unemployment rate just went down to 8.3%. Maybe it’s bogus. Indeed, I suspect it’s bogus.(Romney tonight spoke of 15% real unemployment — including those who have stopped looking — in his victory speech.) But if the American public can be convinced the economy is improving — and you can bet the media and the administration will do their best to make it so — Obama II is here. Book it.

To the myriad conservative pundits screaming Romney’s a fake, Gingrich is sleazy, etc., etc., I say “Shut up, already!” This isn’t sports. It’s history.

This article apparently set off a @#$%storm in the already beleaguered warmist community, including the NY Times‘ leading enivro blogger, The Guardian, a gaggle of “climate scientists” led by Kevin Trenberth of Climategate fame, and the rest of the usual suspects. It’s amazing these people still cling to their views, but cling they must, I suppose, even in the face of more bad news like this from The Daily Mail: “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about” (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again).

The supposed “consensus” on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. [Remember them? -ed.] It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

After his solid victory in South Carolina, Gingrich did not continue the obvious strategy that got him there – running against Barack Obama by presenting himself to Republican voters as the great orator and thinker who could bring down the noxious incumbent, the man who rose above internecine intra-party squabbles for the greater good of his country.

Instead, he did the exact opposite. He spent the balance of his time in Florida running against Romney when he had already beaten the former governor in South Carolina. Talk about dumb. Newt let his personal antipathy overwhelm his good sense. He played defense about the picayune and the irrelevant when he should have played offense on the philosophical and substantial.

No wonder Gingrich’s poll numbers dropped and dropped. What the Republican electorate cares about is Obama and who can beat him. Newt took his eye off the ball, wasted time and demeaned himself attacking Romney — not the least of which was an extraordinarily vicious (not to mention untrue) accusation that Romney denied kosher food to Holocaust victims.

Just ten days ago I asked the question on this site: “Will Newt Gingrich Grow Up — And Win?” Unfortunately, we got the answer sooner than we expected.

Now I know Gingrich fans (and I was one, if you read the column referenced above) are going to say that Romney played dirty first, so Newt had to. Nonsense. If that’s what Gingrich thought, he was far less smart the we give him credit for. He might be a big thinker (at least for a politician), but he’s also a thin-skinned sucker. He should have taken a breath and stayed completely on the high road, keeping whatever “vision thing” he had focused on the big rodeo in November.

If I, with no more political experience than running for junior high school president, knew something so apparent, surely Newt did. But he was unable to follow through on it, unable to keep his cool.

The name of the bull was Gingrich.

The name of the matador was Romney.

There was a banderillero named Santorum and a skinny picador named Ron Paul.

They didn’t sound like Spanish names, but Papa didn’t care. He poured more rum in his daiquiri. You could never have enough, he thought. Sometimes he preferred Myers’s and sometimes he preferred Havana Club. And sometimes he even preferred Maker’s Mark, though he knew that was not rum.

Still, it was good.

He wondered who would win the Florida primary. Papa didn’t like politicians. They didn’t look like Ava Gardener and they couldn’t shoot an elephant. And they told more lies than a movie producer. But sometimes they liked to go deep sea fishing like the one named Hart. So they were not all bad. Just mostly bad.

One of them was the president, but Papa couldn’t remember his name. He was more boring than Francis Macomber. Still, they could help him make some money. Or win one of these iPads. He had never seen one of those, but he heard you could read A Farewell to Arms on it. Or maybe something by John O’Hara, if you could stand that.

Anyway, he was going to enter the contest. He had heard of Nostradamus too, a French geezer who wrote predictions in quatrains. You could say anything you wanted in quatrains. No one could understand you.

But to win the contest you would have to do it in real numbers. This was not good. Well, not necessarily.

But Papa had a plan. He would go to Real Clear Politics and read the latest polls. Papa often went to Real Clear Politics after he had six or seven daiquiris. This time it was clear the matador Romney was ahead of the bull Gingrich. But wasn’t that always so? Well, except for when Manolete got that cornada from the bull of Miura. But that was 1947.

So Papa studied the poll trends and entered the Nostradamus Contest. He thought he could write again if he had that iPad. He wants to tell another story about Mount Kilimanjaro. There is a leopard there. It is frozen. But you know that.

——-

Join Papa and compete in the PJ Nostramadus Contest. Win an iPad and write your version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro — or better. But hurry. Contest closes primary day Tuesday at noon Florida time.

Zane was an extraordinary dog. Of course, all dogs are extraordinary in a way. If I were a believer, I would say they were God’s gift to man. And the death of a dog makes you want to be a believer, to see him cavorting in some canine heaven off into eternity.

I did not have a dog much of my life until I married Sheryl — a dog person — and I cannot imagine not having one now. Dogs are a necessity of life to me, an expression of sanity and love. You take care of a dog and he or she will definitely take care of you, in a deeper way.

Zane was our second greyhound. We adopted him some eight years ago when he was two from one of those rescue programs for retired racers. Zane wasn’t much of a racer though, hence the early adoption. I would joke to friends in a whisper not to say that too loud lest we hurt his feelings.

Still, like all greyhounds, he could really run when in a healthy state, legs moving in tandem, like an antelope.

But largely Zane was the gentlest of pets, friend to man and beast, as the saying goes. In fact, he had a smile so broad when meeting new people, sometimes they would mistake it for a threatening scowl, though Zane was the Ferdinand the Bull of greyhounds.

Who can deliver us from our travails? Who was the greatest pundit of all? Who can tell us who will be the next president of the United States — or even the winner of the Florida primary?

Nostradamus, the 16th Century French apothecary and seer, of course. Unfortunately, he’s been dead for 446 years.

But have no fear: PJ Media is running a contest to discover a new Nostradamus — in fact three of them — and that could be you!

Be one of three top contestants to guess the order of the remaining Republican candidates — Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul — down to percentage points (e.g. 37.7%) in the Florida Primary of Tuesday, January 31 and you will win an iPad from PJ Media. And have some fun doing it!

You’re free to put your predictions at the bottom of this post. But they DO NOT count in the contest. To enter the contest go HERE.

Participants have to provide a valid email address to enter to win. By providing their email address, participants will be signed up to receive the PJ Media Daily Digest. Delivered every Monday through Friday, this email highlights editors’ picks and the most popular stories featured on PJMedia.com that day. It’s a quick read that will help you stay in the know about current events — delivered straight to your mailbox. We think you will love it, but if you decide you no longer want to receive the email, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link located at the bottom of the email.

People who are already signed up for the PJ Media Daily will be allowed to enter the contest. You also have to be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the United States to enter.

The contest closes at 12:00 p.m. Eastern (9 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday, Jan. 31.

The top three people who come closest to predicting the actual results will win an iPad. We will compare predictions to the results posted on the FL Division of Elections website. Winners will be notified on Wednesday, February 1.

The winners also will be featured in the PJ Media Daily Digest email, the PJ Tatler, Facebook, and Twitter.

Again, to enter the contest, go HERE.

Who can tell (Nostradamus?) … if it’s successful, we may do it again on Super Tuesday.

We do all know this: He’s the best debater and close to the most brilliant mind in American politics, regardless of party. If, at the ripe old age of 68, he can finally mature emotionally to somewhere approximating his intellectual development, he could become the next president of the United States. And he might even be a great one.

Lord knows we need it. I am one of those who is easily suckered by Newt because I enjoy hearing the ideas — even seeing the workings — of an original mind. It’s a rare thing, particularly in politics.

But Newt has a big ego. And you don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to realize that means somewhere he is insecure. He wants to make sure we know he is the smartest guy in the room. And, as with any of us, that isn’t always true. There’s always someone out there who’s brighter, some Djokovic to knock Nadal and Federer off the stand.

We all have to face that, no matter how good we are. Al Gore was never able to. Newt Gingrich should learn from him. If, as Newt says, he really is such a devout religious convert, now is the time to show humility, not with the mainstream media or Barack Obama, but with the rest of us — the ones would elect him president.

He should continue to eviscerate the MSM. They are so reactionary in their essence they don’t even realize it. But he doesn’t need to trumpet the greatness of Newt. He just needs to tells us what he intends to do.

We all know he’s had a dicey private life and that he has profited from the execrable Fannie and Freddie. He should just move on, not defend himself stupidly or tell us who thinks he was more virtuous in a private relationship. Most of us don’t care and know there are two sides to practically any personal story anyway.

He also should quit the baloney about giving history lessons to larcenous execs at Fannie and Freddie. We all know that’s crock. Just move on and tell us about the future. It might even be smart to admit you did something wrong. We all have.

Everything is amazingly fluid these days, but at this juncture, Saturday night January 21, 2012, happy days are here again for Newt Gingrich. He’s been given a second chance by the voters of South Carolina.

But the dark side of that is its probably his last chance. We’re all giving Newt a second look because we know how good he can be, how… dare I use the word… possibly visionary.

But this is his last chance. He blows it this time and it’s over. And not only for him…. possibly for us as well.