Gosh, I would have thought that someone in Wisconsin’s or America’s labor movement would have caught Scott Bauer’s clear June 15 understatement of the net pay hit many unionized public sector workers in the Badger State will be taking as a result of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, commonly known as the “Budget Repair Bill,” once the law’s provisions become effective on July 1. That error is in the following sentence from Bauer’s report (“New lawsuit filed against Wisconsin union law”):

The law also requires workers to pay 12 percent of their health insurance costs and 5.8 percent of their pension costs, which amount to an 8 percent pay cut on average.

The AP reporter apparently spent time which should have gone towards getting the facts right to ensuring, as he did in a June 14 story (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), that the law was described as “polarizing” as often as possible. Bauer’s frequent use of the P-word also seemingly distracted union supporters who read or heard portions of Bauer’s report from noticing the error I will explain shortly.

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Here are key paragraphs from Laura Meckler’s Wall Street Journal’s report on AARP’s “pivot” (read: apparent change of heart) on Social Security reform:

AARP, the powerful lobbying group for older Americans, is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits, a move that could rock Washington’s debate over how to revamp the nation’s entitlement programs.

The decision, which AARP hasn’t discussed publicly, came after a wrenching debate inside the organization. In 2005, the last time Social Security was debated, AARP led the effort to kill President George W. Bush’s plan for partial privatization. AARP now has concluded that change is inevitable, and it wants to be at the table to try to minimize the pain.

“The ship was sailing. I wanted to be at the wheel when that happens,” said John Rother, AARP’s long-time policy chief and a prime mover behind its change of heart.

The shift, which has been vetted by AARP’s board and is now the group’s stance, could have a dramatic effect on the debate surrounding the future of the federal safety net, from pensions to health care, given the group’s immense clout.

“If they come around and say they’re ready to do something, it will be like the Arctic icecap cracking,” said former Sen. Alan Simpson, co-chairman of a White House commission on the deficit. He has frequently assailed the group as a barrier to progress.

At the same time, AARP runs the risk of alienating both its liberal allies, who have vowed to fight any benefit cuts, and its 37 million members, many of whom are deeply opposed to such a move.

I’m not in a forgiving mood. What AARP did to derail rational discussion of Social Security reform in 2005 was reprehensible and, as the organization is now effectively admitting, wrong. Finally coming around after letting the demographic time bomb’s fuse nearly run out during the intervening six years is hardly impressive. I also suspect that whatever AARP believes is “reform” has nothing to do with giving Americans some degree of control over how their money is invested, and has nothing to do with giving them assets they can pass on to their heirs if they don’t survive to retirement. And of course, AARP supported the passage of Obamacare in a case of what was correctly seen as a case of brazen self-interest.

Meckler’s reference to “many” AARP members who would oppose any reform is apt. How “many”? I suspect AARP has polled this internally, and has found that fierce opponents of Social Security reform are in a distinct minority.

Which gets to the membership question I brought up in the post’s title.

Meckler’s reference to “37 million members” caught my eye. That seemed lower than the numbers I’ve seen concerning AARP membership rolls — and it is:

• At Wikipedia’s AARP entry — “AARP claims over 40 million members, making it one of the largest membership organizations in the United States.”
• The link to “Government Watch” at this AARP “Advocacy” page says “AARP’s 40 million members hold their elected officials accountable for their votes on issues of great importance to older Americans.”
• New York Times; October 3, 2009 (“A Heated Debate Is Dividing Generations in AARP”) — “Its 40 million members are split about evenly between those who have access to Medicare, the federal government’s health program for the elderly, and those who are too young to be eligible for such benefits.”
• A current Google News search on [AARP "40 million members] (typed exactly as indicated between quotes) returns four items from the past 30 days, including items predating AARP’s “pivot” from US News and New Hampshire Public Radio.
• A Google News Archive search on the same string but also sorting by date and omitting any items containing the word “nearly” returns 98 items.

But now, Laura Meckler’s reported number is at least 7-1/2% (3 million divided by 40 million) lower than what has been claimed by AARP itself and generally used in media coverage.

In August 2009 (“Seniors Voting with their Feet”), Ed Morrissey at Hot Air noted a CBS News story reported that “Over 60,000 members have left the AARP, angered by the group’s support for Barack Obama’s health-care reform efforts and silence on cuts to Medicare that will pay for them.” Perhaps that number was a very small indicator of a much larger trend.

It may be that AARP’s move was primarily motivated by a need to stop the bleeding caused by millions of members and potential members voting with their closed wallets.

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UPDATE: Thanks to Hot Air Headlines for the link. Keep in mind, based on demographics, as awesomely demonstrated at this graphic at Calculated Risk, AARP’s membership should be increasing, not decreasing.

From Vatican City:

Jun 14, 2011 / 11:19 am

The first three winners of the inaugural Ratzinger Prize for Theology were announced June 14.

The prize was established last year to promote theological study on the writings of Pope Benedict XVI and has been referred to as “the Nobel Prize for Theology.”

“We chose to reward two scholars already well established, and one who is relatively young but very promising,” Cardinal Camillo Ruini remarked at a Vatican press conference.

The two scholars chosen for the prize are Professor Manlio Simonetti, an 85-year-old expert on the Church Fathers who used to teach at Rome’s La Sapienza University, and Professor Olegario González de Cardedal, a 77-year-old specialist in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain.

The youngest of the three winners is Professor Maximilian Heim, a 50 year old Cistercian who teaches dogmatic and fundamental theology at the University of Heiligenkreuz in Austria. He has a particular focus on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, who is the current Pope.

The Ratzinger Prize is the initiative of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. It’s funded by the royalties accrued from Pope Benedict’s writings.

“Modernity has brought with it a dramatic divorce between secular knowledge and religious knowledge,” explained the Italian academic Professor Giuseppe Dalla Torre, who is also one of the prize judges.

“This division has gone through society from the top of the social pyramid,” he said, pointing to universities as the starting point because they are the place where “people, environments and … cultural paradigms and ways of life are forged.”

Dalla Torre said that since universities sit at the top of the social pyramid, it’s necessary to respond by directly and seriously engaging the intellectual elite.

The president of the foundation, Monsignor Giuseppe Scotti, said he wanted to thank the Pope for having “risked an adventure of this kind” in the hope it can “invest in the future of man.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

A Friday Investors Business Daily editorial opined on a positive development in the Senate. Unfortunately, as will be seen after the excerpt, Ohio’s delegation didn’t join in the return to a bit of sanity.

Here are excerpts from the editorial:

A bipartisan group of 73 Senators votes to end both the ethanol tax credit and the tariff on imported ethanol. Maybe we can finally cut the federal deficit and stop putting food in our gas tanks.

Apparently staring at the bottom of an economic abyss concentrates the mind wonderfully, as a, dare we say it, bipartisan group of 38 Democrats, 33 Republicans and both independents in the U.S. Senate voted to end the government boondoggle that subsidizes a wasteful but politically vested form of energy.

We have noted that since Iowa is the first presidential contest it activates the pandering gene in most ambitious politicians and suggested that if the first caucus state were Idaho we would probably be trying to stuff potatoes in our gas tanks.

Even Al Gore has admitted exploiting ethanol in his global warming crusade for political reasons.

The 73-27 vote on an amendment by Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., exceeded the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the measure as part of an economic development bill. While the bill itself is unlikely to go anywhere, the vote, after an earlier disappointing vote on a procedural matter, signals that when the ethanol subsidy expires on Dec. 31 it is not likely to be renewed.

The amendment not only would repeal the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit that subsidizes ethanol producers, a favored industry unlike Big Oil, but also a 54-cent a gallon tariff on foreign ethanol from the likes of Brazil.

… Ethanol has never made much sense economically or environmentally. It never would have made it to market without politically motivated congressional mandates and huge subsidies.

Believers in free markets and less government need to join the effort to shuck corn as an energy source. Corn belongs in our breakfast cereal and on our dinner plates, not in our gas tanks.

The roll call vote indicates that Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a firm non-believer in free markets and less government, voted no. That’s hardly surprising.

But commenter Greg also noted several days ago that alleged conservative and free-market champion Rob Portman also voted no. That’s disappointing, but hardly surprising, for 183,750 reasons, one for each dollar agribusiness PACs contributed to his 2010 U.S. Senate campaign. Portman’s vote reflects the outmoded thinking of someone who is a self-proclaimed — and stubbornly proud of it — Washington insider, and reflects why sensible, constitution-loving conservatives held their noses and hoped for the best when they pulled the lever and voted for him last fall (I couldn’t bring myself to do it).

Rob Portman is not a U.S. Senator representing Ohio. He only accidentally represents the interests of the Buckeye State’s people when those interests happen to coincide with the interests of his PAC and heavy-hitter contributors.

Rob Portman is really a U.S. Senator who represents pay-to-play participants from around the nation. His only meaningful connection with Ohio is that he happens to need enough votes from Buckeye State residents once every six years to be able to continue his pay-to-play representation. He is the poster boy demonstrating why the 17th Amendment was such a serious mistake.

Why businesses are buying more equipment and not hiring more people.

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Thursday.

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On June 10, Catherine Rampell at the New York Times presented what she thought was a seemingly inexplicable and troubling conundrum, which this column will clear up:

Spending on equipment and software has risen 25.6 percent in the last seven quarters, while companies’ aggregate spending on employees has risen only 2.2 percent.

Somehow, capital spending is growing faster and labor spending is growing more slowly than has been the case in almost every previous recovery on record.

A few days later, in an interview with President Barack Obama which has become infamous for his out-of-touch reference to how ATMs are replacing bank tellers — as if that’s something new — NBC’s Ann Curry opportunistically jumped on Rampell’s report to take a shot at America’s private sector:

Curry: You’re here encouraging private sector hiring. This just after the New York Times this past Friday reported that business have spent just 2% more on hiring people while at the same time spending 26% more on equipment. So why at a time when Corporate America is enjoying record profits have you been unable to convince business to hire more people, Mr. President?

Obama: I don’t think it’s a matter of me being unable to convince them to hire more people, because they’re making decisions based on what will be good for their companies.

The statist subtext of Curry’s words was offensive enough. Her venom is even more apparent if one looks at the interview segment’s video. What she really seemed to want to ask was: “Darn it, why aren’t these companies doing what they’re supposed to do? Don’t they know it’s their duty to follow your wishes, Mr. President?”

In Curry’s world, companies apparently have an obligation to spend their “record profits” (itself a questionable contention; corporate income tax collections of $85 billion through May of fiscal 2011 are less than half of what they were through May 2008) on hiring people, even when doing so doesn’t make sense. If it did, Ann, they’d be doing it. Worse, she seems to believe that El Presidente should be able to “convince” companies to add people even if doing so costs more than the newbies will contribute. It’s as if she’s begging Obama to use the bully pulpit — and to go further, if necessary — to “persuade” and if necessary force employers to take on people they don’t need or want.

Obama’s initial answer to Ms. “Command and Control” Curry was uncharacteristically good. Of course businesses have to look out for “what will be good for their companies.” Obama’s statement just before his awful ATM cite was also correct:

There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers.

Ah, but what are these “structural issues,” Mr. Obama? What is so fundamentally different about this attempted recovery compared to “almost every previous recovery on record”?

At the Times, Ms. Rampell only nibbled around the edges, citing “rising benefits costs and, in particular, rising health insurance costs.” But employee benefits have been increasing much faster than wages and salaries almost continuously since World War II. Why would they have a disproportionately negative effect this time around?

On Tuesday, Douglas French at the Christian Science Monitor, commenting on Rampell’s work, blamed the 2007-2009 hikes in the minimum wage. There is no doubt that an artificially high minimum wage is harmful to job-seeking teens and low-skilled workers. But in real terms, the current minimum is about 25% lower than it was at its peak in 1968. So in theory and in ordinary circumstances, perhaps those who thought that the job market might be able to absorb such large increases without hurting employment too badly had some basis for that belief.

Except for one thing: These aren’t ordinary circumstances.

In March 2010, Congress passed and Obama signed a certain law. Nicknamed “Obamacare,” this law “will force most American business firms to offer government-approved health insurance to their employees or else pay new federal taxes for not doing so.” The legislation will apply to any employee “working 120 hours per month.”

But why does Obamacare matter if it mostly won’t kick in for another 2-1/2 years? That’s easy, but clearly not well understood.

If you are running a business, you structure it and design your future plans based not only on the world as it is today, but also on what it may look like in the reasonably near future. You must prepare yourself for likely worst-case scenarios. The one relating to employment is that Obamacare will survive legal and electoral challenges. Facing that possibility, you avoid hiring people. When looking at “man vs. machine” decisions, you choose the machine if it’s at all affordable. You do everything you can to squeeze productivity out of your current crew, even larding on extra duties and overtime if they can handle it.

Additionally, companies are run by human beings who, especially at smaller businesses, really hate to have to let people go (and of course, they, like their larger brethren, also must worry about unemployment insurance costs, wrongful termination lawsuits, and the like). If you believe that having additional employees around will become cost-prohibitive in 2014, you avoid hiring them today. Combine all of this with historically weak post-recession economic growth, and you have the perfect recipe for what has resulted: lackluster hiring, heavy use of part-timers and temporary help, and the aforementioned bias towards automation.

There’s a quick answer which mostly explains why these job-market and economic conditions are present. It’s not what Ann Curry apparently believes and wants her viewers to believe, which is that it’s some kind of unprecedented orchestrated exercise in corporate greed.

Five words explain businesses’ rational response: Machines are exempt from Obamacare.

From Atlanta:

June 14, 2011 7:36 am ET

There have only been two cases of people surviving after contracting rabies. That is until now. An 8-year-old girl is now the third rabies victim to beat the deadly disease.

In April the 8-year-old Precious Reynolds from California, contracted rabies from a rabid cat, who scratched her outside her elementary school.

In May the girl’s grandmother took her to the doctor because of flu-like symptoms. However, after running several tests doctors confirmed Precious had rabies.

“Rabies was not on my list,” Dr. Theresa Vlautin, her pediatrician at Children’s Hospital, told the Sacramento Bee. “It’s very, very rare to get rabies in a human – there about 30 cases in the world.”

After the virus is active and symptoms have started, it’s too late to give the necessary vaccines that are given following an animal bite or scratch.

“None of us thought she would leave the PICU,” Krystle Realyvasquez, a nurse who cared for Precious, said in the statement. “When she did it was unbelievable.”

The girl’s treatment was a combined effort of the University of California Davis Children’s Hospital, federal and state health officials and Atlanta based CDC.

Precious received the same treatment as Jenna Geise did in 2004, after she contracted rabies from a bat. She was the first such survivor.

Doctors placed Precius in a drug-induced coma as she received anti-viral medication. She spent two weeks in intensive care and was then moved to the hospital’s general pediatric unit.

Her doctor says, “From the very beginning, Precious had a very rapid, robust immune response to her infection, which is a significant contributor to why she survived.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

Thursday morning, initial weekly unemployment claims as reported by Uncle Sam’s Department of Labor came in at a seasonally adjusted 414,000. It was 16,000 lower than the previous week’s upwardly revised (as usual) number, but certainly no indicator in and of itself of meaningful improvement.

The housing industry data really wasn’t any better. True, the seasonally adjusted figures from the Census Bureau for building permits issued and housing units started were somewhat improved, but the raw data still had several examples of record weakness.

Wait until you see the headline the Associated Press applied to a story covering the DOL and Census reports by Derek Kravitz and Christopher Rugaber:

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(Links are from my findings unless otherwise noted: All commentary unquoted commentary is mine)

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At Gallup — “Generic Republican 44%, Obama 39%” (HT Hot Air via Instapundit). This means a sensible, constitution-loving conservative kicks Obama’s butt by double digits.

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(via Greg) At the Washington Times – “Lawmakers sue to end U.S. role in Libya fight”:

By Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, that will have grown to $1.1 billion, with an additional $50 million spent on munitions over the final four months.

Obama administration officials said those funds are being shifted from within the Defense Department, and it doesn’t see a need to request emergency funds from Congress.

In other words, likely necessary ordinary defense spending is being cut to fund an unauthorized foreign adventure.

By contrast, Bush 43 got resolutions from Congress before sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. Who’s the real warmonger here?

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At the Hill (HT Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s place) — “Pelosi’s wealth grows by 62 percent.” It went from “at least” $21.7 mil to “at least” $35.2 mil during 2010. I’ve seen similar forms. The figures are likely much, much lower than the actuals.

Nice work if you can get it. Too bad so many people can’t even find work.

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(via Greg) In a Washington Times editorial — “States challenge feds on guns; Ninth Circuit hears case to nullify federal intrastate firearm regulations.” Specifically:

Eight states have thrown down the gauntlet and denied the federal government’s authority to regulate firearms that never cross state lines.

… The Justice Department wants (wannabe intrastate gunmaker Mr. (Gary S.) Marbut’s lawsuit thrown out and Montana’s firearms-freedom statute nullified.

Greg would like to see Ohio enact a similar law.

Hmm. This would seem to a natural cause for supposedly born-again Second Amendment fan, concealed carry permit holder, and Buckeye State Attorney General Mike DeWine — except that his past includes ringing endorsements from the Brady campaign, and his 2010 campaign position in support of gun rights, including his and Recipe Fran’s permits, were nothing but cynical poses to counteract the consistent pro-gun rights position of his Democratic opponent.

Prove me wrong, Mike.

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From Luba Sindler at American Thinker (HT Confederate Yankee via Greg) — Take it from someone who’s been there, done that, fled that, and is seeing it again (bold is mine):

When candidate Obama showed up, I realized that I had heard his typical stump speech every single day of my old Soviet life from big and small Communist party bosses — the same structure, the same cadences, the same bogeymen, the same demagoguery, the same targets. The American people had no defense against this rhetoric. The result of the elections was totally predictable. To me it was a “Back to the Future” moment.

Imagine you are having a terrible nightmare. Just as you are about to suffer torture or certain death, you wake up and realize the sun is shining, your family is peacefully sleeping, and everything is in place. After enjoying a few blissful moments, you turn your head and see that hideous monster from your dream coming after you for real. This image described the trajectory of my life perfectly. Running from Communism, finding the safe haven and a new life, and now to have the same wrecking crew coming even here?

Yep.

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The FDA as a de facto Death Panel — This is from the Wall Street Journal in mid-April (HT at the end of a maze to Dad29 via Greg):

Shortage Worsens of Leukemia Drug

A shortage of a key leukemia drug that started last year has worsened, causing many major cancer centers such as the Johns Hopkins Hospital to start rationing the drug and others to turn away patients from community hospitals that have run out of the medication.

The three companies that make the drug, called cytarabine, have all suffered production difficulties in the past year. Only one of them, Hospira Inc., is currently shipping the drug, but only in limited quantities that are not nearly enough to meet demand. A shortage in 2010 of the active ingredient used to make cytarabine slowed production at Hospira.

The back story, which the Journal should have told and didn’t, is that FDA, beyond micromanaging manufacturing processes beyond all reason, is actually dictating how much companies can produce, as explained at the Health Affairs blog (bold is mine):

The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been stepping up its quality enforcement efforts — levying fines and forcing manufacturers to retool their facilities both here and abroad. Not only has this more rigorous regulatory oversight slowed down production, the FDA’s “zero tolerance” regime is forcing manufacturers to abide by rules that are rigid, inflexible and unforgiving. For example, a drug manufacturer must get approval for how much of a drug it plans to produce, as well as the timeframe. If a shortage develops (because, say, the FDA shuts down a competitor’s plant), a drug manufacturer cannot increase its output of that drug without another round of approvals. Nor can it alter its timetable production (producing a shortage drug earlier than planned) without FDA approval.

My late father worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 30 years until the mid-1990s and was involved in quality control during that entire time. He talked about the out-of-control FDA a lot, but he never, ever said a word about dictating levels of production.

The FDA is engaging in Soviet-style central planning, with tragically predictable results. The agency’s behavior dates back to Bush 43, but as would be expected, it seems to have ramped upon El Presidente Obama’s arrival. Some people in life-and-death situations are not getting the drugs they need. If Obamacare ever kicks in, “some” will become “most” in relatively short order.

In an editorial last night that starts out being about Mitt Romney earning the coveted Al Gore endorsement, Investors Business Daily delivers a serious de facto warning to GOP primary voters, while understating its valid conclusion:

Al Warms To Mitt

“Good for Mitt Romney,” Gore blogged Wednesday afternoon. “While other Republicans are running from the truth, he is sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the Republican Party.”

At a recent New Hampshire town hall meeting, Romney “stuck to the position he has held for many years — that he believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to it,” said the Washington Post.

A year and a half ago, the Climate-gate scandals showed that “scientists” — actually, government-funded global warming activists — were skewing climate data and trying to silence climate change skeptics.

But Romney’s campaign says he can’t reconsider global warming because he’s already flip-flopped on too much else — including abortion and government-run health care. Democrats such as DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz are having a field day accusing Romney of being a chameleon who has to “debate with himself on where he is on any issue.”

Romney also has no economic plan to speak of, and liberal New Republic writer Jonathan Chait blogged Monday it’s because doing so would “undercut the political salience of his managerial reputation.”

So avoiding being seen as a flip-flopper (it’s too late, pal; see this graphic) is more important than being right? Having no plan for a pathetic economy and our dire fiscal situation is “smart”?

O … M … G. This is the resume, and the mindset, of a loser, and if he were somehow to win anyway, an incredibly dangerous and unpredictable White House occupant (yes, potentially more dangerous than the current one, because of that unpredictability).

IBD elaborates (bolds are mine):

There is something disquieting, however, about a liberal like Gore issuing a public bravo for the Republican front-runner. Could it be that Democrats fear Romney’s more ideas-focused rivals for the GOP nod? Do they want Romney to stay strong so a Chris Christie or Rick Perry doesn’t enter the race, generating excitement for Reaganite grass-roots voters?

One of Ronald Reagan’s favorite quotes was Victor Hugo’s observation that “no army can stop an idea whose time has come.” And the idea Reagan had in mind was a less-interventionist government creating “a climate in which the entrepreneurial genius of the private sector can do what it does best — namely, create new wealth, new possibilities of employment.”

Some Democrats seem to be convinced Romney doesn’t stand for that — and therefore want him to be the one to face President Obama in November 2012.

IBD is being too kind. Democrats and the establishment press running interference for him know that Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney really “doesn’t stand for that.” They want to have Romney be Barack Obama’s November 2012 opponent so badly they can taste it.

If Romney gets the GOP nomination, 2012 will become the Seinfeld campaign — all about nothing — at perhaps the worst possible time in American history for that to happen. Add this to the long, long list of reasons why he must be rejected.

From Americus, Georgia:

Kansas City Chiefs player Leonard Pope is being hailed as a hero by a south Georgia mother, who credits him with saving her son from drowning.

Anne Moore said her son, 6-year-old Bryson, was at a pool party Saturday when she saw him go under water and she began screaming for help.

“Leonard was inside, and he came out of nowhere and dove into the water without any hesitation, cell phone in his pocket and all,” Moore told the Americus Times-Recorder.

Pope, responding to Moore’s cries for help, said he could no longer see Bryson above the water.

“All I saw was his fingertips at the top of the water and I couldn’t see his head,” Pope told ESPN.

Pope said he has children of his own, and that he would want someone to do the same for them.
“I just knew I had to do something,” he said. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

It goes back to last Friday (“Default, dear Brutus, is not in our stars”), but the truth of the following statement certainly hasn’t changed in the meantime:

There is not enough money on the planet for what the Permanent Governing Class is doing. If Americans decline to grasp that central truth, this country will die.

Rasmussen’s specifics (HT Hot Air):

- Romney – 33%
- Bachmann – 19%
- Cain – 10%
- Gingrich – 9%
- Paul – 7%
- Pawlenty – 6%
- Santorum – 6%
- Huntsman – 2%
- Someone else – 8%

This is a very, very soft 14-point lead. Romney is the only guy many voters have heard of; Bachmann just announced; Cain’s name recognition is still low; Paul’s (and Cain’s, and Bachmann’s) supporters will never move to Romney; and, because of the RomneyCare millstone, most others will fiercely resist a move to Romney if/when any of the other guys drop out.

The biggest problem with Romney is obvious, and has been proven time and time again. I hope opponents will employ this five-word crystallization: He has no Constitutional compass.

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UPDATE: Romney has picked up the coveted Al Gore endorsement (internal link in original) —

Former Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday praised GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his acknowledgement of global climate change.

Gore, who has championed climate issues since losing the 2000 presidential race, posted a note on his blog that praised Romney for being consistent on his position that humans have contributed to rising global temperatures.

Too bad the consensus appears to be moving towards a cooling earth.

UPDATE 2: Praise for Romney continues to pour in. Here’s another — Unindicted terrorist funding co-conspirator CAIR is saying good things about the Mittster (HT Creative Minority Report via commenter Greg).

UPDATE 3: I also meant to note that Rick Perry’s entrance would be more likely to take support from Romney and other establishment candidates (Pawlenty, Gingrich, Santorum) than from Bachmann, Cain, or Paul.