As Shakespeare once wrote, “this looks not like a nuptial.”  After blowout wins in Florida and Nevada, Mitt Romney wanted a leisurely February and a crushing Super Tuesday victory in early March, and his former chief rival, Newt Gingrich, looked totally ready to hand it over.  By seriously attempting to contest Nevada, where Romney repeated his massive 2008 victory, Gingrich may have put another lid on his oft-ruptured coffin.  This time, however, Rick Santorum was there to sprinkle garlic on it, and when the votes were tallied, Mitt Romney had lost three contests that an “inevitable frontrunner” should have breezed through… not to the sullen Gingrich, but to the former Pennsylvania senator whose persistence also snatched Iowa from Romney’s column.

Particularly damning was Romney’s loss in Colorado, a state that he won with 60% of the Republican primary vote when he ran in 2008.  Back then, Romney was running to the right of the “moderate” John McCain.  What last night showed was that his purported strength was based not on his likability but McCain’s dis-likability and the last-ditch desire for “anyone else” amongst the hard-right of the Republican electorate.  Now that hard-right has taken over the party, particularly in places like Colorado, and Romney is the one left holding McCain’s “moderate” reins.

With that said, McCain still won the nomination in 2008.  Unlike McCain, though, whose Florida primary win triggered a tidal wave of winner-take-all delegate victories on a crowded Super Tuesday in February that crushed his divided opposition, Romney got swept in a sort of twilight period that’s leading up to a more leisurely proportional-delegate-filled Super Tuesday in March.  He needed to maintain that inevitable feeling to wash Gingrich and Santorum out of the race.  Instead, he just made things harder for himself, exposing his weaknesses and robbing himself of the time he’s going to need to pivot to a general-election-tailored message.

So what happens between now and March 6, that all-important date when Romney’s backers will see if his extreme leads in money and organization pay off (spoiler alert: they probably will)?  What can the spoiler candidates do to knock him off his ragged-but-still-standing high horse?  Let’s go down the calendar.  First, the CliffsNotes version, for ease of reference:

• Feb. 10: The Conservative Political Action Conference (“CPAC”) in Washington, D.C..
• Feb. 11: Maine caucus results partially announced.
• Feb. 22: Republican Debate #20 (in Arizona, on CNN)
• Feb. 28: Arizona and Michigan primaries.
• Mar. 1: Unconfirmed Republican Debate #21 (in Georgia, on CNN)
• Mar. 3: Washington Caucuses.
• Mar. 6: Super Tuesday: AK “district conventions”; ID & ND Caucuses; TN, VA, VT, GA, MA, OH, OK Primaries (WY begins voting too).

February 10: CPAC.

An evening of grandstanding in Washington D.C. for three candidates (Ron Paul isn’t gonna go).  Expect big speeches, red meat, and generally more of the same from the candidates.  All three will attack the President while making their pitches.  The question will really be how much they decide to attack one another. Gingrich is the real wild card here.  He’s mad as hell and needs press badly.  If he goes atomic, I’d give the response 80% odds of being dismissive and 20% odds of being “angry Newt makes his five thousandth comeback.”

February 11: Maine caucus results partially announced.

Maine has adopted a leisurely voting system this year.  Different counties have just been voting whenever they feel like it.  On February 11th, the state party will announce all the results they have from counties who have voted so far.  The only candidate who’s campaigned up there has been Ron Paul, and given the Far Northeast’s libertarian bent, he’ll probably do rather well.  But it won’t even be a complete snapshot – the last caucus isn’t even held until March 3, just before Super Tuesday.

Expect some flutter if Santorum does better-than-expected up there, but realistically, Romney and Paul will dominate and no one will really pay attention beyond a news-blip alert the day the partial results are announced.  The real next big event isn’t a voting contest at all.

February 22: The Great Debate.

There are two, count ‘em, two debates scheduled between now and Super Tuesday, but only one is confirmed, and only one is being held before Arizona and Michigan vote at the end of the month: this one.  It’ll be in Arizona and moderated by CNN, who have hosted Newt Gingrich’s best (Second South Carolina) and worst (Second Florida) debates this year.

What does that paucity of debates mean?  Well, for candidates not named “Mitt Romney,” particularly Newt Gingrich, it’s bad news.  Free airtime is the way these candidates maintain momentum in the face of crushing advertising buys from Romney’s Super PACs.  Everyone (except Ron Paul) will go onto that stage desperate to be called the winner.

For Gingrich, who has burned through his money and is now shifting to a Santorum style-strategy of campaigning in Ohio exclusively to keep his hopes alive, it’s do or die.  Santorum, who showed himself to be pretty adept at a sharp elbow in the two Florida debates, will need to keep that up under increased scrutiny.  Romney will need to turn in an above-the-fray/we-will-bury-you style performance as good as or greater than his last Florida outing.

In short, it’s going to be mutually-assured destruction up there, because both Santorum and Gingrich know that letting Romney breeze through as he did in the New Hampshire debates will likely result in him winning both Arizona and Michigan and getting “back on-track.”  Ironically, this decision to go out fighting will make Ron Paul’s island-podium of calm and occasionally grandfatherly advice look more attractive to moderate GOP voters not eager to vote for any of these putative “front-runners,” but Paul will be focusing more on the Perot Country Super Tuesday states for him to see any real momentum-bounce.

February 28: Arizona and Michigan.

Two moderately big states that “jumped in front” of the Republican starting gun (following Florida’s example) will hold primaries on the same day, a week before Super Tuesday.  Their fundamentals favor Romney.  Arizona has a decent-sized Mormon population, a moderate retiree community, and hometown Senator John McCain (who endorsed Romney).  Michigan is where Romney’s father was governor (and where he won handily in 2008 as a sort of “native son”).  But beneath the favorable optics, real danger lurks.

Santorum said this morning that his target for this primary is Michigan.  It may look strange, but that’s actually smart – Santorum has tailored his retail message for the Midwest, and his runaway victory in Minnesota seems to indicate that he can pull it off pretty well if he’s given the time.  By contrast, forcing Romney to play defense in a state he thought safe will divert resources from Arizona, which may “pull a Colorado” and have its now-livid right-wing electorate revolt against the establishment choice.

But this will serve, as Florida did for Gingrich, as a real test of the sheer might versus plucky determination.  The difference is that Santorum is a better on-the-ground candidate who comes off as less electable.  Gingrich, master of the “grandiose ideas,” was able to puff up his record and rely on people calling him “Mr. Speaker” all the time to make the case that he, at least, looked presidential. Santorum does not look or act “presidential”–at his best, he’s sharp and folksy.  At his worst, he’s petty, shrill, seemingly self-loathing, and, as I’ve said for every one of the almost-twenty debates I’ve watched, looks a bit like a puffy version of Nicholas Cage about to burst into tears.

That being said, Santorum is dogged in a way Gingrich is not–to the point where Gingrich has realized that he needs to learn from Santorum and hold fewer boring rallies and more keyed-in person-to-person appeals.  That strategy works if you have over a year to win one small state (Iowa), or are given a commanding head start in others (Colorado, Minnesota).  The test in AZ and MI will be: can Santorum do it in states where Romney will be barreling down on him like a ton of bricks and Gingrich will be staying out of the way?  The answer is almost certainly “no,” but that makes for low expectations.  Even if the networks can’t call the races once the polls close, Santorum will have an argument that he’s still the favored alternative candidate.

March 1: The Curtain Call (?) Debate.

No candidates have committed to this putative twenty-first (!) debate in Georgia, hosted by CNN.  If Romney does really well in Arizona and Michigan, he may simply say “no,” depriving his underfunded rivals of oxygen or forcing them to turn on each other.  He’ll likely have to commit earlier than that, however, and so he may just take the stage regardless.  If it’s right off the heels of wins in AZ and MI, this will be a curtain call debate.

Even if he’s still somewhat on the ropes, this will likely be the last debate the Romney team will want to participate in.  They have the money to keep on going well past Super Tuesday, and given those primaries’ favorability to the candidate, stomping out national opportunities for his flagging rivals to get him to say something stupid will be very high on his priority list from then on out as he enters the doldrums of a very bad-looking month littered with hostile Southern primaries and one titanic battle in Illinois.

Once again, look for Santorum (and Gingrich much more this time) to play a dog-whistle game to the people who chose unelectable conservatives in the 2010 primaries.  Gingrich is more bombastic about this than Santorum is, but Santorum is actually better on offense in fighting both Romney and Gingrich.

Then again, Santorum has never really been seriously attacked on things like his own lobbying, his pork-barrel spending, and (more than cursorily) his breathtaking 18-point Senate loss in 2006.  Romney (or his Super PACs) will have brought all of those guns into AZ and MI ads.  Santorum’s responses on this stage will determine if he’s able to recover.

March 3: Washington state caucuses.

Your guess is as good as mine as to who’s going to win this one.  Ron Paul will obviously put a lot of effort in here, but given that caucus-goers have thus far been more conservative than primary voters (except maybe in South Carolina), keep an eye on Santorum’s numbers as a leading indicator for Super Tuesday in places like North Dakota, Idaho and Alaska.  If Paul doesn’t come off at least as well as he did in Minnesota, look for his support to fade to true non-factor status in the coming contests.

March 6: Super Tuesday.

More like Sub-par Tuesday!

Sorry, just had to get that out of the way.  As we get closer to the event itself, I’ll do a state-by-state analysis, but here’s what you need to know: only 10 states are voting (21 held Republican contests in the 2008 edition) and none of the contests are winner-take-all (many of them were in 2008, particularly in big states, allowing McCain to wrap everything up).  The states are, once again, favorable to Romney.  He’s going to win Virginia (where the only other candidate on the ballot is Paul), is almost certain to win Massachusetts and Vermont, and is going to play hard in Ohio and Tennessee.

Gingrich finally gets another state where he has natural strength today: Georgia.  He has so much strength there, he reckons, that he can afford to currently be spending all of his time in Ohio, Santorum-style.  If he wins there, he’ll have two fairly large states under his belt and will be able to punch his ticket into a string of smaller Southern primaries where he’ll do much better with some momentum on his side.

Even if he seems to have a better chance of picking up individual states on Super Tuesday than Gingrich does, Santorum’s way forward looks harder, since from there on out he’s really hampered by ballot access and Gingrich’s potential for tailwind in the South.  Only if Gingrich drops and endorses him after today will he have a viable path to the nomination, which means he’s going to have to rely on whatever momentum he’s got from AZ and MI to win Oklahoma, North Dakota and maybe Idaho while also putting a huge stake down in Ohio. But if he keeps Gingrich to just Georgia (or maybe, in a momentum-shocker-to-end-all-shockers, denies him any states), he’s going to be the last anti-Romney standing.

In short, Super Tuesday currently looks like this:

Likely Romney: VA, MA, VT
Leans Romney: TN
Leans Gingrich: GA
Leans Santorum: OK, ND
Toss-up: AK, ID
Super-toss-up-playing-for-all-the-marbles-you-guys: OH

But it could look like anything in two weeks.  From here to March 6, the game is all about whether momentum can overcome a weak-but-well-funded front-runner.  If it can’t, the race will be over.  (If it can… well, stay tuned for another article like this on March 7.)

More Faster News: Iran, Syria & Egypt
More Faster Politics: The Tragedy and Grace of Sgt. Willam Stacey
More from Chas Carey: History Says Republicans Will Lose Big Behind Gingrich; Bio/Disclaimer

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore.

Also aiding Santorum were last week’s high profile battles over social values. The Planned Parenthood decision by the Komen Foundation and the ruling that Catholic hospitals were required to provide contraception restoked the flames of long burning values wars. These issues are Santorum’s bread and butter and he’s able to connect with voters and tap into their resentment. Romney, and Gingrich to a lesser extent, just aren’t able to speak with the same forcefulness on these issues as Santorum.

Of Santorum’s three wins last night, Missouri is the least important. Because of a strange quirk, Missouri’s primary was essentially a glorified poll and delegates will actually be chosen in a mid-March caucus. Santorum had figured that Missouri could be his for the taking; it has a strong evangelical base, Newt Gingrich was absent from the ballot, and Romney wasn’t dedicating many resources to winning it. Still, Santorum’s win had some significance. While turnout was way below 2008 numbers, roughly 250,000 people went to the polls. Santorum had a dominant win, doubling up Romney, while passing the elusive 50% barrier. A meaningless primary means that only the diehards will turnout, a fact that favored Santorum. Social values voters flocked to the polls and gave him a big win.

Santorum had a more meaningful win in Minnesota. Minnesota was seen as a tossup going into it and polls predicted a modest Santorum win. Instead, he cruised to victory, finishing 18% in front of Ron Paul. Minnesota’s Republican party is made up of Christian conservatives, such as Michelle Bachmann, and Libertarians. Despite the lack of his ideal conservative voter and Minnesota’s history of picking outsiders (Jesse Ventura won the governorship as an Independent in 1998), Romney still had high hopes. He was endorsed by his former opponent, Governor Tim Pawlenty, and he had scored a big win there in 2008. Instead, he finished a weak 3rd behind Santorum and Dr. Paul. Romney saw his real vote total drop by about 17,000 votes and his share of the vote drop by about 25%. This is where last night’s results get especially troubling for Romney. If he was able to have such success in the state as John McCain was sailing to the nomination, how can he explain his precipitous drop? An oft quoted number in this election cycle has been that 54% of voters say that the more they get to know Romney, the less they like him. In Minnesota we see proof positive of that fact.

In Colorado we see evidence of the same. Colorado was supposed to be in the bag for Romney last night. Polls predicted a nine point Romney win and instead he lost by 5%, a sharp decline from his 2008 success. In 2008 Romney won 60% of the vote. Last night he won just 35% and saw his vote total drop by about 20,000 real votes. Colorado was the biggest upset last night and it should really trouble the Romney campaign. Despite the facts that Colorado has a substantial Christian Conservative edge (Focus on the Family is headquartered there), it was still supposed to be in Romney’s western wheelhouse. The fact that voters are essentially fleeing the Romney camp cannot bode well for the sense of inevitably his campaign has been advancing.

Let’s get this point out of the way, Newt Gingrich is done. Gingrich’s strength lay in his ability to rage against Democratic strawmen and the fact that he’s not Mitt Romney. Well, it appears Republicans have decided that being not Newt Gingrich is almost as big a virtue as being not Mitt Romney. With Ron Paul appealing only to a very specific sector of the party, it is now a very good time to be Rick Santorum.

But how potentially strong is Santorum? Many in the east coast elite circles I run in see Santorum as a joke. He’s known for his gay bashing and the eponymous scatological phrase it has spawned. But he has an ability to connect with voters; he was able to win a senatorial campaign in Pennsylvania in 2000 as the state was voting for Al Gore. When Santorum speaks he sounds earnest, a sharp contrast to both Romney and Gingrich. Also, Santorum may be more moderate than many like to admit. He comes from the George Bush school of “compassionate conservatism” and that will play better with many voters than Romney who brags about not caring about the poor.

Still, the name of the game is money and Santorum doesn’t have enough, yet. It’s a testament to his political skill that he’s made it this far, winning four of the first eight Republican races, while getting outspent ten to one by Romney and more marginally, yet still significantly, by Paul and Gingrich. Perhaps his big night will inspire more donations as social conservatives are a community that is willing to give. After his Iowa win, I compared Santorum to Tim Tebow, and just like Tebow, Santorum has managed to string together a couple surprising wins.

And what of Mr. Romney? Mitt had a terrible night, made worse by the fact that he was attacked by a would be “glitter” bomber who was stopped by Mitt’s Secret Service detail. There is something poetic about the fact that Romney has a security detail. He has all the accoutrements of a successful candidate — the looks, the money, the security detail — and yet he has none of the successes. Romney should be very scared by the fact that his real vote totals are evaporating in states where he’s had prior success.

The Republican attitude seems to be a pox on both their houses. Conservative Blogger Erick Erickson endorsed “The Sweet Meteor of Death” for president, and seems to be openly pining for a brokered convention. Turnout was way down in all three contests, which is not the sign of a party enthusiastic about any of their choices. Republicans love to point to the Democratic battle of 2008 as reason why a long process is not fatal. But in 2008 the Democrats saw turnout increase, while the Republicans see turnout plunging. It seems like we’re in it for the long haul. At this point I wouldn’t be stunned to see all four candidates take the battle to the convention. All the while, President Obama is surely sitting in the White House thanking his Kenyan Muslim God that he won’t have to run against a tough challenger. All four candidates have significant liabilities and shouldn’t pose too serious a threat to him in November.

(photo courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor)

But he still can’t make himself not seem like an aristocratic nitwit. Case in point, his recent comment that he is “not concerned with the very poor.” Really? Mittens is smart, yet still manages to say stuff that should just never come out of a candidate’s mouth, regardless of context. There seems to be something missing from his brain – some synapse that is not firing, some empathic instinct he just does not have.

It bugs me. Which makes this video compilation of some of his recent missteps all the more satisfying. Give it a quick view and tell me that this guy isn’t off on some other planet. This pretty much says it all.

My take is that Romney is not crazy, he’s just very ambitious and extremely abnormal. That is not a knock on him being Mormon; I’m talking mostly about what you might term his EEQ – his Emotional Economic Quotient. The guy just plain sucks at identifying, assessing, and understanding the economic state of others. To a really startling degree, actually – he’s like a stranger in a strange land, some extraterrestrial anthropologist trying hard to integrate with the natives, but never quite connecting. Except the natives are pretty much everyone who’s not a multimillionaire private equity titan with $21m in investment income and a 13.9% income tax rate.

Not really. If anything, the drop from a lofty 8.5 percent to a more down-to-earth 8.3 percent means private sector businesses are actually hiring again, in increments. That makes sense: if there is hardly any demand for what you sell, you may not have the money to hire someone new. But other businesses seem to hoard capital, which has been well-documented.

The Bureau said the growth in jobs put on the payroll included “large gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing.” Anyone who isn’t good at waiting tables or making widgets is out of luck. The BLS also said about 10,000 new miners descended to work.

“Unemployment rate” is deceptive: note the axiomatic exclusion of those who are no longer in the workforce, and those who are barely employed, say, a part-time gig that pays some scratch but not enough to pay the bills. So, it is in fact good news that the official, insurance-paying (for now) type of being out of work has dropped by a fraction of another decimal point because, living in such a massive country, that adds up to nearly a quarter-million new jobs added. There is some kind of recovery out there going on, slowly. As the Wall Street Journal knows—and even the Occupied Wall Street Journal may’ve known it too—the national economy has to absorb about 150,000 new jobs just to keep pace with population growth. So another 100,000 on top of that is positive.

On Wednesday, Drudge blared headlines that indicated that Trump would endorse Gingrich. In a surprising turn, Trump endorsed Romney with the candidate on hand in Nevada on Thursday. It’s worth reiterating that Romney took time out of his busy campaign schedule to appear with Trump and happily accepted the endorsement. Trump knows how to back a winner, or more specifically, he knows how to get the heck away from a loser. Trump probably awoke to headlines proclaiming that Romney was in store for a big win in Saturday’s Nevada caucus, and reneged on his pledge to Gingrich. If Trump can’t pick a winner in the Republican Primary, how could he determine whether Lou Ferrigno or Clay Aiken is a better apprentice? Trump had earlier criticized Romney for the work Mitt did at Bain Capital. He has recently criticized the entire Republican field, floating a potential third party run. His endorsement will likely have little impact on the race, but indicates growing Republican acceptance of Romney as the nominee. In fact the support of the wealthy Trump, who’s known for a show wherein he ‘fires’ contestants may reflect badly on Romney. Romney’s faced criticism for Bain Capital’s layoffs at companies they acquired, an issue Newt raised Thursday afternoon. Gingrich has taken a populist tact in recent days, which may be a good strategy against the patrician Romney.

Trump said he wouldn’t launch a third party bid if Romney was the nominee. This was probably a big part of his endorsement; there is nothing that scares him more than actually having to run for president. The media coverage is all good and fun when it’s speculative, but once made official the hounds would be all over him. One doesn’t become a mega millionaire without some skeletons in their closet, just ask Mitt Romney. If you think Romney’s tax returns were problematic, Trump’s would probably inspire a collective suicide on the scale of Jonestown. Trump doesn’t want to run for office, he just wants the boost to his ego that coincides with people treating him as though he’s a legitimate political contender.

Saturday’s primary promises to be a boring affair. Though Nevada is a state known for its debauchery, its Republican base is roughly 1/3 Mormon. It’s a caucus state where Mitt’s organization will help him carry the day. Shelly Adelson will suffer a tough defeat in his backyard. Mitt won 51% of caucus voters in 08 at a time when his campaign was flailing and McCain was on his way to solidifying the nomination. Ron Paul got 14% in 08, so with better funding and organization he may well come in second. Santorum just received the endorsement of Tea Party favorite, and losing senatorial candidate, Sharon Angle, so there is some chance that Newt may find himself in fourth. Newt has pledged to go on to the convention so an expected loss in Saturday’s primary will probably do little to deter him. As his campaign spirals further and further out of control, expect him to sharpen his attacks on Romney. The 2012 Republican primary has the potential to severely weaken Romney because of the shear meanness of the candidates. At least Romney has Trump’s endorsement, and an assured spot on the 13th season of The Celebrity Apprentice, should this whole President thing not work out for him.

In an interview Wednesday, he uttered perhaps the most tone deaf statement in American political history. He said, “I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.” Mitt, once again, reinforced just how out of touch he is with the average American. Mitt’s often compared to a used car salesman, but Wednesday’s statement makes him seem like a used car salesman with tourettes. In an instant he reinforced everything that people find distasteful about him, and uttered an unspoken truth that goes with out saying in Republican circles. Of course Republicans don’t care about poor people, the vast majority of their agenda works to undermine governmental protections for the poor. Even their stated economic plan of ‘trickle down economics’ aims to solve the problems of poverty by empowering wealthy Americans to create jobs which will then go to poor folks, allowing the government’s money to ‘trickle down.’ They make no bones about this fact, Democrats aim to give assistance directly to the very poor, whereas Republicans hope that money will somehow diffuse into poor people’s pockets by some form of osmosis. That Romney thinks that there is a sturdy social safety net adds to the ludicrousness of the statement, doesn’t he know that the vast majority of Republican plans to “balance the budget” will be on the backs of the very poor, or is he admitting that and saying that he doesn’t give a damn.

The fact that yesterday’s gaffe isn’t a death blow to the Romney campaign reveals a sad truth about American politics. Many are hesitant to engage in ‘class warfare’ because they don’t want to see themselves as part of the lower class. This is aspirational, but fundamentally silly. The idea that America is still a society where upward mobility occurs with relative ease is ridiculous. Certainly, there are outliers like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, who are able to strike it rich with a genius invention, but the reality is that if you’re an undereducated person in their 30s or 40s, you aren’t going to strike it rich overnight. People are scared and ashamed to admit their real economic reality, and American politics suffers because of it.

Romney’s comment joins a long line of statements that set him apart from the average American. His defense of corporations as people, and his love of firing service employees, clearly illustrate that he’s a plutocratic politician with little in common with average folks. Mitt is uncomfortable off the stump, whenever he’s forced off message and unable to utter platitudes he turns into a stammering mess. The reason some Republicans were drawn to Newt Gingrich after his performance in the debates is his ability to articulate conservatism. Gingrich’s conservatism isn’t one that ignores the poor, but supposedly ameliorates their condition. Romney wasn’t baited into today’s comment, he just uttered it because that’s what he believes. The implicit message is that poor people aren’t Americans.

There is an overarching belief in Republican politics that Democrats and the poor have a symbiotic relationship. The poor, read African Americans, suckle off the government because they have no work ethic, and the Democrats are happy to fund welfare because it increases the size of government and keeps them in power. It’s classic Republican thinking; it’s paranoid schizophrenia. To think that Democrats help the poor people in some sort of cynical ploy, and not because they truly believe that poor people are deserving of help, illustrates the way Republicans think. They are greedy and so they only understand greed. Of course, Newt, Ron Paul, and Santorum don’t really care about the poor, but none of them are dumb enough to say it aloud. Romney is.

(Photo Courtesy of CNN)

Sergeant Stacey—Will, as he became once I’d returned to the States and exchanged a few emails with his mother—was one of the few I made plans with. He commanded the squad I was embedded with when I ended up in my first firefight, and it was plainer than anything that he kept the men under his command alive. I’ve already written about him, his confidence and charisma and strangely rugged wisdom for a young man of twenty-three, his ridiculous mustache, but now there is more to say because Will is dead.

Will was killed this morning by an IED blast somewhere in Now Zad district of Helmand province. He was the only casualty, though another marine was injured by a second IED. He was on a dismounted foot patrol and some halfwit insurgent managed to cram enough explosive material into the bomb that it killed him. He’ll be buried in Arlington, I hear. Today was his mother’s birthday.

It’s easy to understand the Marines’ occasional fury towards their foes, towards sometimes the entire snarl-fucked catastrophe of Afghan society, when this sort of thing happens. It is not unlike the moment in Restreapo when one of the soldiers tries to explain his reaction to the passing of Doc Restrepo. He says (and I paraphrase here) ‘Fuck no, not him, anybody but him.’ No-one wants another Marine to die either but there are those who are special, whose loss hurts more than others, and Sgt. Stacey was as special as they come. He had a bright and concentrated flame within him that could cut through stone. It spelled death and failure for his enemies and gave life to his comrades. Quite literally gave life—there is no doubt in my mind that his cold competence, his charisma and cool under fire, his wisdom so far beyond his years that I wonder just what it is that old people are supposed to be so wise about, kept the men under his command alive.

In the end, though, their lives came at the cost of his life. That’s the bargain that the military demands of you, and it is as much a devil’s bargain as it is a life raft. You give everything you have to keep your comrades alive. They do the same for you. But sometimes everything means your life. You give it because of the possibility that someone else might give theirs for you.

Will didn’t dive heroically on a grenade. He didn’t throw himself into the path of a bullet or get hit trying to drag a comrade to safety. He died the same way that this war has progressed: in a storm of madness, blindness, and shattered hope. The IED that killed him will achieve nothing. The withdrawal will occur on schedule, and the insurgents’ grip on Now Zad will remain insignificant until the day that the local police chief, who differs from a mobster only in uniform, takes command after the Marines have left and the Governor has fled. The only change wrought by that hodgepodge of wires and fertilizer was the death of one of the most potent bundles of raw potential I have ever met. Will could have been president. He would have made a good one.

I can’t pretend that I knew Will incredibly well. He did me the kindness of granting me an interview and one of the first things he told me was that the last reporter he’d dealt with, a young woman from the Washington Post, had been justifiably elbowed in the face for being an intrusive jackass when a Marine had died. But we got along well. Very well, in fact, and I spoke with more that day as he took me on patrol, and afterwards, and the next day before I caught the first leg of my long ride home. His parents are history professors. He was about to finish his five year contract in March. He was going to go to university and study history. He spoke of maybe working for the CIA down the line.

In among all that there was a certain kindredness between us, I think. I do not know if he felt the same way but at the very least he did not elbow me in the face, which I will take as a good sign. He had in him a streak of great madness, by which I do not mean ‘much’ madness but a madness that could lead to great things.

There are people like that in the world, and you know within seconds when you meet one. Their madness bends them to different winds but ours took us both to war.  In it there is the potential, sometimes, most certainly in Will, for incredible things. To change the universe we live in, the course of humanity itself and the prisms through which we understand the world. But it comes at a price, and—most unfairly of all—that price is only borne by those who through dumb luck do not live to see their madness bloom.

They die. They must pass through the fire to become who they need to be—they are drawn to it like moths—and it not a test of fortitude or courage but only of chance to determine whether they emerge from the other side alive. If they do, the world awaits. But most do not. Many die in the first moments of their descent; Will was so close to emergence that he could feel the daylight warming on his skin.

Will was a rarity among service members. Young and wise is nothing new to the military, but his intelligence and charisma made him something special. Had it come to it I do not doubt that the Corps would have done everything in their power to convince him to stay. He is the sort of man you would want commanding your troops, analyzing a million pieces of data to save a few extra lives, beloved by every man beneath him though none truly knows him.

But I do not think he would have taken the offer. He had too much else to do. Too much of the world to change. Had he gone to the CIA they would have been only a stepping stone, because for all their mystique the agents of the world’s most overhyped spy agency are ultimately impotent to alter the course of events that surround them. Will had it in him to remake continents. Of those that do, too few live to do so. It is the reason that the worst leaders of the world are invariably the ones who never took any risk themselves, who never allowed themselves to be forged in the fires of danger and death and horror.

Will entered those fires knowingly, but it is still an insurmountable pile of fetid horseshit that he did not survive to the other end. I can understand the use of IEDs as a tactic in asymmetric warfare; I can even understand the motivation of insurgents in the context of what limited and misleading information they have. But if I were in a room with the men who planted that bomb, I would murder them with my bare hands, and feel no regret for having done so.

But Will’s death should not be about—is not about—anger or wasted potential. Because what he had, for the twenty-three years he had it, he used to its utmost extent. He saved lives. He helped turn Now Zad from a scarred hell to a place where hundreds of children can walk to school every day. He brought sanity and compassion to a place sorely in need of both. He loved and was loved by a beautiful and unyielding girl, from high school on through five long deployments, and whose email address he laughed as he gave to me because he had to say ‘Kimmy’ three times in a row, and I could see that just saying it made him glad.

He brought something human to the world, an attribute in remarkably short supply for all the humans there are. His soft-sandpaper, young Clint Eastwood voice doled out insight and kindness to the men he led and the people he met. Among all that, he was an ordinary and relatable human being who gave me a sharpie to ‘fix’ my smiley-face patch and whose Facebook picture is just him, standing in a crowd, holding a can of beer. His life ended in tragedy, but it was lived in grace.

I still owe him that beer. I’ll owe it to him until the day I die. I’m not religious, and I don’t believe in heaven, but I’ve always had a romantic fling with reincarnation. So be sure that if and when I am born anew in another body, my soul will seek out Will’s, and I will take him to whatever the local equivalent of a bar is, for whatever the local equivalent of an alcoholic beverage may be.

I’m looking forward to it.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Will was in a vehicle convoy when he was hit by the IED. He was on a dismounted (foot) patrol with his squad at the time.

This article previously kept Will’s personal relationship private until permission was received to write about it.

Now, both things are happening, and the reaction is not positive. Twitter announced on its blog, “As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.” In order to accommodate this, the San Francisco-based company decided it will begin to “give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world.”

Graphic created by Yiying Lu (2009).

Twitter also noted: “We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.” That does not appear to mollify the legions of outraged criticism that instantly issued. Hash tags such as “#TwitterCensorship” have instantly appeared.

Some of the most recent postings under that tag include one from Ben Wederman of CNN, who wrote: “#Twitter committing #twittercide with #twittercensorship. That little bird is now going in a cage. NOT pretty.” The company seems to agree that it is not pretty, and for that reason they teamed up with a project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the most stalwart defenders of digital free speech, called Chilling Effects — seemingly as a realization that such a policy decision would in fact have that very kind of effect on the “Twitterverse.”

As the Washington Post has reported, Twitter is hardly alone. The reporter, Hayley Tsukayama, pointed out that Google and Facebook also “have similar policies to remove content to comply with individual countries’ laws regarding speech — one of the most commonly cited examples of a law like this is Germany’s prohibition against pro-Nazi content.”

However, others say that this presents a slippery slope, opening the door to allowing regimes to ban speech they do not like — like the speech that helped spark the revolts in the Arab world. Tsukayama noted that many of the anti-censorship posts were written in Arabic, which has become the fastest-growing language on the network.

The very reason why Gingrich appeals to primary voters is the reason why he will not do well with independents voters in the fall. (And that’s an assessment coming from Anne Coulter.) Gingrich has fire, but placed alongside No Drama Obama, he’s going to look like a very unlikeable candidate. There’s hardly anyone who has worked closely with the former Speaker who has endorsed him — which tells us a lot about the guy. In the era of televisual politics, a bitter old man is not going to beat a likeable (or even less competent, if that is what Obama is) younger man. The Establishment from either party talks the talk of the virtue of debates, grassroots activism and decision-making, but in the end they care more about winning and nominating the most electable candidate than a tip of the hat to primary voters and “democracy.”

The fact that a coordinated strategy against Gingrich is happening within party ranks conveniently on the eve of the last debate before the Florida primary is particularly striking given that Gingrich doesn’t really have a fall back plan beyond Florida. Romney took a landslide victory in Nevada, the next state up in the primary calendar, back in 2008, so it is difficult to imagine that Gingrich would be able to pull an upset there, or in Arizona or Michigan on February 28.

But everything changes if Gingrich wins in Florida. Then the momentum will keep him going until Super Tuesday on March 6 when the South speaks and Gingrich will rise; and civil war will erupt in the Republican party. The Establishment will do everything to thwart him there, and that is why they are taking no chances and are already making headway. Mitt Romney’s superior debate performance tonight was also a reflection of a campaign in full knowledge that the Florida firewall must not fall.

Two days after the President’s State of the Union address, hardly anyone is talking about it because Obama’s fate in November will depend more on forces he cannot control than on anything he can do. Every single poll out there placing Gingrich and Obama in a head-to-head match gives the election to Obama — by a 12 point spread on average. If the Republican primary electorate delivers Gingrich to Obama, even Bob Dole and William Buckley think it’s going to be four more years.

Good evening, team.  Could the stakes be any higher for Romney or Gingrich?  Let’s find out how things are going to go.  I’m sitting here with my colleague Justin Vassallo, once again, as we did so many times before, watching this slog-through.

RECAP

This was a stupid debate.  A stupid, stupid debate.  Virtually none of the questions were new, and Wolf Blitzer just reaffirmed why he’s such a hapless loser on Celebrity Jeopardy – he’s not very smart.

He did, however, beat Newt Gingrich (with Mitt Romney’s help) at his own game by pressing him to answer questions about a negative attack on Romney, which put the capstone on a first hour that demolished the former insurgent.  Yes, Newt Gingrich, who had such a marvelous run in the South Carolina “season,”  was beaten to a bloody pulp by Mitt Romney, who from the very start played Gingrich’s own game, trading in outrage and dripping with contempt.  It worked.

But just when it looked like Romney was cruising, Rick Santorum came out of nowhere and slammed him on RomneyCare in a vicious exchange that really made Romney look bad.  Does Santorum have any shot in Florida?  No – and it’s very doubtful he will in the nomination, period.  But he demonstrated why Romney is still going to be a weak-sauce general election candidate in the long run by running to his right and forcing him to equivocate.

This is the last scheduled Republican debate until mid-February, so this is my opportunity to say I’ve enjoyed recapping them for you, even though watching them has become somewhat Clockwork Orange-y.  Thank you very much for reading along!  I hope it’s been somewhat useful to you in water cooler conversation and so forth.

CANDIDATE RANKINGS

1.  Romney. He hired a new debate coach before this debate – Michele Bachmann’s old one.  It showed.  Bachmann could deliver a line, even if she couldn’t follow up.  Romney can do both, and, it turns out, he’s a good enough actor to learn how to display contempt.  He took the first opportunity he had (on immigration) to pummel Gingrich and didn’t let up.  Newt just looked like he was deep within his moon base the entire time, totally flummoxed and out of his element.  Aggro-Romney conquered Gingrich, and while he wasn’t prepared for Santorum, Santorum’s own effective concession of Florida basically means he won’t be a real contender.  Romney needed one final knockout.  He got it tonight.

2.  Santorum. Aggro-Santorum was better at punching Romney than Romney was Gingrich, but he had to wait until Romney was done pummeling his serious rival before he could get his own shots in.  His answers on foreign policy were truly along the lunatic fringe (does anyone think Bolivia is harboring “Islamists”?  Does anyone think Obama mis-handled Honduras, or supports Chavez?), but they play to the base.  And his empathy was higher than Romney’s, too.  But because Gingrich wound up the anointed anti-Romney tonight, he didn’t have the airtime needed to cement his position as an alternative.

3.  Gingrich. And now the true Newt Gingrich comes out, the man we saw the first two times he rose from the dead.  A joke of a man.  Beaten, weary, and unwilling to do the hard work to maintain his position as a frontrunner.  He simply lives for the moments, those transient moments, when he is the world-historical figure in the minds of a few columnists.

His final answer, in discussing his position in Congress in 1980 and 1994, was particularly indicative.  He only wants to remember those brief good times, not the hard work everyone else did or his subsequent failures.  And now, with a moderator who was too inadvertently sharp to let him get away with lambasting the process and an opponent who actually wholly shifted tactics to beat him, Gingrich has finally fallen apart.

Goodbye, Mr. Speaker.  The only people who will miss you at this point were the Democrats who would’ve greatly preferred to run against you.

4.  Paul. Ron Paul actually had a fine debate tonight, but he didn’t care and neither did anyone else.  His supporters are not going to vote for the other three gentlemen, and it’s the reverse with  the other gentlemen’s supporters.  He’ll be a thorn in Romney’s side once Gingrich is gone, but that’s about it.

LIVEBLOG

8:07 This procedural nonsense is so old now that we’re just gonna skip over describing it.  Instead, let’s go to intros!

8:09 Cheers from the audience are loudest for Romney… ominous/telling.

8:10 This is a good time to point out that Wolf Blitzer is a lousy moderator and a lousy anchor.  With that said, first question from the audience: how will you enforce immigration laws?  Blitzer tacks on a question about Romney’s “self-deportation.”

Santorum, cleverly, agrees with Romney (taking support away from Gingrich), then gives exactly the same answer to this question as he gave last debate.

Santorum, FYI, is not even competing in Florida anymore.  He’s on the Ron Paul level in this race.  It’s a two-man show.

8:13 Gingrich’s first answer is very wonky, and his reedy voice is trying hard to project gravitas early.

8:15 Romney, by lack of contrast, also gives a wonky answer and contributes heavily on the compassion side – his internal polling must show him with a more commanding lead, as he’s far more confident tonight than he was last time.

8:16 A brief Pauline interlude, in which he gets applause for mentioning the AfPak border.

8:18 Oh Gingrich.  “You have to be realistic in your indignation,” he says, when Blitzer asks him to focus on why he called Romney anti-immigration.  He gets applause when he talks about making English the “official language of government.”

8:20 Oh wow.  Massive fight between Romney and Gingrich.  First Gingrich says Romney is still the most anti-immigrant candidate, and Romney uses his own tactics against him!  Calls that kind of talk inexcusable.  Gingrich, in return, says “what would you call” his position on “deporting grandmothers,” Romney says he didn’t say that, that he merely said he would follow the law.  Gingrich tries to paint Romney as a flip-flopper, saying one thing earlier and another thing now, but Romney is playing on Gingrich’s home turf, and he clearly has the better of the argument.

8:23 Romney won that exchange, big time, but he stumbled a bit by saying “I don’t see every ad… did [Gingrich] say that?” regarding Spanish as “the language of the ghetto”?  Still, in the afterglow of the moment, he manages to pivot to his record on English education in MA.

8:25 Question on foreign engagement in Central-and-South America.  Ron Paul says it’s time for “friendship with Cuba” and fucks himself over in Florida.  Then Santorum gives a totally bizarro conspiracy-theory argument in which he says that Obama supported Chavez and Castro in Honduras, and goes on to his classic “Islamo-fascism” South American ridiculous conspiracy-theory answer.  Who said Ron Paul was the conspiracy-theory candidate?

Santorum: “Why did [Obama] hold up a Colombian free trade agreement?”
CEC: “BECAUSE THEY RAN AN UNDEMOCRATIC ELECTION, YOU FUCKWIT.”

8:28 Ruh-roh, fact check time, Blitzer breaks back in and says that the “Spanish is the language of the ghetto” ad… is Romney’s!  And he gets booed!  Then he says “well, did you say that?” to Gingrich; Gingrich says “it was taken out of context,” that he believes English should be the national language, etc.

8:30 Fannie/Freddie fight.  Romney is utterly contemptuous of Gingrich, and going hard.  Gingrich brings up that Romney had invested into them, but Romney smashes Gingrich right back, noting that his investments are all in mutual funds and bonds, and in a blind trust to boot.

Romney got wonky when talking about things like having a trustee for his blind trust, but that kind of discussion may not play too well in the general.

8:34 Paul gets good applause for his typical reform posturing, and a bonus for laughing at Wolf Blitzer for asking about Romney/Gingrich.

8:36 Santorum gets the biggest applause of the evening for saying that both Gingrich’s consulting and Romney’s personal wealth are irrelevant to the “broader issues.”

CEC: “This is the worst fucking debate so far.  I cannot stand Wolf Blitzer.”
JHV: “I can see Wolf Blitzer in a Cormac McCarthy novel.  His eyes gleaming out of the darkness, staring at the protagonist.  Wolf Meridian.”

8:44 Oh lord.  Major tax-release debate, and Romney clocks poor Gingrich.  Gingrich tries to pan from personal attacks, Romney says he should say on the stage what he says on the campaign trail, and on the Swiss Bank account.  Romney repeats that his money is in a blind trust, etc. etc. etc., and Gingrich, along the way, gets booed.  He is way off his game tonight.

8:47 Minor candidates debate!  Nothing really happens, though.  Santorum plays the Reagan card pretty well.  He’s outperforming Newt thus far.

8:51 SPACE COAST QUESTION.  Romney says he’d rather be re-building housing.

Now let’s go to Gingrich!  He says NASA bureaucracy is mismanaging it.  “What does the Washington office of NASA do?  Does it think space?”  Gives the prize speech from last debate again.

8:55 Minor candidates again.  Nothing either way.  Boooo-ring.  I’d rather be watching a space movie up at the Rose Planetarium at this point.  So boring Wolf Blitzer cuts Ron Paul off.

8:57 Gingrich gives a lovely speech about MOON and how much he loves MOON.  Then Romney shoots him down, saying “promising hundreds of millions of dollars state-to-state got us into this mess on the first place.”

9:01 Oh dear, Wolf Blitzer has lost the debate.  Ron Paul takes the opportunity to attack Newt’s response on the balanced budget, saying that he didn’t, actually… he borrowed from Social Security!  Powwwwwww.

9:03 Very damaging question from the audience: the questioner is unemployed.  She needs medical care – what would you do?  Paul says she’s suffering because government has inflated the cost of health care.

Gingrich says the problem is that (a) she needs a job (repeal ObamaCare, repeal Dodd-Frank, repeal Sarbennes-Oxley) and (b) “reform the insurance system” (giving a description somewhere between freelancer’s insurance and ObamaCare without a mandate).

Romney agrees, allows himself the luxury of wonking out, discussing “this young woman,” pivots to Obama.

9:05 Santorum hammers Gingrich and Romney together for supporting ideas similar to Obamacare.  He’s having a good night.

9:08 Gingrich has given up.  He looks tired.  He knows he lost bad earlier.  Meanwhile, Romney gives the exact same answer he’s given before and gets applause.  Santorum tries to pounce on it, saying it’s about fundamental fights on rights, whether at the state or federal level.  Romney lets out a diss – “I make enough mistakes not for you to add mistakes” or something of the like.  He makes the sell, but it sounds exactly like Obamacare, and the audience applauds it!

Oh dear, they fight forever, Santorum and Romney, with Santorum’s face peeling back in disgust as he hammers it in again and again: Romneycare is Obamacare.

9:15 Oh Newt Gingrich, are you still here?  After Ron Paul talks about his beautiful era in which MediCare didn’t exist, Gingrich agrees with it.

9:17 What?  A question about what “Hispanic” people they’d appoint to their cabinets.  And the Republicans, all about “non-identity,” “colorblind” politics, pander to it (except Ron Paul, who just makes an ethnic generalization in true old-timey fashion).

9:18 Blitzer’s outro sting: “I’ll ask why their wives would make good first ladies.”

JHV: “What?  Is that a real fucking question?”
CEC: “I hate this.  I hate it so.”
JHV: “I’m just waiting for one of them to say something totally inappropriate about Michelle Obama.”
CEC: “The most popular woman in America?  Yeah.  Sounds about right.  Let’s see that.”

9:23 Please kill me, we’re back, asking about why their wives would make first ladies.

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS AND THEIR WIVES DON’T CARE ABOUT IT EITHER SO PLEASE WOLF BLITZER STOP THIS NONSENSE.

9:28 A question to Romney – you said you didn’t want to return to Reagan/Bush, so why are you attacking Newt?  There’s really not much there, but Romney gets away with pivoting to the national election.  Gingrich, by contrast, just looks like he’s running for president of talk radio.

9:35 Oh, on Cuba again.  Ron Paul says “I don’t think people see a jihadist under the bed every night” in response to BIZARRO SANTORUM’s BIZARRO-WORLD.  Romney and Gingrich just repeat exactly what they said last time.

9:38 A Palestinian questioner!  He says “I’m Palestinian, we do exist.”  Romney says the Palestinians are the problem because “they want to eliminate the state of Israel” and says “we will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our allies in Israel.”  Gingrich just talks about the usual talking points.

9:43 Question on Puerto Rico, who cannot vote.  Santorum gladly takes it, eager for more airtime, I suppose.

9:46 How would your religious beliefs impact you in office?  Boring boring boring boring boring boring.  Romney gets through the question without once mentioning the word “Mormon.”  It’s dodgy, sure, but it doesn’t matter – he’s destroyed Gingrich in the first hour and he can just coast from here on out.

But of course Santorum says that America is based on “God-given” rights, and that therefore “faith has everything to do with it.”  Oh, right.

9:54 Finally, last question: why will you beat Obama?

PAUL: Civil liberties!  I undermine Obama, the foreign policy is different, etc., etc., peace and prosperity.

ROMNEY:  (going right into his closing of his stump speech) “we’re headed in a dangerous direction,” etc. etc., private sector, scale back size of government, yet (somehow) grow the military. I know how to win, I’m outside of Washington, no “changing chairs” in DC (a Gingrich swipe).

GINGRICH:  Participated in the the two largest sweeps in Republican history, etc., but he’s running for his grandchildren, you know, etc.

SANTORUM: It’s about who America’s going to be, blah blah blah, I’m a lot better than Romney & Gingrich (closing hard).  Ooh, the “global warming hoax.”  Then talks about manufacturing etc etc.

AND IT IS MERCIFULLY OVER.  Last debate for a month, and nobody is happier than I am.