Dispatch #7

With 40% of the primary delegates accounted for, Mitt Romney has 53% of them; at this rate, he will eventually collect the necessary number, 1144, to claim the nomination. No other candidate has a chance at reaching that number without a miracle, divine intervention, an act of God. Fortunately for the right wing of the party, they believe in such things.

Ahead of the Illinois primary, a large northern state that should go to Romney and add to his lead, Rick Santorum, the distant second, is trying to generate some enthusiasm and an upset. He’s actually said something. In his sweater vest, the very image of Catholic choir-boyishness, Santorum has declared war on pornography. Whenever one needs to fire up the evangelical base of the GOP, one resorts to emotional issues of a social and cultural nature: values—abortion, gay marriage, and now, pornography.

To their credit, the nation’s pornographers aren’t taking this threat overly seriously because they aren’t really taking the possibilities of Santorum’s candidacy seriously. I haven’t heard or read that any have raised First Amendment issues; but they can count, and that’s all they have to do. (I have read of one industry spokesperson argue against Santorum’s call on grounds of increased employment.) The point here is that when the nation’s pornographers have a keener grasp of the realities of the political situation than the Republican Party, this is probably not a good thing for the Republican Party—or the Republic as a whole.