Rick Santorum is no doubt disturbed by something that happened today in New Hampshire: The state's House passed a bill to legalize gay marriage. That's a good thing in the eyes of Americans who, like me, have no problem with gay marriage and tend to struggle to identify real negatives associated with it. But a closer look at the political situation surrounding marriage in New Hampshire is not so much heartening as it is fascinating-- at least to me, who finds deviation from commonly perceived partisan lines to be a matter of significant interest.

Here's what I find noteworthy, in particular: Per Pam's House Blend, "In the Senate, Republican Bob Clegg has introduced a bill giving gays - and other adults who don't choose to marry - the same legal rights as married couples" AND "The governor opposes gay marriage..." (Pam's emphasis, not mine). Why is this something that I find attention-grabbing? Well, the Republican Senator here seems to be more aggressively pro-extension-of-legal-rights than Democratic Rep. Mo Baxley, whose bill is the one that passed-- and, er, the Governor of New Hampshire-- the one who opposes gay marriage-- is a... Democrat.

This situation leads Pam to ponder "How can advocacy orgs feel comfortable investing resources in one party when it's clear that an unfortunate number of Dems are perfectly capable of working against equality and hindering progress even when they have political cover and control." ...

... Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman:

Huntsman comes out of the 45-day Legislature with an 84 percent job approval rating, found pollster Dan Jones & Associates in a new survey for the Deseret News and KSL-TV.

As I've noted before, this is the governor of a pretty conservative state who happens to be pro-gay-civil-unions and outspoken on the environment (he's pretty green)-- and who got a solid score from Cato in its most recent round of fiscal ratings, while boasting a resume that suggests real depth of knowledge and focus where areas of policy like international trade, in particular, are concerned.  He also recently pushed out a health care plan, which I may just get to grips with thoroughly examining in a later post.  For the time being though, this guy seems like a rather intriguing character, at least for yours truly. [intro]

So says Politico's Glenn Thrush, citing the transcript of a Bachmann radio interview:

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”

(Glenn's emphasis, not mine).

Barring some sort of forthcoming correction, or a really, really good explanation, may I just say this woman is once again coming off as nuts and the kind of person one would prefer not to be associated with by virtue of partisan affiliation?

Look, I'm not convinced cap-and-trade is definitely the way forward in terms of combating climate change (it hasn't exactly worked in, say, Europe, it is likely to create a big, new, complicated regulatory regime, the costs likely to be associated with cap-and-trade are arguably less clear and predictable than would be the costs associated with, say, a straight up carbon tax-- the financial costs of which are, of course, higher than would be the financial cost of not instituting any of the aforementioned policies).  But saying she wants people "armed and dangerous" strikes me as just a tad hyperbolic and unecessarily incendiary-- and you'd really think that at some point the woman who was mercilessly attacked for implying (to be charitable) that there should be an "expose" of anti-Americanism in Congress might have learned to rein it in just a tad more.  I guess you (and I) would be wrong.  Nice one, Michele. [intro]