Michele Bachmann scores a hit in first Republican presidential debate

Michele Bachmann seizes spotlight in first debate between Republican presidential hopefuls in New Hampshirestepped out of the shadow of Sarah Palin in the Republican presidential contenders debate in New Hampshire, wooing Republican primary voters with a mix of populism and sharp attack.
It was Bachmann's first outing as a candidate, and she dramatically chose her first statement in the debate to announce she had filed official paperwork to run for the presidency.
But it was Bachmann's steely assertion of conservative values, including her fostering of 23 children as well as having five of her own, that won her a warm reception.
Declaring Barack Obama to be "a one-term president", Bachmann laid out her firm opposition to Obama's healthcare reforms. "You can take it to the bank," she said of her vow to repeal the reforms if elected president.
Bachmann remains, however, far less well known to American voters than the frontrunner Mitt Romney, who gave a solid performance, as did all the candidates in a debate format that rarely challenged them.
One rare note of disagreement came when Tim Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota, was nudged into discussing his recent description of healthcare reforms as "Obamneycare", conflating Obama and Romney's respective programmes.
Obama has pointedly said that the healthcare reforms instituted by Romney as governor of Massachusetts were a "blueprint" for the reforms at a national level – a source of criticism aimed at Romney by many Republicans.
Most of the debate was taken up with social issues and the economy, with the candidates united in blaming the Obama administration for the economy's woes and offering the same prescriptions of tax cuts, lower regulations and ripping up the government-funded Medicare and Medicaid programmes.
On social themes, there was little to distinguish the candidates, with agreement on gay rights and abortion, and most backing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
The only dissenting voice came from the veteran libertarian Ron Paul, who offered cuts to military spending alongside other government programmes, and stoutly maintained that the US military had no place in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.
On gay marriage, Paul said that the government had no role in marriage of any kind.
The debate was the first to take place in the key early voting state of New Hampshire, where the first primary is scheduled to take place in February 2012.
The Republican field remains in flux, with former Utah governor Jon Huntsman expected to enter the race later this month and increased speculation about Sarah Palin and Texas governor Rick Perry launching bids to win the nomination.

The Margaret Thatcher-Sarah Palin snub exposes the growing gulf between British and American conservatives

Sarah Palin is definitely not the new Margaret Thatcher, or at least not in the opinion of Maggie’s staff. When the Governor told reporters that she would like to meet the Prime Minister during her world tour next month, a Thatcher aide reportedly said, “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.” American conservatives were outraged, European liberals were pleasantly surprised. But why would the woman who forged perhaps the most important transatlantic political romance in modern history (when he died, Thatcher called Ronald Reagan “one of my closest political and dearest personal friends”) reject the advances of the most archetypal of contemporary American conservatives? We might presume that the aide was talking out of turn, that he had “gone rogue”. But the “nuts” jibe actually reflects a profound cultural difference between the British and American right. Beyond a dislike for taxes and deficits, the two have less and less in common as each year passes.
When Thatcher was Prime Minister, American and British conservatives were bosom buddies. British monetarists took their inspiration from Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, and both administrations watched each other’s fiscal experiments with interest. In foreign policy there were isolated differences – Reagan was a multilateralist, Thatcher was a fan of the nuclear deterrent. But they both believed Communism could be defeated and were united in their disregard for detent. Back then, The Lady kept an open door for visiting American conservatives. In 1975, she even met with Alabama Governor George Wallace (as did Labour PM Hard Wilson). Wallace was the man who declared “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at his inauguration, the first salvo in a violent struggle to keep Alabama’s schools racially segregated. He was married to a former water-ski champion and had an unpleasant habit of constantly spitting into a handkerchief, regardless of the stature of the company he was in. For redneck nuttiness, Wallace was at the top of his game.
So why, 36 years later, are aides suddenly wary of a visiting American conservative? It could be an aversion unique to Palin, but it’s hard to imagine any of the Tea Party or religious right receiving a warm reception in the UK. The British groups that have embraced the Tea Party tend to be rather fringe. And the English Defence League is not a particularly welcome endorsement.
So what divides the British and American right? According to David Cameron, it is the perception of cultural difference. “How shall I put this?” he wondered aloud in an interview. “We seem to have drifted apart… there is an element of American conservatism that is headed in a very culture war direction, which is just different.” Cameron’s Tories redefined themselves as a caring, cosmopolitan party by embracing causes like gay rights or environmentalism. The current UK Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change left his wife for his male interior decorator. It’s hard to imagine a Republican administration showing that degree of tolerance.
Cameron was wrong to presume that all Tea Party people are social conservatives – many are “leave me alone” libertarians and gay marriage has received some surprising support among the GOP leadership. But the perception that the American right is culturally regressive is more powerful than the reality – and Palin is the figurehead for that conflation of economic and social conservatism. For instance, in the UK the deficit is usually discussed as an economic problem. Once the books have been balanced, Britain can get back to spending money on the things the government can do to help individuals – healthcare, education, social provision etc. In the US, the deficit is explicitly, or implicitly, understood to be a moral problem. Paul Ryan, the Republican fiscal supremo in the House, described balancing the budget as “a moral challenge involving questions of principle and purpose. The size of the budget is a symptom of deeper causes, and it points to different ideas about government.” In the American conservative mind, there is a link between debt and moral decadence. The welfare state, they say, encourages bad behaviour like laziness or having children out of wedlock. Deconstructing the state will encourage people to rely upon traditional sources of authority and charity that encourage self-discipline and Judeo-Christian morality. It is a Puritan ideal that reaches right back to the Founding Fathers. The Fathers were obsessed with the threat of debt, which they associated with slavery and reliance upon others. Dependency on easy money, alcohol or sex was symptomatic of moral decline – visible symptoms, in the Calvinist mind, of damnation. The British might titter at the thought of a prayer for the debt ceiling, but to many American conservatives the issue has a spiritual dimension as strong as – and related to – abortion or illegitimacy.
American conservatives exist to shrink government and restore moral order. British Tories exist to stay in power. That means that while American conservatives defend the radical, revolutionary, often deeply religious values of the Founding Fathers, British Toryism survives by adapting to the social orthodoxy of the day. At certain points in history, these tendencies have found common purpose. But today they are divided by vastly different responses to cultural change. The tragedy for their respective populations is that American conservatism lacks a moderating influence, while British conservatism lacks any sense of moral order. To many voters, who yearn for an intelligent synthesis of the two, both parties can seem a little “nuts”.