I understand that tonight at 8 o’clock central is the much anticipated 2,477th FOX News GOP debate.

Below I’ve put together a little workout guide for this and all future primary debates, so that viewers won’t have to skip their exercise routine in order to keep up with the Presidential election. And since there are about three debates every week now, this should be about all the activity you will need to stay physically fit.

Do 30 jumping jacks, 20 sit-ups or 10 push-ups every time:

- Fred Thompson bristles at a question or refuses to participate in some way
- Rudy Giuliani describes the three exceptions to his report-the-illegal-immigrant policy
- Mike Huckabee uses the word “vertical”
- Mitt Romney is teased as or labeled a “flip-flopper”
- John McCain denies that his immigration plan amounts to “amnesty”
- Ron Paul finds a new way to spend the funds saved by repatriating our soldiers and diplomats
- Duncan Hunter mentions China
- Fred Thompson clears his throat
- Mitt Romney bickers with another candidate
- Rudy Giuliani apologizes for recommending Bernard Kerik
- Mike Huckabee criticizes Wall Street, drug companies, big industries or corporate CEOs
- John McCain takes credit for turning around the war in Iraq
- Ron Paul mentions “nation building” or candidate Bush’s “humble” foreign policy
- Duncan Hunter boasts about the “double fence” in San Diego
- Rudy Giuliani cites more than one statistic in the same sentence
- Duncan Hunter laments the loss of manufacturing jobs
- Ron Paul mentions the gold standard, the federal reserve, and the printing of new currency
- Mitt Romney mentions California’s health care plan
- John McCain suggests lowering the interest rate
- Fred Thompson rewards himself for presenting a Social Security plan
- Mike Huckabee talks about illegal immigrants living in the “shadows”
- Duncan Hunter advocates protective tariffs
- Mitt Romney defends pharmaceutical companies or other capitalists
- Mike Huckabee hails the first tax cut in Arkansas history
- Rudy Giuliani glosses over a question about morality
- John McCain introduces his answer as “straight talk” or says “my friends”
- Fred Thompson summarizes another candidate’s position
- Ron Paul blames terrorism on U.S. foreign policy

Don’t forget to stretch and drink lots of water.

Happy anniversary, Alison. Thanks for carrying me these last eight years.

This one goes out to you, big guy. (Below fold): (more…)

I’ve created a new blog where I’ll be writing about the Bible this year. Project:BOY is my attempt to read through the Bible in One Year, and I hope blogging about it will help me keep it up. I’ve added a link at the top of this page, for future reference.

I’ve seen bloggers attempt this before, but they usually abandon it, and most of them are boring reads. I can’t promise my attempt will be any better, but I’ll do my best to spice it up and add as much originality as I can muster. See you there. Or not.

The Hawkeye Caucus is tomorrow, and traffic is picking up from visitors searching for the political quizzes I collected a few months back. See the list of websites and my thoughts on each. My favorite candidate quiz is Glassbooth.org, which lets you select which issues are most important to you, assign your interest level to each, and then browse through the candidate’s answers on each issue and see how you compare and contrast with each.

As for myself, I’ve been sporting the Mitt Romney button at right for a few weeks now, and I was preparing a post about him around the time of the National Review’s endorsement, which basically took the words out of my mouth.

Though I tend to agree with Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter on the issues most often, neither have the same level of executive experience as Romney, nor have their campaigns instilled any confidence in their ability to manage efforts of that magnitude. I marvel at Rudy Giuliani’s record as America’s Mayor, and I consider Sen. John McCain a true American Hero, and I’m confident both would defend this country as Commander-In-Chief, but neither of them are consistent champions on domestic social issues, smaller government and second amendment rights. I admire Ron Paul’s maverick libertarianism and small-government conservatism, but his candidacy is a non-starter because of his blame-America, isolationist foreign policy, among other things. And finally, while I’m a conservative Christian, a creationist, and enjoy listening to Mike Huckabee talk, I cannot support the man for President; he is too liberal on taxes, immigration, education and a host of other issues, totally undisciplined when it comes to economics and foreign policy, and even unserious when it comes to pro-life issues and social conservatism, the area where he’s presumably strongest.

The two most frequent charges against Romney are 1. that he has flip-flopped on issues and 2. that he is a Mormon, and Mormons can’t or shouldn’t be President.

The latter of these two was addressed to my satisfaction on December 6th, when Romney gave his Faith in America address. I would not vote for a Mormon to be my minister or Sunday school teacher (I am a member of the Church of Christ, something I have in common with Fred Thompson), but I could easily support a Mormon as mayor or as my representative in government.

The former of these two was addressed to my satisfaction on December 16th when Romney appeared on Meet the Press and was grilled by Tim Russert for an hour.

As far as I’m concerned, the pro-life issue is the only area where Romney took a sharp turn, but he admits to it, his change was in the right direction, and he hasn’t returned to his previous stance (which in my mind would be necessary to prompt a “flip-flop” charge). Romney has also made his thought process clear in editorials written while he was Governor and in interview after interview on the campaign trail.

Some pro-life voters still seem to be giving a cold reception to Romney, simply because he hasn’t always agreed with them; but I thought the whole point of the pro-life movement was to win people over and convince them that abortion is wrong and bad for the country. I’m not sure what a politician must do to prove that he is pro-life, in addition to making the kind of pro-life and pro-family decisions that Mitt Romney consistently made as Governor. Furthermore, I would consider it advantageous to have a candidate who understands the issue from both perspectives and thus would be better equipped to bring others to his side.

In summary, as I explained in a comment over at Bob Krumm’s place, I support Mitt Romney because of

1. his conservative record as governor,
2. his business and civic accomplishments,
3. his ability to connect with people and strong communication skills,
4. his stance on the issues,
5. his impressive list of conservative endorsements, including the National Review, ACU’s David Keene, ACLJ’s Jay Sekulow, Heritage Foundation’s Paul Weyrich, Judge Robert Bork, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and a plurality of the GOP in Congress

Tomorrow we will find out if the other folks from my home state agree with that assessment.