As I have previously made pretty clear, Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute is one of my heroes. His latest victory, in Michigan last November, was the landslide voter approval of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ending state-sponsored racial preferences (incidentally, no thanks to the White House, from where Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suppressed efforts to support opposition to the affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan when they were challenged in the Supreme Court). Even opponents of the Michigan referendum have described the result as the beginning of the end of affirmative action, and after similar victories in three states, Connerly and his organization have now set their sights on initiatives in no fewer than five more for the 2008 ballots. I wish him well.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the legislature has again failed to revise the rule guaranteeing admission to any state-supported institution of higher education for all students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. This rule was adopted ten years ago as a substitute for racial and ethnic affirmative action preferences in admissions, and is now consuming 71% of the admissions at The University of Texas at Austin, while denying the institution the use of a more holistic approach to criteria for admissions even though there is a wide variation in the qualifications of the students based on the quality of their high school preparation. The point here is that again, we continue to miss the crucial element, which is that every student should have the same opportunity to compete for these admissions, and if minorities are underrepresented at our selective institutions, the solution should be to overhaul their academic preparation through systemic reform of elementary and secondary education, not award special consideration based on race and ethnicity.

Ironically, it is difficult to deny that the supporters of the continuation of the 10% rule are doing so to avoid the difficult task of addressing the real issue of the failure of the K-12 pipeline to qualify more of our minority kids for college readiness, and I would go further—they don’t want to admit that the alternative is a return to some form of race-based preferences, which might bring a Ward Connerly campaign to Texas.

I was struck by this statement from a John Edwards campaign advisor, according to OpinionJournal.com, May 24, 2007:

“John Edwards has seen the Bush administration use the phrase ‘war on terror’ to justify everything they do. So although he believes that there are terrorists and terrorism, the phrase itself has become a political tool the right uses to justify whatever they want to do—like Guantanamo, like Abu Ghraib, like warrantless wiretapping of Americans here at home.

Has he used the phrase before? Yes. He has and does believe that America should fight individual terrorists and terrorist groups when they pose a real threat. But as a political doctrine, as a slogan, as a universal justification, it must be rejected because of what Bush and friends have done with it, because it’s backfired, making America less safe.”

There are quite a few folks in public life, in and outside elective office and across the political spectrum, who have thought long, hard, and deeply over the past 5 ½ years about the meaning of 9/11 and the appropriate response to it. As a former U. S. Senator and Democratic nominee for Vice President, one would think that John Edwards might be one of those people. But in describing the current war as a “bumper sticker without a plan”, followed by the comments above from his campaign office, Edwards has revealed himself to be what I have long suspected—a glib, slick, lightweight demagogue; a wealthy personal injury trial lawyer with no depth and no really mature convictions on the issues that matter; as Dennis Miller says, a phony. The fact that he is currently running at least a strong third in the polls (and much better in some states) in the Democratic primary race should be instructive.

As to his campaign advisor’s comments about the war, he and his fellow travelers should remember something about our system that is exceptional among historical world powers. If we had a parliamentary system, we would probably have had elections by now because of Bush’s poll ratings on the situation in Iraq. But we don’t, and the election last November was not the referendum on Iraq that the left would have us believe. To our credit, we have a constitutional republic, one of the great virtues of which is in the fact that, if Bush’s popularity in the polls goes to 0%, he is still Commander in Chief until January 2009 and, under our constitution, the only true legislative branch recourse to his convictions to sustain our commitment in Iraq as the primary front in the war is to eliminate its funding—so have another shot!

Let’s talk about two issues that no one wants to discuss in Presidential politics, particularly in the Republican Party—abortion and religion.

First, abortion. Rudy Giuliani says that “abortion is morally wrong, but a woman should have the right to choose”, and that he would appoint strict constructionist judges, presumably to render decisions that would ultimately restrict, if not eliminate, abortion rights. Let’s apply his approach to an analogous moral and public policy crisis in our nation’s history, that of slavery. Imagine this response – I’m personally opposed to slavery, but if someone wants to own slaves, I will support their right to do so, or if a state votes to legalize slavery, that’s their sovereign right to do so. (Come to think of it, this is very close to the position of Stephen Douglas in the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858). Abraham Lincoln had an answer for this perverse thinking—no one has a right to commit a wrong. And he publicly and forcefully condemned the notorious Supreme Court decision upholding slavery in Dred Scot vs. Sanford. Rudy, you need a better answer to this question. And, by the way, we should also be asking all the candidates how, if elected, they will respond to any future Congressional moves to expand federal funding for abortion, embryonic-destructive research, or cloning.

Now, religion. Here we involve the Mitt Romney campaign. The last time I saw a poll on the issue, about 36% of people say that his Mormon faith will preclude their voting for him. Meanwhile, he has continued to move up in the Republican primary polling and appears to be a competitive candidate for the nomination. Does this mean that he should stage a major speech to address the issue of his faith, just as John Kennedy was compelled to do to explain his Catholic faith in 1960? Some say this is critical to his chances. I would advise otherwise. Romney doesn’t need a “Kennedy speech” on his religious views; he needs to allow his faith to drive a candid conversation with the voters on the relevant questions about who we are. Radical doctrines of separation of church and state in the decades since Kennedy’s speech have gone much too far in dictating the removal of faith-based convictions from the public square, to the point where any political views that are informed by religious conviction are unwelcome and the very expression of moral truths are verboten. Romney can engage in a teaching moment and begin to turn this around, and it will not only be refreshing, but its boldness will be politically profitable for him.

Having just completed a brutal round of jousting in the interest of public education reform during the Texas legislative session, I have a renewed appreciation for the obstacles we face in achieving meaningful systemic change in our education delivery system. I am reminded of a recent quote from Rice University President David Leebron, which he calls “Leebron’s Law”: “The longer you postpone addressing a problem, the more expensive, complicated and politically difficult it will be to solve. And therefore, the more unlikely it is that you will actually solve it.” This is where we find ourselves in public education reform in this country, and we are at a tipping point that can go either way—we will either muster the political will to achieve transformational change, or we will continue to drift toward competitive mediocrity. It is encouraging at least that serious national leadership is finally recognizing the urgency of the crisis, as evidenced by the recently announced collaboration between Eli Broad and Bill Gates and their respective foundations, which have launched a massively funded effort called “Ed in ‘08” to make serious education reform a leading agenda item in the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, in Texas, in spite of all the best efforts of our statewide coalition of reform-minded business leaders, the recent legislative session produced very little (about a 3 on a scale of 1-10) in terms of advancing the cause of K-12 reform and, in fact, we were forced to spend much of our effort in defending many of the reforms of the past decade, particularly the accountability system. However, we realize that reform is a never ending effort and we are committed to continuing the fight, in which we need and would appreciate your help. Visit us at www.texaseducationreform.org.