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" &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t believe life begins at conception, I know it does,&amp;quot; Santorum said with three nights left. GREENVILLE, S.C. \u2014 On Wednesday night, something called Personhood USA held a candidates forum. These are the extreme anti-choice people who are pushing &amp;quot;personhood&amp;quot; amendments to the various state constitutions that would make an embryo a person under the law from the moment The Little Swimmer collides with Mommy&amp;#039;s Baby Jewel. We last heard from these people when the voters in the state of Mississippi voted down their proposal, 58-42. Me? I think when people in Mississippi think your wingnutty proposal is so intolerably wingnutty that they pound it into the red clay by 10 points, you should probably go on retreat and come up with a better plan. Nevertheless, three of the remaining Republican candidates paid homage in person to an idea that Mississippi rejected as too radical. Ron Paul beamed in from Washington, where he was voting against raising the debt ceiling. The only no-show was Willard Romney, who hid like the Minotaur within the labyrinth of the several dozen positions he&amp;#039;s taken on the issue. The three in-person guests all had interesting stories to tell about how their own views had &amp;quot;evolved&amp;quot; on the issue to the point where now they all no longer believe in the old exceptions to allow abortions in cases of rape, or to save the life of the mother. On a sliding scale of believability, Rick Santorum, of course, has been there from the start. Rick Perry cited a conversation with a young woman who had been conceived as the result of a rape. Ron Paul told a story about seeing a newborn thrown in a bucket when he was a young doctoral resident. And Newt Gingrich related an hilariously improbable tale of being accosted at brunch &amp;quot;in Buckhead&amp;quot; by a woman who referred to any potential fetus she might conceive as analogous to &amp;quot;a malignant tumor.&amp;quot; I did not believe this story any further than I can throw Newt, which is not very far, believe me. They have soft-pedaled the social issues down here. Bob Jones University is not the must-see political tourist stop that it once was. Most of the screeching from the field has been about Romney&amp;#039;s career as a predatory capitalist. (Newt Gingrich is playing on the social issues, but they are the social issues of the 1960&amp;#039;s, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.) Nevertheless, the fact that only Romney skipped a forum sponsored by the most radical unarmed element of the anti-choice movement is an indication that there are still votes to be had, if only one truckles sufficiently. By any measure, Santorum gave the forum the most of what it was looking for. Gingrich went off on a long exegesis about the federal courts, and Perry was so damned relaxed he nearly slid off his chair. But Santorum was the one who said, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t believe life begins at conception, I know it does,&amp;quot; all the while glowing with the unmistakable inner glow of public sanctimony. He rounded into a rousing peroration. &amp;quot;I said it the other night,&amp;quot; Santorum explained. &amp;quot;The Supreme Court ruled that a rapist couldn&amp;#039;t be put to death because that was &amp;#039;cruel and unusual punishment.&amp;#039; But the baby conceived as a result of that rape could be executed and that wouldn&amp;#039;t be &amp;#039;cruel and unusual.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t be in this race if it wasn&amp;#039;t for Obamacare,&amp;quot; Santorum concluded. &amp;quot;Its aim is to make Americans dependent for their health and their lives on the federal government. Once we do that, freedom in America is over.&amp;quot;  And have I mentioned that he&amp;#039;s kind of a dick? But it was the big televised head of Ron Paul that really lit up the joint. His supporters exploded suddenly from all corners of the ballroom the moment that his big televised head appeared on the screen. (I don&amp;#039;t know how they do it, but their ability to flock up surreptitiously this way is truly impressive.) He&amp;#039;s a bit flummoxed on this issue, maintaining that he&amp;#039;s pro-life, but willing to leave things up to the states. (His plan for eliminating abortion nationally is to pass a law specifically taking abortion law out of the hands of the federal courts. I have absolutely no idea if this is even legal.) Asked about the right to privacy in relation to the sale and use of contraceptives \u2014 or to use the argot of the evening &amp;quot;abortifacients and abortive devices&amp;quot; \u2014 Paul went completely to the zoo. &amp;quot;The issue wasn&amp;#039;t privacy. It was life!&amp;quot; he burbled, before coming around again to the notion that he thinks a right to privacy is spelled out in the Constitution (it&amp;#039;s not, which only about 10 million anti-abortion lawyers could tell him in their sleep), and that he thinks it&amp;#039;s a pretty good idea generally, and probably not one we should toss out idly just to keep women from taking the pill and fucking without Rick Santorum&amp;#039;s permission. &amp;quot;Privacy is a very important issue,&amp;quot; Paul concluded, to something of an awkward silence. But what was really striking was when Paul began talking about exactly when it was that the country climbed into the handbasket and headed to hell. &amp;quot;It was in the 1960&amp;#039;s,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;That was when the drugs came in, and the pornography. (Ed. Note: Pornography? Other Ed. Note: Forget it. He&amp;#039;s rolling.) Then the laws started to change. And John Adams was right \u2014 if the people are not moral, if they&amp;#039;re not religious, then this society can&amp;#039;t work.&amp;quot; Ron Paul, Culture Warrior. Imagine what these people would be saying if Mississippi hadn&amp;#039;t decided to make sense last fall. CLICK HERE FOR CHARLIE&amp;#039;S LONG READS, AND HERE FOR MORE FROM S.C. NOW Follow The Politics Blog on RSS and on the Twitter &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12428/personhood-usa-south-carolina-6641382/>