After every other conservative alternative to Mitt Romney crashed and burned (libertarian Ron Paul is in a category of his own), from the rubble emerges Rick Santorum. But he isn’t just the last man standing. He is the first challenger to be plausibly presidential: knowledgeable, articulate, experienced, of stable character and authentic ideology.
He’d been ignored largely because he appeared unelectable — out of office for five years, having lost his Senate seat in Pennsylvania by a staggering 17 points in 2006.
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However, with his virtual tie for first in Iowa, he sheds the loser label and seizes the momentum, meaning millions of dollars’ worth of free media to make up for his lack of money. He’s got the stage to make his case, plus the luck of a scheduling quirk: If he can make it through the next three harrowing primaries, the (relative) February lull would allow him to build a national campaign structure before Super Tuesday on March 6.
Santorum’s electoral advantage is sociological: His common-man, working-class sensibility would be highly appealing to battleground-state Reagan Democrats. His fundamental problem is ideological: He’s a deeply committed social conservative in a year when the country is obsessed with the economy and when conservatism is obsessed with limited government. Republicans, after all, swept the 2010 election on economic concerns and opposition to big government. The tea-party revolution was not about gay marriage. Which is why so much tea-party fervor attaches to Paul.
Santorum did win the tea-party vote in Iowa. But because he was such a longshot, his record did not receive much scrutiny. It will now. He is no austere limited-government constitutionalist. He participated in George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” which largely made peace with big government. Santorum, for example, defends earmarks and supported No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. It’s a perfectly defensible philosophy — but now he’ll be called upon to actually defend it.
Moreover, Iowa is anomalous. It’s not just that the Republican electorate is disproportionately evangelical and thus highly receptive to Santorum’s social conservatism (as it was to Mike Huckabee’s in 2008). It’s that Iowa’s economy is unusually healthy, with only 5.7 percent unemployment, high agricultural prices, and strong real-estate values. Although the economy did rate as a major issue in the entrance poll, in such relative prosperity it registers more as a concern for the nation than as a visceral personal issue — diminishing the impact of Romney’s calling card, economic competence.
For his part, Romney remains preternaturally inert. His numbers, his demeanor, his campaign are flat-line steady: no highs, no lows, no euphoria, no panic.
Superb insights, as usual, from Dr. K - especially the one about Iowa's economy as an aberration.
There are three issues that will decide the election in Nov 2012: 1) the economy, 2) the economy, and 3) the economy.
But the argument for going with the strongest economic-minded candidate isn't just pragmatic. It's what the country desperately needs and has needed for three years already.
We still, to this day, have not had anything like coherent leadership on the #1 drag on the economy, which is the collapse of lending and construction in the residential housing market due to insolvent banks refusing to write down the 25% or so of mortgages that are hopelessly underwater.
In this light, carrying on a Catholic crusade against the totally reasonable, actually brilliant, compromise that this nation has evolved since Roe v Wade - ie safe, legal and rare, a formulation which probably 3/4ths of the population strongly supports - is not just impolitic. It shows miserable judgment, a poor understanding of America, an absence of leadership ability. It's Santorum who's playing Ahab, not Gingrich.
I can buy much of this. But I am not sure economy, economy, economy is quite right. And your comment on abortion is wrong. A majority of Americans does not think abortions are rare enough, though they are not willing to go as far as Santorum would like. The compromise of which you wax so eloquently does not exist. It is similar to the compromises taken to accomodate slavery prior to the civil war - it won't hold. Including an infuriating court ruling of which almost no constitutional scholar can or has tried to defend. Roe v Wade is bad jurisprudence. Perhaps the worst this country has ever seen. But I digress.
However, I agree that it will not be the issue turning the 2012 election and that economic uncertainty is a big part of the equation. But so is Obamacare and govt over reach and also our defense posture.
The major selling point for Governor Romney is that he won the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatiorial election and this allegedly means he is more electable than the other GOP candidates. Senator Santorum won congressional elections in 1990 and 1992, and state-wide senatorial elections in 1994 and 2000. As for the 2006 elections, Santorum lost by 17 points that year, but Romney chose to not even run for reelection and forced the GOP into nominating a sacrificial lamb who garnered 35% of the vote. On balance, I think Senator Santorum's history of winning 2 out of 3 state-wide elections in Pennsylvania gives him the electability edge over Mitt Romney winning 1 out of 2 and forfeiting a 3rd state-wide elections in Massachusetts.
I want someone to explain the merits of why the GOP should nominate Governor Romney other than the same old "electability" argument. Specifically, please tell me why a President Romney would be superior to a President Santorum.
President Romney is a possibility (I, personally, do not much care for Romney) because he may be able to beat Obama (as might Gingrich, Perry and a host of others). President Santorum is an impossibility. Strong opposition to contraception and to abortion in the cases of rape and incest; equating gay coitus with man and dog (morally); in favor of raising the minimum wage; in favor of the antithesis of the Tea Party: "compassionate" (i.e., big government) conservativism. Positions such as these guarantee Santorum at least 20% of the Independent vote ... and Obama the remaining 80% -- and do you really think Bush III but imbued with a theocratic morality is going to bring the Republicans out in droves, although even if it did, Santorum would still lose to Obama. Any more questions?
Your answer deals primarily with the electability issue. To the extent you have responded to my question, I have the following comments:
(1) I suspect that the gay issue is important to liberal elites in our major cities who would always find some reason to vote Democrat, but is not important to the rest of us. Further, most people resent elites preaching to us and our children that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality.
(2) I am in favor of raising the minimum wage as a way of fighting illegal immigration.
(3) Elected policy makers can do nothing about this issue until the U.S. Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade.
(1) The gay issue is important to independents and to most young people. It is best left alone by a candidate who focuses on free market economics and a robust defense that includes stopping Iran. One can be opposed to children's being inculcated with the meme that being gay is a "lifestyle," rather than something likely determined by one's genetic makeup, but the candidate shouldn't be talking about this at all -- ever (if asked, he should say that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian and adults have the right to make their own choices, period and turn the conversation back to a robust defense and the outlawing of shari'a, which by the way, is the apotheosis of anti-gay).
(2) I disagree with you re: the minimum wage. It will not keep illegal immigrants out. Rather, qua Henry Hazlitt, it will put small businesses out of their business and reduce the number of employees they can have and/or their profits, thereby reducing investment. It is and always has been economically destructive and it is fundamentally anti-capitalist.
(3) You are correct about Roe v. Wade, but the point is that this shouldn't be the point of discussion. Economics, taxes, strong defense -- these are winners. Talking about abortion is a losing proposition and saying you are opposed to abortions even in the event of rape or incest is, to most people, repugnant. This is a blueprint for losing the election.
I am so curious as to why you think a higher minimum wage would discourage illegal immigration. It seems to me that it would both draw more illegals into the country and encourage more employers to hire people off the books.
In my experience with contractors who use illegal aliens as unskilled labor, they violate every labor law except for minimum wage laws. I think these employers abide by the FLSA minimum wage laws because it is so easy to show an employer is not paying the minimum wage and there is a private cause of action to enforce this law.
I think the minimum wage in Southern California and San Francisco should be $15 to $20 per hour. This will cause massive unemployment for the illegal population and they will leave. After the illegals leave, most unskilled American labor can justify this expense but we may need to make adjustments after we see how this works out.
I think there should be similar levels of minimum wage laws in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Miami. We should probably have almost as high levels in San Antonio, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and throughout the Northeastern U.S. along the Atlantic Coast.
I think it is time that we make employing unskilled labor so expensive that it makes no economic sense to hire illegal aliens.
Because he's the smartest, best educated, most experienced (in both business and government executive office) candidate that we have, and he's consistently shown in the polls that he could beat Obama?
Again, you are primarily making the electability argument. In regard to your other points:
(1) Newt Gingrich comes across as much smarter than Mitt Romney in the debates and on the campaign trail. Also, I have seen nothing to make me think Mitt Romney is smarter than Rick Santorum.
(2) Romney has a J.D. and an MBA from Harvard. George W. Bush has an MBA from Harvard and is caricatured as a dumb person. Newt Gingrich is a Ph.D. Santorum has a J.D. from Dickinson College and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. I might give a slight edge to Romney on education but I think the value of a Harvard JD/MBA is greatly overstated.
(3) Taking you on your limitation to executive office experience, Mitt Romney served one unsuccessful term as Massachusetts governor and then chose not to run again because he was so unpopular that he knew he could not win reelection. Governor Perry (and former candidate Governor Pawlenty) has way more executive experience and is generally viewed as a successful governor.
If you expand your definition of experience to all elective office, Mitt Romney is the least experienced candidate for the GOP nomination. Gingrich and Santorum have both successfully served in high profile political offices for much longer than Mitt Romney's 4 years as governor of Massachusetts.
At this point, I still want someone to tell me how the country will be better served by a President Romney than a President Santorum. Please do not keep repeating the electability line because that does not convince anyone who is not already inclined to vote for Romney.
Mr Krauthammer is correct that Romney now has a viable opponent in the primaries. And it is also true that many conservatives who previously withheld their enthusiasm for Santorum now feel free to jump on the latest band-wagon.
The current administration and the left must be much relieved, since an anti-Santorum ad campaign practically writes itself. Endless media repetition of Santorum's brief statements merely suggesting, just bringing up, even *mentioning* a connection between government and contraception - then tying that to his other socially conservative beliefs - and boom, all the purple and purple leaning states are lost for Republicans.
All the left needs are the media-compliant headlines for such brainwashing to work, as it did with Obama - the footnotes of truth never seem to seep down to casual voters. And once the feminist machine gets that message out through social media with a scare mask on, the Republican party had better be ready to confront the liberal fog of war with its best messaging strategies yet - I hope they're up to the task.
Agree to disagree is what I had to type in. Boy!
So this is what our "conservative pundits" have come down to -bragging that a compassionate conservative is a worthy challenger. To whom? To Romney? Or to Obama?
Goodness, haven't we had enough of that? Look where it got us.
Compassionate conservatism is a redundancy John O'Sullivan said and he is right. What we need is a no holds barred slash and burn person like Newt Gingrich at this time.
He was quoted as saying in NR, "(When) we had 4 percent unemployment and no foreign threat, I couldn't be a candidate. It would be absurd. There are 20 guys you could pick in peaceful, calm and pleasant times who would be adequate as president, none of whom have my liabilities."
But now those liabilities are small beer because the times are perilous.
As to his "aligning" himself with Santorum, it makes perfect sense strategically, but also in a larger way. Santorum, so far, has been a gentleman most of the way. He is honest and he did not spend millions on lying ads. Gingrich was not seething at Romney because of the relentlessness of the ads; he was angry because they were full of dishonesty. By praising Santorum for running a good campaign, Gingrich was saying that it was a clean campaign and look how far he got anyway.
I am dismayed that anyone could think Santorum would beat Obama. Santorum is an honest and a decent man, one of those Gingrich could have referring to. But to beat Obama we need a tornado. If the experts on the right would stop trying to sideline Gingrich, he might even move ahead. I hope he does despite the noise against him.
As for what the press will do to him, they will do it to Romney, too if he gets the nod. We can't choose our candidate based on what the msm will do.
Should Gingrich get the nomination, I hope our side will support him at last.
Sorry, but if you want to champion conservatism, how the heck do you pick the least conservative candidate to be your standard bearer?
Santorum is a big-guv conservative and has all indications of being W's third term (a thought I do not welcome). Gingrich is Bush without the humility or conservative backbone. I left the GOP in 2008 because of the Gingrich types. Good grief, does no one remember just how committed he was to conservativism during the NY race (Dede Scofflaw, of whatver here name was)? And that was just a recent example.
Gingrich would hand the re-election to Obama. It wouldn't even be close.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could create as our party’s nominee an avatar who embodied all of our core beliefs (no, I didn't watch the movie, well about a third of it, before I shut it off). Maybe that is what Mitt is striving to be, only some key parts seem to be missing (I'll let you guess what parts, they have been missing for a while, although some of our female candidates seem to find and work their magic). Perhaps these ingredients of the Republican Party soup have finally atrophied, through lack of use, to the point of being insufficient to reproduce in the recipe for our dreamed of avatar.
Dr. Krauthammer, how does Santorum "shed the loser label"....winning a few thousand votes in a Republican caucus?
That's not what a 2012 Fall Election will involve. It'll involve moderates and independents who are going to see a guy who lost his own state in a landslide in 2006 (Remember how important that was when it was Al Gore in 2000?)...
who has openly called for the outlawing of abortion and the "option" for states to even ban contraception....
who compares homosexuality to zoophilia...
and who seems actually desperate to start a war with Iran (something I know you wouldn't consider a "disqualifier" but many Americans would).
Out of touch with Los Angeles, San Francisco, Manhattan, and Boston, anyway. Too bad those places are non-factors when it comes to swinging the electoral college. They are just liberal media echo-chambers that are already committed to Barack Obama. Goad them however you like - they are irrelevant.
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