Hour by hour, Rick Santorum is getting dinged by the press and his primary opponents. The fervor over his surge, however, is more about what he says and how he says it — not whether he is qualified or whether he’s conservative. The intense scrutiny raises the question of whether Santorum can survive the long haul — whether he can remain steady under the Klieg lights.
These questions are not new.
In December 2005, five Republican consultants participated in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. The forum, moderated by Chuck Todd and sponsored by the University of Virginia, focused on the “future of the Republican party.” Stage left, hunched behind a water bottle, sat John Brabender. At the time, Brabender was an influential adviser to an influential senator, Rick Santorum, who was preparing for a tough reelection bid against Democrat Bob Casey.
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Early on, Brabender reflected on the upcoming campaign, telling the sleepy college crowd that he was not worried about conservative turnout. What kept him up at night, he said, was the steady “erosion” of independents and moderates from Republican ranks. In the vote-rich suburbs, Brabender foresaw problems. “You talk about a gender gap, it’s huge,” he said.
Eleven months later, that “gender gap” became a chasm. On his way to an 18-point defeat, Santorum lost women by 22 percentage points. He lost the Philadelphia suburbs by 20 percentage points. With his preachy speeches, his strident morality, and his caustic media persona, Santorum did more than sour middle-class moderates — he alienated them.
“He’s sincere, he’s aggressive, but he has some limitations,” says former Pennsylvania congressman Phil English, a Romney supporter who managed Santorum’s first House race. “I’ve always admired him for his energy level. He can articulate complicated issues and in a town-hall setting he’s very formidable. He can be a liberal activist’s worst nightmare.
“Andhe wasn’t always like that,” English says. “He has reinvented himself over the years as a speaker, honing his skills at countless town-hall meetings. He’s gotten much better, he’s authentic. But he’s also divisive. He still has a propensity to blurt out things.”
This year, the fear among Republican strategists is that the Santorum of 2006 — and not the Santorum who swept Pennsylvania in 1994 and 2000 — is the candidate on the 2012 trail. He is widely considered to be a powerful force but a highly unpredictable and potentially disastrous campaigner. Sure, he has risen to the top of the polls and he could win the nomination. But to many Republican hands, it’s an open question whether he could improve his appeal to independents and women. There is a gnawing sense that the lessons of his 2006 defeat have not been internalized but bypassed — that he has largely ignored them while running to the right of Mitt Romney. Santorum appears to have mellowed during his six years in the wilderness, but there are frequent flashes of the temper of old, of the fiery culture warrior.
Robert, I disagree that Santorum's statements are any reflection of his past or that the current scrutiny is going to hurt him. He is honest and people like that. As for the 2006 election, he was running against a so called pro-life democrat in a "blue" state in a year when the public was very upset about the Republicans inability to handle the spending (oh do we long for those days...). Across the nation Republicans took a beating. Rick not only had to deal wit the pseudo pro-lifer, but there were those who never forgave him for the Toomey/Specter mess. When one looks at the numbers and thinks that the 20% pro-life democrat voters who cross over to vote for the pro-life Republican stayed on their side of the fence and add in the Republicans who were upset with rick, it adds up to his defeat.
Look I just listened to his speech in Phoenix. It was a jobs, energy, security, anti-Obama-care speech. He mentioned the importance of the family and that was the speech. The grass roots like him.
Rick Santorum is the best choice in the field. I liked Ron Paul as well but he sounds snarky now. Rick speaks the truth. As far as Pat Toomey and Specter. Bush and Rove backed Specter and Santorum was pressured to support him. Pat Twoomey has turned into a RINO. One of his first votes was to rescind Don't Ask Don't Tell.
Rick Santorum will win the nomination and $5 to $6 a gallon gas, record unemployment, USA heading toward insolvency Obama will lose.
If Santorum's authenticity in his expression of traditional American conservative values is considered to be too politically risky to warrant a candidacy, then we, as conservatives, might as well pack up our soapboxes and resign ourselves to political oblivion. I'd rather go down fighting the good fight than to surrender our values to political expediency.
I don't believe the "women and independents" will be that put off by by Santorum's honesty about who he is and what he believes. After 3 1/2 years of lies, deceit and arrogance on the part of the Obama administration, it's got to be pretty refreshing. That honesty and sincerity is exactly the reason he's where he is. It's also the reason Romney can't seem to get any traction.
As for the Ava Maria comments, one has only to look at 9-11, the brutality along the Mexican border, the Fort Hood shootings, and absolute criminality of the "Fast and Furious" fiasco to understand that there is evil in the world.
John Adams wrote that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." And by religious, Adams didn't mean any old religion, but rather he was speaking about the populous which was and still is overwhelmingly Christian.
Robert Costa writes: "With his preachy speeches, his strident morality, and his caustic media persona, Santorum did more than sour middle-class moderates — he alienated them."
In Matthew 10:34 Christ declares that his mission will be utterly divisive. The great irony is the truth shared between what John Adams recognized, the divisive nature of Christ's mission, and the difficulty for a politician loyal to both.
Nice try at preaching your interpretation of John Adams's religion and that of Matthew too. It's safe to say that both Matthew and John Adams would be appalled at Rick Santorum's hatred and eviil ways, not to mention his self serving full time, well paying job of "running for president". He is the latest in a long list of political actors who have flamed ... lets see, um ... Palin, Bachman, Perry, Gingrich ... the charade goes on, but this time in the name of a good and righteous religion.
Good points, but then Adams was speaking to a different world, one where Christianity held greater sway among the middle and upper classes than in the America of today. Though conservatives might not like it, we do need to be wise as serpents, as Christ admonished his followers, when dealing with this era's electorate.
One reason for the culture's decay is the growth of government and if that growth is curtailed and then reversed, we will have a better chance of reversing the social decay. Such a reversal isn't guaranteed but at least Christians will have a better chance of influencing society in such an environment. They will be competing with other groups for that influence but after all, competition is a healthy and desirable part of a free society.
The GOP candidates should, therefore, rail against big and overbearing government in general rather than in hot-button specifics, pointing out that it destroys societies both physically, economically and spiritually, and it does so regardless of a person's particular spiritual beliefs.
Politicians pretending to not be Christian to get elected is part of what got us here in the first place. I don't understand why RINOs and social conservatives don't divorce. Enough moderates and independents would go with each that either party could still beat the leftists/democrats. Then we wouldn't have to pretend to be on the same side when we're clearly not.
How about Obama, Hillary, Santorum, Romney and Paul all run against each other!
Just because somebody is not a social conservative doesn't make him a RINO. Republicans believe primarily in limited government and free markets. If you believe in those things and are registered as a Republican, you are an RIAR (Republican in Actual Reality).
I've asked the question before and I'll ask it again: Do social conservatives want us in their party? I've been a Republican since 1974 and I am not and have never been a social conservative.
Do you believe in limited government and free markets? If so, we're on the same side. If not, maybe you're the RINO.
If you think there are enough social conservatives in America to win the election without help from anybody else, maybe you social conservatives should leave the Republican Party and form your own Anti-Party Party.
Do social conservatives "want you in the party"? That might depend on what you actually mean by "non-social conservative". Does that really mean just non-religious, or specifically non-Christian, conservative? Or does it mean that you're a conservative who believes that law and morality are unconnected?
Social conservatives have a valid point when they contend that "non-social conservative" is an oxymoron in that social decay plays into the expansion and intrusiveness of government and is economically destructive to boot. However, it is quite possible that a non-social conservative actually holds many of the same social concerns as a social conservative, but just not in a manner associated with a religion. There are universal social concepts we can agree on and yet not agree on religion.
That's strange because I always considered "social conservative" to be an oxymoron. There is nothing partiuclarly conservative about wanting more government regulation of our private lives or shoving your religious beliefs down other people's throats.
Please supply examples of things that social conservatives have "shoved down your throat". If you can even come up with any, for every one you name there will be ten on the Left, or even from the "regular" conservatives. Social conservatives exist as a reaction to having things shoved down their throats and mainly want government out of the shoving business.
Excellent point. I moved to Virginia from liberal MA 4 years ago. I work in the republican party here & I've had it with these so called social consevatives. They claim they want less government in our lives, lower taxes, etc. then shove their religious beliefs down our throats. "LIBERTY" is all I care about. Leave me the blank alone. I'll run my own life.
I don't suggest that a candidate pretend to not be a Christian, but merely that he act wisely and present arguments in a way that will be persuasive to a broad spectrum of people. Paul was wise and persuasive when he adapted his approach when speaking to the Greeks.
Precisely! But good luck getting this message through the thick sculls of Santorum &Co. who prefer sermonizing to constructive political solutions. At heart Santorum is a big government conservative, who wants to use the government to enforce his increasingly unpopular social views.
The problem is that he can't stop talking about contraception, gay marriage, prenatal testing???, and moral degeneracy, and focus on the economy. The sexual genie is out of the bottle, and it's not going to go back in. And Satan-sponsored Protestant churches? The general electorate is going to think that he's nuts. The polls already show that he's scaring off female voters. And for those of us that care about fiscal restraint, there's that vote for "the bridge to nowhere", and all those earmarks.
You betcha! Another gotcha victim of the lame stream media! When are the fanatics claiming to be GOP candidates going to stop taking our party down the tubes. Rick, go find Palin and crawl in the same hole and don't come back out until you get your face on the side of a charter bus.
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