Wish I had a nickel for every conservative who confidently predicted that the Arizona debate would, of course, feature obnoxious questions about birth control and the devil aimed at Rick Santorum. As it turned out, CNN’s John King did not ask “gotcha” questions and, for the most part, conducted a fair and informative debate.
The debate moderated by King, along with other events of the past week, has resolved a question that has been swirling since the Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota primaries: Why not Santorum?
There is much to like and admire about Rick Santorum. He did fine work enacting welfare reform in the 1990s. He was an eloquent and thoughtful advocate for the unborn. He has kept a weather eye on Iran for many years. He’s a dedicated family man. He was the first candidate to raise the issue of family structure in the context of discussions of poverty. And he had a solid, conservative voting record in Congress (with some exceptions — there are always exceptions).
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But Santorum would make a poor Republican nominee.
Because he has phrased his socially conservative views in vivid terms, he is precisely the sort of candidate who will evoke a Pavlovian response from the press. Just as they were driven mad by Sarah Palin, they will be outraged by Rick Santorum. The campaign will be cluttered by the continual discovery of “controversial” Santorum quotes from the past three decades, and precious time will be lost as he explains, justifies, or withdraws his comments on women in the workforce, contraception, gay unions, Obama’s “theology” (by which he did not mean to question the president’s faith, something he’ll have to explain over and over), and so forth.
In fact, Santorum’s sanctimonious style might put off even many religious voters. His intense 2008 warning about “the Father of Lies, Satan” having his “sights on the United States of America . . . attacking the great institutions of America — using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that [have] so deeply rooted in the American tradition” is not the sort of language most preachers, to say nothing of political figures, employ today. American religion these days is heavy on forgiveness and light on sin. We’ve long since left Jonathan Edwards behind. Anything other than comic references to Satan are likely to give people the creeps.
Additionally, as Santorum himself seemed to acknowledge in the Arizona debate, the social issues that worry him (and should worry all of us), such as the collapse of the two-parent family, are not the kinds of problems that government can or even should attempt to solve. Yes, welfare programs that reward unwed parenting by subsidizing it are part of the problem. But, as Santorum will tell you (repeatedly), he helped reform welfare. That was the easy part. The rest is cultural change, and the president of the United States has very limited influence there.
If the fall campaign is all about what Rick Santorum said about gay adoptions, or a dozen other cultural live wires, it will not be about the Republican party’s most important and compelling issues: the ballooning national debt, the gross expansion of the federal government into every realm of life, economic growth, the flaccid foreign policy of the Obama administration, and the vain pursuit of “green” energy at the expense of abundant domestic oil and gas.
Americans are open to being persuaded that the federal behemoth can be tamed, that our health-care system can be saved before it buries us in red tape and incompetence, and that entitlements can be sensibly reformed. But they wouldn’t even hear those arguments from Rick Santorum. He’d be too busy putting Satan behind him.
With this twisted logic, Mona, we might as well vote for Obama. After all, there is no defense for social conservatism, is there?
Well, I guess there is the huge jump in out of wedlock babies. And drug abuse isn't a problem, is it? And what healthy man wouldn't want a 110 lbs female to dead-lift him off the field of batter if he were ever wounded.
She's not saying social issues aren't important. She is pointing out that the best way to beat Obama is to focus on the job Obama has done with regards to the economy. Which I agree with. The country is fairly evenly split when it comes to social issues - and since many groups, such as blacks or Hispanics, who are against, for example, gay marriage, are also going to vote for Obama no matter what, that makes it even harder for the GOP candidate to win if he focuses on these issues. However, by focusing on the job Obama is doing - that makes it possible to persuade a large portion of the moderates. If we don't replace Obama, the damage he is doing to our country will make everything else moot.
She is also saying that a certain level of messaging discipline is necessary because the liberal media will paint anything the GOP candidate says in the worst possible light. Look what they did to Palin!
While Romney is far from perfect, I think he has a better chance of beating Obama than either Santorum or Gingrich or Paul. You are welcome to disagree, of course - and, if Santorum (or Gingrich, or Paul) is the GOP nominee, I'll gladly go vote for him. The main goal is to replace Obama. If we don't... it doesn't bear thinking of.
Look, if you say social issues are NOT a winner, then you mean most Americans agree with Barack on social issues.
They don't.
So, why wouldn't social issues be a winner?
If social issues aren't a winner, and Santorum is really focused on social issues, why is Santorum so competitive with Obama in the polls right now?
You can't hold all these positions at once.
You can't say:
a) Social issues are NOT a winner,
b) Santorum is focused on social issues,
c) Santorum has a real shot at winning the nomination or the polls.
This is nonsensical.
YOU just don't like the social issues, but apparently a lot of Americans do.
Quit telling us to have the same values you have.
You're as bad as Obama.
@skellmeyer, you are incorrect, sir. Any republican polls competitively with Obummer right now, plus or minus a few points. BHO's vulnerabilities are not social issues and those issues are not controlled by the prez anyway. Saintorum can have any conservative social beliefs he wants, but it is a *loser* in the general election to emphasize those issues. This campaign needs to be about JOBs, Economy, and Defense, where Obummer is a clear loser.
Since Mona is our new middle woman representing the RINO adults, can she just email me what the leftist media says I'm supposed to believe so I know how to vote? Right now I have to vote for Romney to be sane right?
I wonder if Will Buckley the devout Catholic knew he was building such a bastion of anti Catholic RINOdom. And please if youre going to appease Catholics by including an article from our coreligionists go with Weigel more often!
OK ... so you wrote a long article that can be summarized in one sentence: social conservative values are not desired in a candidate.
And, the candidate that best avoids social conservative values is ... Romney? Paul? I'd have to say Paul because he is consistently anti-social conservative. Romney's been all over the place, so we're not really sure where Satan is relative to him anyway (or maybe he is Satan disguised as a used car salesman running for President).
Instead of being a little attack cat for Romney, it would have been far more refreshing to devote time and energy to finding the one candidate that promotes radically shrinking the power, size, and reach of the Federal government. Because doing that unifies all conservatives of all kinds.
I don't know why I didn't realize it before, but this comment made me realize exactly what is the feeling I get everytime I watch Romney: He feels exactly like a used car salesman who is trying to unload a car he knows isn't what it seems.
John King conducted a fair and informative debate? Not one question about the pipeline, nothing about gas prices, Obamacare, Obama's terrible economy. More questions to make our guys look extreme.
When King asked for one word, Ron Paul called himself consistent and was proud of that. Consistently insane on foreign policy, I thought. Yet Mr. consistent is willing to leave Romney alone when Romney has so many policy choices that should make Paul's blood run cold. What is going on there? Is a deal between them in the works? If that is true, then Ron Paul is not even consistent; he is dishonest and a mere politician in the end.
I do agree that Santorum is a nice guy and we know where that means he will finish.
NR pundits want to shove Romney at us. Well, I hope you are right. Palin may have driven the msm mad, but our side didn't help. She is on target and would have trounced Obama if our side backed her. I am so sick of our "experts" deciding for us. I guess it's okay for you to leave Gingrich alone now that your dirty work seems to be done and you have ruined his candidacy. But I am still hoping for another miracle for him. At least he is talking like a conservative and I believe he would do what he is saying and, if he could win, I like his choices.
And why is everyone touting Christie? He is a fabulous rabble rouser, but in many ways no conservative.
Our pundits have not been a help in this campaign. NR seems to have moved to the middle and that is sad for our side and for the country.
I am so sick of people accusing pundits of "shoving Romney at us" or the other oft-repeated phrase "ramming Romney down our throats." The pundits are merely expressing their opinions which you are free to ignore. If you disagree with many or most of them, then their advice is worth exactly what you paid for it. I happen to agree with Charen here. Santorum and all his supporters will be painted as bigots if he gets the nomination. Spending all our time explaining why our nominee is not a Neanderthal jerk is not a winning strategy.
Bloodred, you sound pretty dense. Don't you realize that Christians in general are ALREADY painted as bigots by the elite liberal media? That's not going to change whether Santorum is the nominee or not. Which nominee do you believe would avoid that potential? Romney? Is that because he's Mormon? Or because he's "more electable" as we've been told? Your agreement with Mona indicates your lack of critical reasoning skills, because this article has more holes than swiss cheese.
Instead of spending all our time defending Romney (if he were to be the GOP nominee) from claims of being a strong conservative of conviction (a term I'd prefer to use over your "Neanderthal jerk" commentary), which we of course all know Romney is not, we will instead have to defend Romney against: (1) numerous historical flip-flops (and flip-flops to those flip-flops); (2) lack of standing to challenge Obamacare; (3) support of bailouts on an ad-hoc basis (he decides which industries should be restructured via bankruptcy and which should get government dollars); (4) consistencies with Obama on climate change; (5) record as Governor in MA that raised taxes, promoted gay marriage, appointed liberal judges (which thinking about it are also similarities with Obama); (6) his work at Bain and membership in the 1% club, which Obama will use to mobilize his OWS folks; (7) his weak tax plan that in fact embraces Obama's 99% v. 1% mentality (Romney's own words the other day); and I could go on and on. Yeah, I guess THAT's a winning strategy. Thanks, Bloodred.
Sorry, folks but Obama will destroy Romney. Romney is a patent liar who panders to the electorate and will say whatever it takes to get elected, and spend however much it takes to get there. He will not be able to outspend Obama, and will be exposed for who he really is in November, if people are foolish enough to nominate him.
Since you've peppered this discussion thread with your reactionary bile, I will respond in kind.
For someone who professes some skill in "critical reasoning skills" I struggle to find a post more laden with inconsistencies, logical fallacies and childish cliches. Congratulations, Big Hurt, you've managed to score the bloviating internet troll trifecta.
Part of critical thinking involves the ability to gather and interpret objective data. Real Clear Politics has Santorum and Romney essentially tied in a head-to-head match-up with The Chosen One. So the whole question of who's the better candidate is actually a point on which reasonable people can disagree while unreasonable buffoons write barely literate screeds berating the people who actually dare to work through the pluses and minuses.
Try graduating from sixth grade and then perhaps you can join the adults at the table.
Thanks, mvs, for setting me straight. Me's so dum four thinkin' me cud critsize Bloodred. Me shud just differ too u, becuz u so smaht. Me hopes me cud bee just like u when me's growed up.
In all seriousness, mvs, Bloodred's commentary was ignorant and needed to be called out. While reasonable people may disagree on who the best candidate is, I found it completely unreasonable to throw out labels like "Neanderthal jerk." But I guess that's just my sixth grade level education, huh? You Romney supporters are SO educated!
In 2008, many people voted for Obama solely to prove that they weren't racist. If Santorum is the nominee, people will vote against him in droves to prove they're not bigots. Like it or not, many of Santorum's social pronouncements are more suited to the 50s (1850s) than to the 21st Century. Just as we had to spend an inordinate amount of time in 2008 explaining that Sarah Palin was not an idiot, we will have to spend time explaining that Santorum is not a troglodyte. When you are explaining you are not winning and you are certainly not focusing on the country's imminent fiscal collapse. When I want preaching, I go to church. I want my president to reduce the size of government, foster free-market capitalism, lower taxes and stay out of my personal life.
Seriously? You can post whatever you want Big Hurt. That said you come across as the digital incarnation of Spaulding Smails so you might want to think twice before gracing this discussion with anymore of your little missives. Two thoughts:
- "Neanderthal jerk" was clearly a reference to the Left's stereotype of Santorum and not Bloodred's personal opinion of him.
- Disagreeing with you doesn't automatically make me a Romney supporter. I'll pause for a moment while that sinks in. .... Perhaps you've noticed but *all* the candidates are deeply flawed this year. Romney is certainly no conservative beacon of truth but at least we can likely count on him not to creep out every independent voter from here to Tallahassee with inane references to the Devil. In terms of political self-immolation that's the equivalent of dousing yourself with gasoline and handing Bill Maher a match.
For everyone on this thread...
It is about time that we went on the offensive in regard to social conservatism! Social progressivism is such a miserable failure that we have cases of a 17 and 18 year old girls in West Palm Beach, robbing a Girl Scout of her cookie sales money, then seeking out the camera of a local news channel to get their 15 minutes of fame/infamy (kids today don't know the difference), and they tell the reporter that "Everyone likes money, and this was really easy to get..." with no empathy, they just blurted out how everyone should just take what they want when they want it. How about the story of an elderly WW2 vet in Detroit who gets carjacked at a gas station and he crawls across the lot and to the register as people drive around him and walk past him without any type of assistance? Maybe we can capitalize on the fact that since the Bible and prayer have been banned from schools, we've since added a cop at every school from elementary up? And now they (the SRO's) aren't all that safe with one being arrested for sexual contact with a 15 year old girl...
I really think that if a wise campaign were mounted...these outrageous things that we are now seeing coming to fruition would make a viable platform...with or without religious implications...though it is well-argued that "culture" and "religion" are synonymous (Dr. Catherine Albanese, "America: Religion and Religions").
We've just let the media and the liberals push us into defensive tactics for far too long and it is time we went on the offensive! Rather than answering all the questions about what Santorum believes or has said, answer the basis behind the questions! Cut to the heart of the matter and raise the true platform of 100 years of social "progress" and how it has taken our president into being a "prisoner" who rides in a "beast" and all his visitors must be frisked, how it has taken our "public schools" into an educational skid (according to SAT scores from 1963-1980) and placed armed police officers in our elementary schools...who are sometimes assaulted by the kids...
I don't know everything, but I'm pretty good in epistemology and logic, and there seems to be massive overload of ammunition that could be used to take back some of the social "reforms" that have led us into this chaos!
But first and foremost is to get the word out that the APA and psychology in general is a farce (for drawing rational objective conclusions) and our judiciary along with every other learned person should scrutinize their every word! From "The Reign of Error" by Lee Coleman, to all of the works of Dr. Thomas Szasz, reform begins with disposing of this blight on our culture! Psychologists are treated as "experts" in our courts and their opinions are weighted to that of physicians and scientists, when they are really far from either field! I believe it was the Supreme Court's ruling which outlawed the reading of the Bible in public schools, that was based solely on "psychological" evaluations that spelled out that if some of the passages were read without explanation and without proper context it could cause psychological damage (while Edgar Allen Poe stands as a classic writer...never causing any damage). No precedents were cited in that case...if memory serves me...
As conservatives, we need to quit listening to what the left-wing has to say in the media and support who is going to be the best for America all across the board!
I'm not Catholic, but Santorum speaks his mind and doesn't seem to mince words the way that most politicians do...he and Ron Paul seem to truly speak their minds without apology (not much anyway), and they both strike me as much more honest than the other front-runners.
Again, we conservatives need to brush-off the liberal media's attacks and go on the offensive in these social contexts...we are one screwed-up culture and getting worse daily!!!
You forgot one more item - (8) He will claim Romney isn't a true Christian, since he's Mormon, and will actually get people to believe that he (Obama) is more of a Christian than Romney, and lessen the focus on his muslimisms.
By the way, the whole idea behind starting up the Occupy crowds and get that mindset of 99 v 1 per centers, was to fight a rich, squishy Republican they knew the establishment (Charen, et al) would not let be beaten by conservatives in the primaries.
BR-BlueState: I think your blood is more representative of the venous side of the body and not the arterial...
The establishment punditry are, indeed, shoving Romney down our throats, every way that they can, and that means expressing their opinion the way they do. That is the 'job' of the punditry.
Do you honestly believe that the Left's pundits don't get orders from the Democrat power brokers? I do, and I completely believe the Republican Establishment (Solidly Center to even Center with wisps of Leftist leanings) puts the word out to the pundits on the 'Right' the same way. There are very few truly independent pundits, who are conservative and make it into the top rank. The people with money (on both sides) don't let truly independent voices get heard very much, without their say so.
You are dead on. If only NR held Romney to the same standards they hold Santorum, Paul, and Gingrich. Romney is "johnny come lately" to the conservative movement. He comes from the most liberal state in the union, he ran to the left of Kennedy. Yet, NR looks past all that and presents him to us daily has our only choice.
Santorum refers to Satan to a religious group and he is kaput! Polls show that the majority of americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction. Reword the question and ask, "Is the country going to Hell?" I think you will get the same response. Who is in charge of Hell?
My NR subscription ran out this week. Articles like this one just delay my return to this once objective magazine. Will I be back? Will NR stop shoving Romney down my throat? Time will tell
Speaking of a lack of objectivity, have you noticed the polls on NRO lately? "Putting aside Ron Paul, who do you think won the [Name of location] debate last night?"
Why are we putting aside Ron Paul? Is it because the MSM ignores him and NRO somehow feels the obligation to do likewise? Or is it because intellectually lazy people like to call him "crazy" or "lunatic"?
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