Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio — Rick Santorum came here on Monday night, to a packed town center on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, not merely to stump and shake a few hands, but to plead. “It’s gut-check time,” he told the crowd of several hundred. “Who wants it the most? What do you say?”
The audience roared.
“All of the party chieftains have lined up behind the next guy in line with the most money,” Santorum told them, and he scolded Republican grandees for ignoring a “guy from a little steel town” in southwestern Pennsylvania.
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That raw populism drew sympathetic nods, especially from a group of middle-aged industrial workers, many of whom are struggling to find work in northeastern Ohio, a former manufacturing powerhouse.
“We relate,” Santorum said, looking at a burly man in a Cleveland Browns sweatshirt. “Pittsburgh and Cleveland are sister cities.”
Santorum paused and he lowered his voice. He dropped the talk about Mitt Romney, his chief rival, and shelved the barbs about President Obama. He spoke wistfully about the “neighborhoods we grew up in,” where families — not the government — were central. “The sense of community, the importance of family and faith,” all of these things, Santorum said, had lifted America in years past.
If elected, he pledged, he would promote those values in the White House. “That’s the environment that built the strong backbone of America,” Santorum said. “I believe in this area. I believe that the better days are not behind us.”
The passage summed up Santorum’s case to Ohio Republicans, and to all Republicans who are voting today. Santorum casts himself as a blue-collar warrior, a rock-ribbed conservative. To win in November, he tells Rust Belt underdogs, support one of your own.
And to a point, Santorum’s argument resonates. Romney’s campaign is ruthlessly efficient, but a tad bloodless. Earlier Monday, the former Massachusetts governor held a town hall in Youngstown, Ohio, that was lit better than a Hollywood film set. The crowd there — smaller and carefully arranged in rows of folding chairs — lacked the passion of Santorum’s rally.
But that may not matter much when the results are announced tonight. Romney may clinch Ohio, according to the latest polls.
The difference between Santorum and Romney is that Santorum basically recites and deeply believes in the Republican Party political platform. Romney, on the other hand, does not believe in anything but the idea that he should be President. Republicans know that their party platform (written mostly by the far right) is so much outside of the mainstream that they cannot afford to nominate the candidate who sincerely follows it. Thus, they will nominate Romney and the fact that Romney stands for nothing (or stands on all sides on every issue), will actually benefit them. Republicans know that what they deeply (but secretly) believe in (and what Santorum is dumb enough to publicly say) scares the hell out of regular folk.
"...what Santorum is dumb enough to publicly say." Hmmmm..
First, you split your infinitive -- "to publicly say."
Secondly, Santorum is quite smart -- smart enough to believe what the Republican platform says; not because it is in the platform, but because it is the truth.
Thirdly, it is a myth that the Republican platform "scares the hell out of regular folk." You, "alan borrows," believe it does so. It does not.
Fourth, you remind me of Bishop Fulton Sheen's comment to the effect that there are not 100 people in all of America who hate the Catholic Church, but that there are millions of people who hate what they think the Catholic Church is and stands for. By analogy, the same is true of the Republican platform: millions hate us because of what they have been brainwashed into thinking we believe.
The difference between Romney and Santorum is that Santorum is a career Washington politician whose chief aim is not small-government libertarian conservatism, but Catholic evangelizing.
What Santorum "believes in" first and foremost is statism: the government can solve people's problems. That's why he spends so much time with voters who are the most hard off: he thinks the government can deliver for them what they haven't been able to deliver for themselves. It's the oldest political trick in the book.
I think it's stunning how some are quick to lionize Santorum as a 'conviction' conservative, when his record shows him to be just another opportunistic politician.
Questions: Who opposed 'right to work' legislation? Who stood for chameleon Arlen Specter's re-election against Pat Toomey in the PA GOP primary? Who actually endorsed Mitt Romney in 2008, long after 'Romneycare' passed in MA? If you guessed Rick Santorum, then you'd be right.
Santorum's opposition of right to work had NOTHING to do with political opportunism, and EVERYTHING to do with a deep sense of what is right, and what is wrong. "Right to work" is nothing but class warfare against working people, and we can see this evidenced when we compare working men's salaries in non right to work and right to work states.
No. "Right to Work" is a misnomer. It ought to read: "right to be underpaid and exploited."
Rick Santorum actually BELIEVES Catholic social teaching, and doesn't run from it. That is good, because he is CORRECT to believe these things. Unions do serious good.
His opposition of a federal "right to work" law makes me MORE likely to vote for him, as opposed to less.
And YES, I AM a conservative: a real one. Not some extreme anti-Christian neo-liberal Ron Paul supporter.
"Steely Discipline"??? Are you kidding? Every single time Romney has veered even slightly off the script his managers have set out for him, he has committed a gaffe. EVERY TIME!
How can we expect a nominee who hasn't even got the guts to face David Gregory on Meet the Press (or "Face the Nation" OR "This Week"; he's appeared on none of them during this campaign) to be a viable candidate against Barack Obama???
And with respect to what Mr. Borrows wrote, how can you possibly expect to retain the loyalty of what you like to call "social conservatives" in the GOP when you ignore them once they have served their purpose --- repeatedly?
There is no such thing as a "fiscal conservative"; such people are simply Liberals protecting their wallets. Santorum is entirely correct when he says that the greatest cost to government comes from the decline in the family: out-of-wedlock marriages; divorce that causes children to abandon the needs of elderly parents; children whose sense of security are shattered by divorce.
No, Mr. Borrows, you don't "get" the GOP. I'm neither an evangelical nor even terribly religious. But I know -- as Reagan did -- that the family -- not government -- is the lynchpin of social, economic, and individual well-being.
millionaire lawyer, lobbyist clicks with hard hat voters. just as he did in PA when he lost by 18%. what sort of anti-Romney nonsense is NR going to come up with next?
Thanks for the conventional wisdom (which could, word for word, and with equal accuracy, be stated with "right" replaced by "Left', "Republicans" with "Democrats", etc, etc, etc. )
Santorum's appeal to blue collars is hardly a virtue. He's used the class warfare of the left to demonize Romney's success. This can hardly be considered a conservative approach and is merely a political strategy to set himself apart from the other candidates. The real friend of the working class is the guy who creates jobs for them, not the guy who sits in Congress and then lives on a million a year income from his pension and speaking engagements.
I like Santorum's sentiment... but really, in this age of globalization and outsourcing and automation, the great days of the factory towns are over, aren't they? How does anyone bring back the glory days? These are global economic issues bigger than anyone can control, even a US President.
For all this talk on how Santorum is wooing the blue collar vote, I know that is the narrative, Santorum lost the counties where Canton, Akron, and Youngstown are located. These are blue collar cities that Santorum would have won if blue collar voters were really his strength, but don't let reality get in the way of a good campaign narrative.
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