Why Santorum May Win
"If the Supreme
Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home,
then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the
right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to
anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it
does. ... That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on
child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."
- Rick Santorum, April 7,
2003
*
It takes fierce
political skill and intuition to package extremely unpopular views for mass
consumption and succeed. It takes uncommon political discipline to express
unpopular and rigid views to an audience who doesn't share them, and get them
to love you in spite of it. Rick Santorum has accomplished all of this, and more, and is
only a few missteps away from securing the nomination of his party for the Presidency.
*
"One of the things I
will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the
dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have
said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license
to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to
be."
- Rick Santorum, October 18, 2011
*
His unyielding,
intolerant stance on contraception, homosexuality, abortion, social welfare,
and a bevy of other social issues makes many Republicans and Independents look
very suddenly like a crowd of hand-wringing social moderates. You see,
Republicans are a fearful bunch, but they are also also deeply pragmatic. He
pulls pages from Revelation to describe his mandate to serve the greater good
at every opportunity, but there is a sense among Republicans: 'how far will he
go with this?' Even still, many of them still come away feeling like he may be
the one to beat Obama.
*
"In far too many
families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really
took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don't both need to. ...
What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children
in the care of someone else — or
worse yet, home alone after school between three and six in the afternoon —
find themselves more affirmed by society? Here, we can thank the influence of
radical feminism."
- Rick Santorum,
2005, It Takes a Family
*
Let's get it out
of the way, ok? He is not to be underestimated. He is a wacko, a dangerous one,
and if he gets the nomination, liberals, civil libertarians and moderate
Republicans are all in for a nightmare. Santorum's one year plan is to campaign
against he notion that poverty not is an institutional ailment, to campaign against
science, against the environment, and against the very working class voters who
are currently enthralled with him.
His eight year
plan, however, is much more radical. A successful Santorum Presidency would
perniciously roll back the tide of social progress gains over the last hundred
years and take us back to a Biblical society, one in which a certain kind of
Christianity informs the Executive Cabinet, and, even worse, the Supreme Court.
If you are a woman with an iota of concern about your rights, or someone with
even the slightest degree of faith in individual liberty and the fundamental
Christian tenet of social compassion, you need to be alarmed that Santorum has
come this far. You need to be actively campaigning against what he stands for.
*
"This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his
sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a
good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If
you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?"
In regards to
Santorum's success, there are two main factors in play: one outside his
control, and the one a direct result of his efforts.
Santorum's
campaign, first of all, inherited a special set of circumstances. There is a
dense and narrow band of citizens desperate for the candidate who, in their
view, is authentic enough to unseat Obama. They are terrified that an African
American man has taken the highest office in the nation. To them, he represents
'the other,' an ideal that, for them, runs counter to comfortable notions of
lantern-jawed, Caucasian leadership and national pride. There is no
other possible reason that a President who has governed as a moderate, rolled
back civil liberties, dealt a major blow in the War on Terror(tm) and compromised
to a fault with Tea Party Republicans is still being called a Socialist, a
Muslim, and a Terrorist.
*
"Radical feminists have been making
the pitch that justice demands that men and women be given an equal opportunity
to make it to the top in the workplace."
-Rick Santorum, 2005, It Takes a Family
*
The extended
Republican primary, during which Romney remained the presumptive nominee,
extended Santorum an uncommon amount of time to
foster credibility with the voting public without close media
scrutiny. During this time, Mitt Romney suffered from an authenticity
problem, while Santorum, with his coal mining family pedigree and a
relaxed, engaged stage presence, wowed audiences with his authenticity.
However, the GOP
establishment - this includes party elders and pundits - never at first
considered Santorum's broad appeal. Instead, they clung to Romney's
faltering but reasonable campaign, treating him like the front runner even as
Santorum hammered him in debates. Santorum gained a strong and steady foothold
with Republicans terrified of a candidate not being able to stand up to cult
Obama. Once it was clear it was a real, genuine horse race, the frothy surge of
Santorum coverage gave him a stiff bump in the polls, which has by any measure
made him the front runner. His position at the head of the pack has only in the
last week or so, afforded him the sort of scrutiny that would have capsized his
campaign had it begun months ago.
*
"All the people who
live in the West Bank are Israelis, they're not Palestinians. There is no
'Palestinian.' This is Israeli land."
- Rick Santorum, November
18, 2011
*
Santorum hasn't
just been blessed with timing and circumstance. He has also been blessed with -
by any standard - an uncommonly successful career, and uncommon ambition. He
has had years to fine tune his message and his strong glad-handing skills
toward constituents. He has thrived in a region of the country largely
sympathetic to his deep religiosity. He is a true believer in good, evil, God,
Satan, and the dangers of modern society, but his politically crafty approach
to his beliefs is his real weapon. Santorum cloaks deeply intolerant
rhetoric in fiercely smart, moderate language, making it less scary to
people who might otherwise give pause to the paranoid, apocalyptic feelings
that he lets slip now and again.
*
"The idea that the
Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on
our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by
the American Left who hates Christendom. ... What I'm talking about is onward
American soldiers. What we're talking about are core American values."
- Rick Santorum, February
22, 2011
*
Santorum links
financial and social concerns to end-times sermonizing because he can't help
himself. It's what he genuinely believes. His conviction informs his
authenticity, and his authenticity informs his strength with voters. He listens
to them. He responds directly to their questions. He looks them in the
eye. He doesn't stammer and stumble through his sentences like Romney or
Obama. He sticks around for public events. He makes constituents feel
involved in the election process. These are all remarkable qualities for a
candidate, and it's the main reason Santorum has done so well, despite the
inherent unpopularity of some of his views.
*
"The question is —
and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that human life a
person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person —
human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a black man
to say, 'We're going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"
- Rick Santorum, January
19, 2011
*
The qualities that
inform Santorum's intense confidence - his authentic religious convictions -
may also ultimately take him down. They have kept him largely unpopular with
his own party. They have alienated huge swaths of a potential Republican base
more concerned about the business of running the country than some grand
religious mission to uphold old fashioned values. They make him downright
nightmarish to voters like me, who consider religious freedom and social
welfare the foundations of our society and our humanity. To us, Santorum is an
affront to everything that makes us human, and that he is a practiced, somewhat
nasty politician, makes him more than just frightening. It makes him evil.
*
"Is anyone saying
same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends,
my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these
relationships marriage, too?"
- Rick Santorum, May 22,
2008
*
The news business
has struck gold with the Republican primary. That Santorum has made it
this far is every news producer's fantasy. He is, by all accounts, a real
political rarity: a certified nut job with authentic religious fervor and the
deep political gifts to convey it to even those who might be inclined to
disagree with him. In this sense, Santorum's strengths are his weaknesses, and
vice versa. His campaign is in a perilous but prominent place, but an exciting one
for people who make a living off covering politics.
There are those
who feel that a Santorum nomination would be the best possible outcome. He is,
after all, they feel, un-electable. A nomination for him, they insist, means an
automatic second term for Obama. They may be right. But is giving this man and
his vile, ugly intolerance a full year with which to saturate the airwaves with
his hate worth it? Is it worth the risk?
We must be mindful
citizens and voters. In following a compelling political narrative, we must be
careful not to inadvertently usher in another long, national nightmare for the
United States of America. Politics is a game, and it's being
covered like one, but in the end, even the slightest tactical miscalculation
could result in a future that no concerned, conscious, educated citizen would
ever want for their children.
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