Republicans, if they are wise, should be looking for several characteristics in their nominee.
They should first look for a candidate who exemplifies the moral and political virtues Americans expect in their president. While the presidency is partly about policy and programs, it is also partly a symbolic position. In his family life and in his political career, Rick Santorum has exemplified character. He has raised seven children with one wife and has lost an election rather than betray his convictions — a sign of political virtue.
Then, Republicans should look for a candidate who can wholeheartedly and convincingly attack President Barack Obama on the signature issue of his first term — health care. For their own reasons, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich fail on these terms. Romney’s health care initiative in Massachusetts served as inspiration and beau ideal for Obamacare, making his frequent attacks on Obama’s health care positions ring false.
Finally, they should look for a candidate who can win. Santorum’s working-class, blue-collar background may give him an opportunity to win critical swing state voters for whom Romney’s wealth and inability to connect on a gut level could prove problematic. Obama’s weakness with working class voters was well documented in 2008, and won’t be a strength in this time of economic turmoil. To nominate Romney would be to weaken the Republican argument that Obama is out of touch with the average American. Santorum faces no such problem.
Santorum is a man for the political moment in a way that no other candidate — including Obama — is.
He understands the connection between the breakdown of the family and the breakdown of the economy, make no mistake, they are connected, in a way that no other candidate does. To clear up an obnoxious misconception: Santorum won’t take away the right to contraception. But, as he explained in last night’s debate, there are real consequences to a mindset where sex is disconnected from marriage and child rearing happens outside of the family.
He also understands the connection between conscience in religion and self-determination in economic life. As its recent assault on religious conscience for employers demonstrates, this is an administration that is willing, over and over, to say: “We know better.” Santorum can convincingly connect economic and religious liberty in one devastating and central critique of Obama.
Finally, he believes in the intimate connection between liberty and virtue in a free society. In many ways, conservatives have strayed from a true understanding of liberty in recent days.
Too often, we’ve accepted that liberty means license, and that freedom means removing all restraint. This leads to runaway spending, because spending restraint is antithetical to this idea of freedom. It leads to the breakdown of the family, because living within the sexual and emotional constraints of marriage is difficult and requires us to deny strong desires, and it leads to the kind of unfettered capitalism that prioritizes profits over people, and believes that anything goes as long as it improves the bottom line. We’ve seen where this vision of liberty leads.
Santorum understands these things instinctively, and can articulate them clearly and convincingly, which is why he is beginning to run closer in general election polls, and why he is threatening to become the GOP frontrunner.
President Obama doesn’t deserve re-election. Republicans have been searching for someone who deserves to beat him. In Santorum, they’ve found the right man.
Reach the columnist at wmunsil@asu.edu.
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