Rick Santorum. Photo credit: Michael Righi
This week, former Pennsylvania senator and social conservative Rick Santorum announced he was dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination for president, leaving the way open for frontrunner Mitt Romney. The news came during his speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, site of one of America’s best known speeches – so no pressure there, then.
Santorum referred briefly to the great Abraham Lincoln speech, though interestingly, he did not quote from it: “I think what I tried to bring to the battle was what Abraham Lincoln brought to this battlefield back in 1863 on November 19th, when he talked about this country being conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal back in 1863 in November 19th.”
The bridge between the two speeches is constructed around “battle” and “battlefield”. However, although the great Gettysburg Address was made at the battlefield, the speech was not about battle, but about sacrifice. The Gettysburg Address was a funeral oration, made at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery just months after the Union’s bloody victory over the Confederates: “That these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”
So, Santorum missed the connect.
While it’s unfair to make comparison between the two speeches, it is fair to say this was not a presidential speech. But it did highlight some of the aspects, including Santorum’s religious values, that helped raise the profile of his presidential campaign and give him some memorable victories.
Modern confessional
From the stentorian King James tones of Abraham Lincoln, the Santorum style is more Evangelical and he repeats words such as “voice” and “witness” many times. In that vein, this speech was a “confessional” in the sense that much of modern American rhetoric is about establishing a common ground with an audience through admission, through admitting human frailty and suffering in its broadest sense. Santorum’s successes came down to being able to connect to people through sharing their basic concerns, their” sufferings”. And it was this that he captured in his trademark sweater vest:
“Amazing thing, that sweater vest. It happened on a night I was doing an event for Mike Huckabee in Des Moines and showed up and everyone was in suits and ties and I showed up in a sweater vest, and it turned out I gave a pretty good speech that night and all of a sudden the Twitter-verse went wild and said it must be the sweater vest. From that point on the sweater vest became the official wardrobe of the Santorum campaign.”
The success of the sweater vest has been much analysed: The New York Times positioned the vest as grandfatherly; The Los Angeles Times called it “avuncular.” Meanwhile, the Boston Herald went out on a limb and accused Santorum of “looking like a McDonald’s trainee.” Actress Scarlett Johansson just declared the sweater vest “so sad” (that must have hurt).
While one can see that the sweater vest might have had connotations of the “ordinary Joe” and “the man next door” – whom you could trust – I think this speech and language Santorum used in it showed that the real message of the sweater vest, the secret to its huge popularity, was because it spoke of vulnerability. Stretched over Santorum’s slightly paunchy body it made him look vulnerable; the sleeveless style suggesting only a part armour, a vulnerability that was nevertheless still prepared to have a go: “There’s a lot of greatness… in this country. We just need leaders who believe in that. Who are willing to give voice to that. Who are willing to raise us up instead of trying to provide for us and do for us what we can better do for ourselves.”
Santorum’s acceptable vulnerability lay at the heart of his success and the fact that it struck a chord across America is revealing of how the nation is feeling. So it may be good bye to the Sweater Vest Man, but – lest we forget – as he said: “Against all odds, we won 11 states. Millions of voters. Millions of votes.”
