Rick Santorum. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/6184432968/
The biggest story out of the Iowa caucus on Tuesday wasn’t former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s win, so much as the fact that he won by the barest of margins – only eight votes.
And the man who was so hot on Romney’s heels that it’s really more accurately a tie? The hither-to ignored social conservative and sweater vest aficionado from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum.
Until this week, Santorum spent much of the race for the GOP presidential nomination toiling in the single digits with fellow social conservative Michelle Bachmann. Santorum was defeated in his 2006 Senate re-election bid by a staggering 17 points; that, combined with spending the next five years out of the political limelight and his socially conservative platform, relegated Santorum to the also-ran column before even the first caucus. But coming within eight votes of taking Iowa has observers now paying attention to the “underdog with a loud bark,” as NPR dubbed him; his standing in New Hampshire, where voters will head to the polls on January 10 for the primary, is rising, too, hitting 11 percent, according to a recent poll.
So who is Rick Santorum?
The skinny: Santorum represented Pennsylvania in the House from 1991 until 1995; was elected to the Senate, where he stayed until 2007. Deeply socially conservative, he advocated teaching intelligent design in schools, as a counter to evolution; has “a problem with homosexual acts”; is vehemently anti-abortion, even in cases of incest and rape; and claimed that “liberalism” contributed to the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. If elected, he’s said he would bomb Iran straight off.
Cultural warrior, master of the one-on-one. Santorum is a Roman Catholic – a member of Opus Dei, no less – and his religion “inspires the culture warrior in him”, said Jeff Brady at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. “Even when he talks about economic policies, his arguments take on a broader moral tone.” As such, Santorum has managed to offend wide swaths of people, from women’s rights advocates, to gays and lesbians, even members of the Catholic establishment who he’s taken to task over their supposed creeping liberality. But despite views that aren’t popular with very many people in America, he still got elected: “One of Rick Santorum’s secrets to success is simply a dogged work ethic,” Chris Borick, Muhlenberg College associate professor of political science, told Brady, adding that Santorum is excellent at the kind of one-on-one campaigning that places like Iowa and now, New Hampshire, require.
Just don’t Google him. In the early 2000s, Santorum became a much-hated figure in the gay and lesbian community for his very outspoken disapproval of homosexuality; so much so that sex columnist Dan Savage embarked on a “Google bomb” campaign to redefine the name “Santorum”. The winning definition – “The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” – is the first entry that pops on a Google search. That’s not all the baggage Santorum brings, The Week reported: There’s his statement that healthcare is a “luxury” and that anyone who can’t afford it should give up their cellphones first, and his claim that Barack Obama should be pro-life because he’s black.
Fear the Vest: Santorum’s sartorial choices have inspired a Twitter feed, a Tumblr blog, even a music video that went viral on YouTube, evidently by anonymous supporters who think the sweater vest, like Santorum himself, is primed for political ascendency.
The Vest campaigns for Santorum.
‘Latin for asshole’. Despite his big Iowa showing and the injection of life that’s bringing, Santorum will be hardpressed to keep up the momentum in New Hampshire, with too few campaigners on the ground and too little cash in the war chest. Said Alexander Cockburn at The Week, “It’s hard to imagine Santorum getting long-term traction, given his scrawny campaign finances and reputation in Congress. He had barely been in the Senate a few weeks when, in 1995, Bob Kerrey, then the US senator from Nebraska, unleashed the memorable line, ‘Santorum, that’s Latin for asshole’.”
“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,” said Santorum, on the scourge of contraception in America. More Santorum quotes, and the reaction, at The Week.
‘Worthy opponent’. Santorum isn’t “just the last man standing” after every other Republican challenger to Romney crashed and burned, said conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer at National Review Online: “He is the first challenger to be plausibly presidential: knowledgeable, articulate, experienced, of stable character and authentic ideology.” If he can make it through the next three primaries to Super Tuesday, March 6, he’s got a real shot at snagging the nomination.
