Sincerity, Courage and Other Secrets Behind the Surprising Santorum Surge

Posted on | February 14, 2012 | 73 Comments

Rick Santorum and his wife Karen greet supporters
at a barn near Roland, Iowa, Aug. 6, 2011

How many times on the campaign trail did I hear Rick Santorum describe himself as “Steady Eddie”? Not the flashiest guy at the dance, he’d say, but at the end of the evening, he was the one the girls were proud to bring home to meet their mother. Back when he was still in single digits in Iowa, Santorum gave that little talk at nearly every campaign event, to reassure Republican voters that no matter what the polls said, and no matter what they were being told about “electability,” they should listen to their hearts and vote for the “consistent conservative.”

Seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it? I’m thinking back to that August afternoon in a barn amid the cornfields near Roland, Iowa, when I showed up on a Saturday as a favor to Lisa Graas, to cover her favorite candidate, the guy nobody believed could win. Now take a look at the headlines today:

Poll: Rick Santorum takes
slight lead in GOP race
— CBS News

Santorum Catches Up With Romney in New Poll
— New York Times

59% of Catholics Disapprove
of Obama’s Job Performance
— Rasmussen Reports

That last headline should serve to remind you of something I kept in mind back when nobody else was paying attention to Santorum: Blue-collar Catholics are a vital “swing” constituency, and a Republican who can appeal to those voters is always formidable, whether in a primary or a general election. People kept talking about the evangelical vote in Iowa, but there are a quite a few Catholics in Iowa, too, and once they “came home” to Santorum in the closing weeks of the caucus campaign, that helped boost him up to double digits in the polls. And then, just about the time he pulled even in Iowa with Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, a lot of other Republican voters said, “Hey, let’s take another look at Steady Eddie.”

Now that we’re in the midst of what I’ve called “Santorum’s Second Surge,” Steady Eddie is getting another look from a lot of people, including liberals like Jonathan Chait, who wonders if Mitt the Moderate is really more “electable” than Extreme Santorum.

Bottom line of Chait’s analysis: It’s really a lot harder to judge “electability” in advance of the general election campaign and Santorum might be more trouble for Obama than most experts imagine.

Of course, such a question takes us off into an unpredictable future. Santorum still has an enormous uphill fight if he’s going to beat Romney, and we’ll have to wait and see if Santorum can withstand the tsunami of negative attack ads that Team Mitt will inevitably unleash against him. Meanwhile, however, we find Santorum earning a certain grudging admiration from unexpected sources:

“I’ve wondered about him and the whole concept of working women and family. But stylistically, which is a part of the game . . . he has something that Mitt Romney doesn’t. There is a connect. I mean, I don’t agree with anything he says, but I like the guy.”
— Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC

This is something I’ve noticed with some of the young liberal reporters who were “embedded” on the Santorum campaign: They disagreed with him without hating him. Why? I think it might be that “Steady Eddie” factor. Even when his campaign seemed utterly hopeless, Santorum just kept on going, and he never budged an inch on the issues. Maybe you think he’s an “extremist,” but he is a sincere extremist — he really believes what he believes in, and isn’t just pandering — and he also shows a stubborn courage, sticking to his guns no matter what, even when he knows his views are unpopular.

It’s that kind of stubbornness that wins Santorum admiration, and sometimes even surprising agreement, from people you would never expect to hear praising him. (Barbara Walters? Hello?)

One more thing: America loves an underdog.

If by some miracle Santorum actually ends up winning the Republican nomination in Tampa, he’ll be one of the biggest comeback stories in American political history. Defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, he entered the presidential campaign with seemingly impossible odds against him. The mainstream media ignored him and, with few exceptions, the pundits gave him no chance at all. In the first six months after he announced, he raised less than $1 million, and finished 2011 with less than $300,000 cash on hand. Just three weeks ago, many people were still saying Santorum might as well quit. And now . . .

Well, a lot of flashier guys have come and gone from the 2012 GOP field, but Steady Eddie’s still at the dance, isn’t he?

Category: Election 2012, Rick Santorum

Comments

73 Responses to “Sincerity, Courage and Other Secrets Behind the Surprising Santorum Surge”

Pathfinder's wife
February 15th, 2012 @ 10:07 am

Ah, but the contraception thing as it stands now is not so innocent: school girls (and boys) given contraception without their parents knowledge (isn’t this infringing upon the parents’ individual freedoms to run their homes as they see fit?) and some of the kids are very, very young (which brings up all sorts of health issues or the potential thereof that society very likely will have to pay for), and there have been some studies out that raise the question of some of the hormones used in contraception winding up in the water…hey, the environmentalists may have a point here, so how is pushing more of these things good for the environment, which we all live in by the way, then there are the back room deals with Big Pharma (oooh, corporate collectivists making money hand over fist on the shattered morals and lives of our children and the wreck of our country — and who have these folks made political contributions too, why they’ve been snug and tight with a lot of politicians on the left as well as the right, and they don’t mind this healthcare bill all that much)….
and only then do we get to the part about contraception which straddles the line of abortifacent and the RC’s stance on those.

So there are just bunches of libertarian concerns buried within this issue (and even a few crunchy ones too) — if the case of those connections can be made, and made so people will listen; well, there you have it.
EBL
February 15th, 2012 @ 10:34 am

This new Santorum ad is just great.
scarymatt
February 15th, 2012 @ 10:37 am

So, somehow federal insurance mandates are causing contraception to be handed out at schools?

Is there anything relevant in your comment to a Presidential election? Perhaps (being generous) another straw against the Dept of Education?
Pathfinder's wife
February 15th, 2012 @ 10:56 am

I’m just pointing out the case to be made for raising the issue of increasing the access to contraception wholesale. Remember: if the healthcare bill goes through, then contraception becomes a “right” for all — which includes minor children.

And there are more concerns to this thing than merely the issue of contraception specifically.

And heck yeah, why not go there? It’s a topic which the left brought up, so bring it right back to their doorstep.
Pathfinder's wife
February 15th, 2012 @ 11:05 am

You could put any of the other GOP canidates’ names in that slot and make the same case (and it has been done before).

And it could be true, but then again could also be false — everything hinges on how any one of them would play their cards.
scarymatt
February 15th, 2012 @ 11:09 am

Why not? Because it’s a distraction. “Access to contraception” is pretty easy already. Mandating that employers pay for it through health insurance doesn’t really change that, and any effects are frankly pretty minor compared to the bigger issues.

There’s only so much time and room for various issues. Let’s try to take the initiative and not just respond to the issues that the Left wants to talk about.
Wombat_socho
February 15th, 2012 @ 11:34 am

He’s crapped in our litter box for the last time!
>:(
Zilla of the Resistance
February 15th, 2012 @ 1:26 pm

I could not have said ti better myself, EBL! I was an early Rick Santorum supporter and I still am, but I feel itchy when he attacks other Republicans, he almost lost me when he went after Herman Cain; Rick does best when he is standing on his own merits, not when he’s picking at the other guys’ flaws.
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 2:06 pm

Hey, I am not the one you need to convince, you need to convince the sixty one percent of the fucking fools-you know, our fellow asshole American citizens-that think government has the right to mandate to insurance companies what kind of coverage they have to offer. As long as three fifths of the American people are fine with shit like that, how the hell do you think you are going to convince them to reduce the size and scope of the federal government by so much as one percent?
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

You know what I bet? I bet you can’t name one thing I said in that post that was wrong.
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 2:13 pm

The proper term is TrotskyIST, and it damn sure applies more to the sixty one percent of the American people I’m talking about than it does to me. If you want to rail against communists, you have plenty of them here to rail at-three fifths of our fellow American citizens.
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 2:17 pm

There comes a point in time when fighting with words won’t accomplish anything other than getting you and maybe your family killed along with the rest of the sheared sheep. Sooner or later you have to either be willing to take it to the next level, or just accept whatever realities you are left with and deal the best you can. I don’t see another two decades going by before we arrive to that point in time. Do you?

You see what’s going on in Greece, and in the rest of Europe, yet the left keeps insisting on taking us down that road. I wonder why that is.
Wednesday Roundup 2/15/12 First Amendment Crisis Edition
February 15th, 2012 @ 3:36 pm

[…] Sincerity, Courage and Other Secrets Behind the Surprising Santorum Surge […]
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 5:13 pm

Okay, that makes me feel a lot better. I was worried about that myself. I’ve been worried myself about the Paultards jumping to the front of the parade and claiming they started the march, so I know where he’s coming from.
Wombat_socho
February 15th, 2012 @ 5:38 pm

1) I learned my political epithets (at least the Communist ones) from Solzhenitsyn, and 2) I was just kidding. Lighten up, dude.
Wombat_socho
February 15th, 2012 @ 5:43 pm

Look, I don’t disagree with you on the scope of the effort that needs to be made; heck, I’d be surprised if it didn’t take at least as long to root out all the “Progressive” tumors from the Federal Government as it took to grow them. Doesn’t mean I’m going to put down the scalpel and walk away because it’s hopeless. Where we part company is on the American electorate’s willingness to make the effort. I think people are seeing the danger of the Leviathan State and are ready to start cutting it back, a slice at a time maybe; an entire fifty-pound tumor possibly if we can get away with it. Wringing our hands and moaning ain’t going to get it done, and as long as you keep doing that, imma give you shit about it. In a more or less good-natured mocking way, of course.
Lourdes Pedowitz
February 15th, 2012 @ 6:30 pm

.. [Although the following will definitely sound crazy it’s not meant to stir up problems or endless debates..] However, after so many deaths -known & unknown- in the entertainment business & countries worldwide, it’s our moral obligation to present to you, Senator, a piece of health policy proposal: that YOUR FUTURE CABINET LAUNCHES AN ALL-OUT ASSAULT against MIXING MEDICINE WITH ALCOHOL/DRUGS in an attempt TO CONVINCE US citizens and the world, for that matter, ON THE BENEFITS of CHOOSING -FREELY & CONVINCED- anxiety & SELF-CONTROL TECHNIQUES, SPORTS & SUPPORT SYSTEMS, etc.. TO LEAD a «NORMAL» LIFE OVER ALCOHOL OR DRUGS.. THAT THESE PROBLEMS ARE NOT JUST HEALTH ISSUES BUT A PERSONAL ISSUE, AND A FAMILY ISSUE, AND A PROFESSIONAL ISSUE, A WORLD ISSUE.Sure enough this problem will never go away but -as you say Senator- it’s our moral duty to denounce this, & for you -America- to give the world some head start in these efforts & lead an endless fight that sees no discouragement… [So advisors, take it from here! Many thanks]
Mike G.
February 15th, 2012 @ 6:38 pm

That blog had a link to a news story, much like this one does, although Stacy is a real journalist and makes his own stories. I link to this blog quite often. Just sayin’.
‘Freaking huge, man’
February 15th, 2012 @ 6:58 pm

[…] Stacy reminds you…that I told […]
Mike G.
February 15th, 2012 @ 7:04 pm

Santorum voted for the Patriot Act and voted to re-up the same act. By this record, it’s clear that he would probably have voted YES on the recent NDAA which allows the US military to arrest American citizens and hold them without trial indefinitely, or even to assassinate American citizens. And I’m sure he’s tickled pink about the 30,000 drones that will soon be flying overhead spying on Americans in every state…that’s 6,000 drones in every state. ( Hey, you’d better not get caught speeding or it will be a Hellfire missile up the ol’ tail pipe, eh?)

He’s against “right to work”. He voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker. These are just a few of the big government things Santorum has voted for.

But as I said before, if he is the GOP candidate, I’ll hold my nose and vote for him.
ThePaganTemple
February 15th, 2012 @ 10:29 pm

People have been getting so uptight over this crazy election lately its hard to tell when somebody’s kidding. It did sting, because I am a defeatist. I don’t see a way forward that leads to a satisfactory conclusion, so that’s about as defeatist as it gets.

Just so you’ll know, Trotskyite is a Stalinist term, meant as an antisemitic slur due to the Jewish origins of Trotsky and much of his inner circle. At least, that’s what the Trotskyists say.
DIANE LANE
February 19th, 2012 @ 12:13 am

talking out of both sides of your mouth doesn’t make you believable!
DIANE LANE
February 19th, 2012 @ 12:15 am

Please keep up…he does believe in limited government and getting rid of all the Obama mandates….just sayin…..