Why Rick Santorum Won't Wear Well With Sane Voters

While Mitt Romney won the Maine caucuses - did anyone else notice that the total number of votes for all candidates was tiny? - much of the political chatter is nonetheless about Rick Santorum's upward movement in the national polls among Republicans. In addition to Mitt Romney's flip flopping like a fish in the bottom of a boat, I suspect one reason Santorum has been doing well is that until now he hasn't received the full spotlight treatment. Once that happens - as with Cain, Perry and Gingrich - Santorum to many will smell like a dead fish. Recall that after a term in the U.S. Senate, Santorum lost his Senate seat by 18%. Stated another way, once Pennsylvanians really got to know him, they did not like what they saw. That increased familiarity could be the kiss of political death again. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at why Santorum's "positives" could quickly turn into "negatives." Here are some highlights:

[T]hose qualities of Santorum’s that seem so positive and compelling now will be seen for what they really are: dead weight. Let’s take them one by one:

POSITIVE: Santorum’s Christian piety is a refreshing alternative to Gingrich’s personal corruption and Romney’s seemingly infinite malleability. The guy really believes what he says!

NEGATIVE REALITY: The guy really believes what he says! The breathtakingly low turnout in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado meant that the angriest and most alienated sector of the Republican party went to the polls: the white evangelicals and Tea Partiers. . . . . for the precious swing voters who will decide the election and who sat out Tuesday’s empty political exercises, Santorum’s narrowness and fanaticism are not inclusive enough of their own interests. When it’s mostly fundamentalist Protestants who care about the Catholic issue of birth control, you know you don’t have an issue with permanent appeal.

POSITIVE: By harping on the culture wars, Santorum has found an answer to one of this political season’s sharper ironies. While people care most about jobs and the economy, rhetoric about jobs and the economy tends to be dull and uninspiring, especially from the Republican side.

NEGATIVE REALITY: The culture wars are not what they used to be. Particularly among the lower-class whites that make up the evangelicals and other disaffected voters momentarily rallying around Santorum, the family structure is crumbling. Teen sex and teen pregnancy are rampant. Drug use is skyrocketing. Divorce is proliferating. . . . . A few months or even weeks down the road, all but the most diehard Santorum supporters will realize, on the visceral level, that his rhetoric has not caught up to their reality.

POSITIVE: In an age of confusion and uncertainy, when everything solid is either melting into air or being compressed into the latest, about-to-be-obsolete gadget, Santorum sounds bracingly like Savonarola.

NEGATIVE REALITY: Santorum may sound like Savonarola, but he comes across as Little Nell. Whereas the touchstone of conservative masculinity and leadership was Ronald Reagan, with his indefatigable, unruffled smiling composure, Santorum is a whiner. . . . . He just doesn’t seem presidential. He gives the impression of an ineffectual man trapped in a dream of power, for which he is completely unprepared.

POSITIVE: Santorum does indeed seem to be an authentic, believing Christian.

NEGATIVE REALITY: In his callousness toward the poor, his intolerance of gays, his compassion for the high profits of drug companies, his love of war, he represents the ruthless, remorseless, unworldly side of Christianity. . . . . . But even worse than his hardness toward society’s unfortunate and unconventional, Santorum has committed the worst sins of contemporary political life. A passion for big government. A lust for earmarks. Payback to campaign contributors. And Senate votes that seem to have a pricetag on them. Santorum the professional politician will have to say a lot of Hail Marys for his corruption-rife years in the Senate. The problem is that the Protestants who are voting for him now don’t believe in the redemptive powers of penance.

Let's hope Santorum gets the full spotlight treatment soon so that he can then be banished back to the political wilderness.