Friday, March 29, AD 2024 9:59am

Santorum: The Galvanizing Candidate

George Will has a first-rate column about Rick Santorum:

He can, of course, be tenaciously serious. On Sept. 26, 1996, the Senate was debating whether to ban partial-birth abortion, the procedure whereby the baby to be killed is almost delivered, feet first, until only a few inches of its skull remain in the birth canal, and then the skull is punctured, emptied and collapsed. Santorum asked two pro-choice senators opposed to the ban, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), this: Suppose the baby slips out of the birth canal before it can be killed. Should killing it even then be a permissible choice? Neither senator would say no.

On Oct. 20, 1999, during another such debate, Santorum had a colloquy with pro-choice Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.):

Santorum: “You agree that, once the child is born, separated from the mother, that that child is protected by the Constitution and cannot be killed. Do you agree with that?”

Boxer: “I think that when you bring your baby home .?.?. .”

Go here to read the rest.  Santorum has a long and tough road ahead of him in his battle for the White House.  As Will’s column indicates however, Santorum may just be precisely the type of candidate the GOP needs to galvanize its voters for the fight in the Fall.  There is a scene in the movie Rocky that I have always enjoyed where Apollo Creed’s trainer says to him about Rocky Balboa:  “He doesn’t know it’s a damn show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!”   Too often the Republican Party has nominated someone for President simply because it was their turn.  Thus we have had candidates like Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008 who ran lifeless campaigns and seemed to be concentrating on being good losers instead of fighting to win.  I think Mitt Romney is such a candidate.  The country cannot afford such nonsense this time.  Barack Obama is the worst president since James Buchanan and the country will be in dire straits indeed if he has a second term to fecklessly and cluelessly lead this nation into an economic pit we will be a generation climbing out of.  I know one thing about Santorum.  He will work and fight his heart out to win in the Fall and that is precisely what is needed this year in the Republican standard-bearer.

 

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Wayne
Wayne
Wednesday, January 4, AD 2012 9:46pm

Great post here Donald. I’ve wanted to say this in about every blog I’ve seen this video, but did anybody else notice that this man just did a 20 minute speech without notes or teleprompters! Seems like the Democrats aren’t the only one with a public speaker! This man’s speech gives me chills. When he speaks about God, you can just tell it is real. When he speaks about caring for the dignity of every worker, he’s sincere. There is something very genuine about this man that will be hard to miss if people give him the time of day. Let’s just keep on the positive Rick and show America who you really are!

Donna V.
Donna V.
Wednesday, January 4, AD 2012 10:17pm

Look, I admire Santorum’s pro-life work tremendously. I think he is, essentially, a decent man. But I fear that he is basically a Catholic Huckabee – a statist social conservative.

That said, I will vote him if he is the GOP nominee. The only GOP contender I really don’t think I could bring myself to vote for is Paul. So I’m not going to get into a pitched battle fighting about the pros and cons of Santorum, Romney, etc. when I’m really not nuts about any of them. (I initially favored Perry, but Perry has pretty much destroyed his own candidacy.) The important thing is to beat Obama.

It would be nice to vote for someone with enthusiasm, rather than voting against someone. But the conservative “A Team” (Jindal, Rubio, Walker, Ryan) isn’t running. *Sigh*

Donna V.
Donna V.
Wednesday, January 4, AD 2012 10:35pm

Oh, and I’m also aware that my criticism of Santorum for being a statist also applies to Romney. Darn it, every single candidate has big minuses. We have a serious crisis in leadership at a time when we need great leaders more than ever. I disagree with the Instapundit on certain issues, but I certainly agree with him when he says that today’s political class has to be the worst in the nation’s history.

Still, Obama is the worst of the worst.

RR
RR
Wednesday, January 4, AD 2012 10:56pm

His backdoor protectionism in that video made me cringe. It’s the type of stuff I debate liberals who think the US needs China-style industrial policy on.

Francis
Francis
Wednesday, January 4, AD 2012 11:33pm

I don’t understand why so called conservatives are ideological free traders. But, regardless, how is Santorum saying we should lower taxes on manufacturers protectionist, while I doubt anyone would say lowering regulations on manufacturers is protectionist. The fact is that both are or neither are.

We ought to do what’s in the public interest, rather than what might fit some economists’ neat vision of global efficiency. We are less competitive than our competitors when it comes to manufacturing. Should we not seek to remedy that? Or should we continue to let middle incomes stagnate? I think this policy fits excellently into Santorum’s broader pro-family vision.

Art Deco
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 5:41am

Thus we have had candidates like Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008 who ran lifeless campaigns and seemed to be concentrating on being good losers instead of fighting to win. I think Mitt Romney is such a candidate.

Whatever the merits or demerits of any of these men are if one aspires to a political economy congenial to a Catholic society, the first two have faced political circumstances which reduce certain outcomes to decidedly improbable events. (It is in the interest of professional campaign hacks to pretend otherwise, but we do not have to pay attention to their self-promotion).

Previous presidential candidates who faced circumstances the most similar to John McCain’s were Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey (the notable differences being that the economy had been much more bouyant, the running sore of a war was a great deal bloodier, and there was no banking crisis).

As for Dole’s situation, consider: the economy is vigorous, a portion of your constituency has been sheared off by a 3d party candidate, and most of the public is curiously unconcerned (in and out of season) that the incumbent and his minions are forever concealing the muck by hiding it behind a bigger pile of muck.

Now consider Romney. What is he doing in electoral politics and why has he abased himself? You think it might be because he is a competitive (or ambitious) man?

Art Deco
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 5:47am

I don’t understand why so called conservatives are ideological free traders.

Students of economics of a variety of descriptions tend to oppose impediments to foreign trade for the following reasons:

1. Tariffs induce efficiency losses;
2. You can through international treaty effect mutual reductions in tariffs.
3. Trade restrictions generate politically determined rents which induce a mobilization of constituency groups to defend them.
4. Countries with a vigorous civil service and extensive record-keeping do not need them to obtain revenue.

RR
RR
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 8:00am

“I don’t understand why so called conservatives are ideological free traders.”

Everyone should be a free trader regardless of ideology. Thinking liberals (Bill Clinton, President Obama, and even Paul Krugman) are also free traders.

“But, regardless, how is Santorum saying we should lower taxes on manufacturers protectionist, while I doubt anyone would say lowering regulations on manufacturers is protectionist. The fact is that both are or neither are.”

There’s a big difference. Reducing many regulations saves money for all parties. Subsidies (which is what special tax breaks are) cost money. We just got rid of the ethanol subsidy but now Santorum wants to add a manufacturing subsidy.

Maybe you believe the Keynesian notion that the subsidies will create so many jobs that it’ll be worth the price. Maybe you believe that Santorum can multiply fish just as Democrats believe Obama can. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. That’s the risk of central planning. Better to apply the same taxes across the board and let the free market allocate. Santorum says he’s picking manufacturing because other industries can’t move overseas. First, that’s not even true. But more importantly, why does that even matter? If under a fair tax system, China still has a comparative advantage in manufacturing, let it move. This is Wealth of Nations 101.

HermitTalker
HermitTalker
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 8:06am

They tell us the army is always fighting the last war. I wonder if that can be applied to the political system for 2012 and beyond. The Congress has stymied any progress on the debt reduction and has made no serious effort to create the jobs, re-boot the tax and economic system to help the US out of the hole that was dug, not really an issue by whom or how back then but what about now. The control of Congress by statesmen, not a continuation of the current session’s “nah nah nah nah” spooked by the Soros and Co Tea Bagger too-powerful lobbying interest. As I look back at the nation I just left after 47.5 years, I do not see the POTUS as being the real need for reform, although 44 is a bust given all that faced him and how he set priorities and rammed the dubious health bill through with no understanding of its almost 3000 page detail. I wish there were the same opportunity Europe had by getting technocrats to fix the Greek and Italian economic crises, booting their two PMs so that some of the nasty is off the table. As to longing for “good old days” humans have a natural tendency to see it as bright and rosy while iignoring the dark side, nor not even knowing how weak, flawed human nature was also at work there also!

Francis
Francis
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 9:21am

RR, I’ll give you credit for being honest. You don’t mind those jobs going to China.

I simply think it’s common sense to encourage manufacturing at a time when our trade deficit is so deep and the middle class is shrinking. It’s a sound conservative policy goal.

And a tax break for manuf. is hardly central planning in the sense we think of central planning. It’s no more central planning than this country has ever engaged in.

RR
RR
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 10:09am

“If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not therby be diminished… but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage.”

– Wealth of Nations

Another way of looking at tax breaks for manufacturing is as tax disadvantages for non-manufacturing. There will be more investment in manufacturing and less in non-manufacturing. It’s a centrally planned allocation of resources into a less efficient configuration.

trackback
Thursday, January 5, AD 2012 2:59pm

[…] Santorum: The Galvanizing Candidate – Donald R. McClarey, The American Catholic […]

Sam Osborne
Sam Osborne
Friday, January 6, AD 2012 12:21pm

In March of last year the Boston Globe quoted Rick Santorum telling a group of right-wing Catholics that he was “frankly appalled” that America’s first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, once said “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” In characterization, Santorum went further by saying “That was a radical statement,” and did “great damage.” And Santorum concluded, “We’re seeing how Catholic politicians, following the first Catholic president, have followed his lead, and have divorced faith not just from the public square, but from their own decision-making process.”

Santorum may insist that he is a better Catholic then I am and a better man to be president than John F. Kennedy, but just as freely I view him as a religious bigot that neither speaks for me in matters or conscience nor political affairs. And further, were he to gain the power of the presidency by successfully painting the people’s consideration with his brand of religious fanaticism, it would do “great damage” to our land.

And frankly, in words of comparative disparagement that Lloyd Bentsen directed at Dan Quayle in their 1988 vice-presidential debate, “Rick Santorum, you’re no John F. Kennedy.”

Mary
Mary
Friday, January 6, AD 2012 1:20pm

I believe those who attack true conservatives like Rick Santorum for daring to say the US needs to have a manufacturing base. Claiming it’s ‘protectionist’ or ‘statist’? Yet these same types are silent when it comes to China, India, Latin America, Canada and all other countries subsidize their manufacturers, hit US goods with high tariffs, and act in ways that are truly protectionist. I have to say, I believe those who do so, are NOT conservatives, nor are they Catholic or conservative in any way. They sound like the Marxists who demand the US economy be ransacked, bled dry, it’s citizen’s be rendered into third world poverty, and looted of their rights and freedoms. Rick Santorum’s plan is to eliminate the US manufacturing corporate tax, cut other corporate taxes by 50%, reduce other tax rates, including personal income tax to the pro-growth Reagan era taxes of 10% & 28%, eliminate the marriage penalty taxes, provide research and development incentives, and so on. Santorum’s Made in America jobs plan is very in depth and on his campaign web site.

As Catholics, we know Christ’s teachings, and it is in NO way Christian to rationalize the economic genocide being imposed upon US citizens, and it is in no way Christian or conservative to insist that the US be deprived of it’s own economic independence, and it’s citizens ability to live instead of starving and becoming homeless.

digdigby
digdigby
Friday, January 6, AD 2012 5:56pm

I never contributed a dime to a political campaign in my life. I just send money to Rick Santorum’s campaign. Just a good feeling.

JimmyV
JimmyV
Friday, January 6, AD 2012 9:35pm

Wayne – the Democrats have a public speaker? Who’s that? I’m mean someone who can speak without the aid of a teleprompter telling him what to say.

RR
RR
Saturday, January 7, AD 2012 10:25am

Mary, LOL free traders are Marxists? LOL.
Capitalism is “economic genocide?” LOL.

You guys need your own party.

RR
RR
Saturday, January 7, AD 2012 10:33am

Talking to liberals I found that without exception they all believe Santorum wants to ban sodomy, contraception, and masturbation despite the fact that he’s said just the opposite. They confuse his statements against Lawrence v. Texas and Griswold v. Connecticut to mean that he’s for bans. It’s a failure of education. People seem to think the Supreme Court is another legislature. I do think Santorum can make his position clearer though. Sometimes he gets so confrontational that he’s more concerned with making a philosophical point than campaigning.

Art Deco
Saturday, January 7, AD 2012 10:58am

Talking to liberals I found that without exception they all believe Santorum wants to ban sodomy, contraception, and masturbation despite the fact that he’s said just the opposite. They confuse his statements against Lawrence v. Texas and Griswold v. Connecticut to mean that he’s for bans. It’s a failure of education.

It is not a failure of education. Something John Leo said about reporters some time ago applies here: they think with templates. No amount of education is going to penetrate in most cases.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, January 7, AD 2012 4:05pm

Do the liberals believe President Santorum will deploy black helicopters to enforce his tyrannical bans on nose-picking, farting, and belching?

Here is a paraphrase of a Twain quote on congressmen. Suppose you were an idiot. And, suppose you were a liberal. But, I repeat myself.

Twain also knew reporters: “If you don’t read the papers, you are uniformed. If you read the papers, you are misinformed.” Truth.

Steve Kramer
Steve Kramer
Monday, January 9, AD 2012 9:21am

Outside of pro-life issues, what has Rick Santorum done? What is his executive experience? What has he lead?
He was elected to Congress at 32 and has spent all that time in Washington. When he was defeated he remained Washington at a policy think.
Santorum has clearly demonstrated he is Pro-Life. That is a good first step. But to be the natnion’s chief executive, he needs some executive experience. If he were elected Governor, then he would obtain that experience.
Also[, we followed the logic that the longest running candidate should be President, then it would belong to Ron Paul.

TW
TW
Tuesday, January 10, AD 2012 8:10am

If you feel that way, I’m sure you didn’t vote for the Obama,did you?!

Mary Elizabeth Williams
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Tuesday, January 10, AD 2012 12:51pm

Show’s over, folks. Any candidate who favors cutting Social Security benefits is simply unelectable. And as a Pennsylvanian I can tell you, this is his style – in a few days one of his aides will get to him and explain how dumb that position is, and he’ll reverse himself.

Art Deco
Tuesday, January 10, AD 2012 4:10pm

Show’s over, folks. Any candidate who favors cutting Social Security benefits is simply unelectable.

Well, Mary Elizabeth, you unelectors are in for a rude surprise when the sovereign default hits.

RR
RR
Tuesday, January 10, AD 2012 11:34pm

Romney now trading at his highest point ever on Intrade, including in South Carolina where he’s given an 80% chance of winning.

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