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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

DULIK: Santorum Spices Up GOP Race

Rick Santorum truly intrigues me. Coming off his stunning sweep of the contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last Tuesday, the former Pennsylvania senator is getting a second consideration from many Republican voters. In general, the candidate is perceived as either a conservative savior or a theocratic monster. The true Santorum, I believe, lies somewhere in between.

If you know only one thing about Rick Santorum, it is likely the fact that he is militantly pro-traditional family values. A less elegant way of putting that is that Santorum has made a career of incendiary statements regarding cultural liberalism, reserving his strongest words for homosexuality.

Labeled anti-gay and homophobic by many, Santorum has attempted to emphasize that his opposition to gay marriage cannot be misconstrued as discrimination. When asked in a debate how he would respond to his son theoretically coming out as gay, Santorum replied: “I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it and I would try to do everything I can to be as good a father to him as possible.”

Santorum is more than a just a social conservative icon. He offers a robust defense of the War on Terror and is an unabashed spokesman for neoconservative foreign policy. His economic recovery agenda is nuanced and bold in its focus on recovering lost manufacturing capacity and jobs.

Consistent with the latter emphasis is Santorum’s blue-collar appeal. As the son of an Italian immigrant, he was raised in coal country in western Pennsylvania. Santorum used his speech on the night of the Iowa caucuses (which he ultimately won, by a narrow margin) as an opportunity to speak of his coal-mining immigrant grandfather, saying: “Those hands dug freedom for me.” Santorum will attempt to play up his common-man appeal as a contrast to the popular perception of Romney’s privilege and wealth.

Santorum is unique in his deliverance of substantive policies that demonstrate leadership in diverse arenas. He chaired the Republican Party’s Welfare Reform Task Force in the 1990s and authored the Iran Freedom and Support Act in 2005. His legislative resume is distinguished by meaningful conservative accomplishments.

Yet that resume in and of itself may be an impediment to his presidential candidacy. Santorum served four years in the House of Representatives, then 12 years in the Senate, during which time he rose to become the party’s third-highest-ranking senator as the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. With Congress’ approval rating now in the single digits, Santorum — a consummate Washington insider — will struggle to harness popular discontent with the government.

Nor is it clear to me that his campaign has the capacity to make a serious shot at the nomination. While his recent victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri are not as inconsequential as the Romney campaign would have you believe, they are also not as earth-shattering as the Santorum campaign claims them to be. They are indeed evidence of conservative activists’ malaise for a Romney nomination, but the rock-bottom turnout and non-binding nature of the contests means these victories aren’t enough to constitute the political fuel that could propel the Santorum engine forward.

The true test will come on Feb. 28, when Arizona and Michigan vote in binding and highly consequential primaries. With high-level endorsements and idiosyncratic advantages in both (provided by a large Mormon population in Arizona and his childhood roots in Michigan, where his father was governor), Romney is the presumed frontrunner in each contest. If Santorum can win — or even come close — in at least one, he will go a long way toward disproving the talking heads’ conclusion that he doesn’t have the muscle to win the party nod.

The road ahead will be rough for Santorum. But the next time you hear someone write him off as just a conservative bigot, or a has-been without prospect, remember this: Love him or loathe him, Rick Santorum is a complex and fascinating political figure who is shaking up this presidential election.

Sam Dulik is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. He is the director of special events for the Georgetown University College Republicans. QUORUM CALL appears every other Friday.

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