Neither Newt nor Mitt! We Pick Rick

Who would make the better president? A candidate who has a well-respected and effective leadership style, but who really does not share our core convictions, or a candidate who often shares our convictions but is hindered by intrigue and complexity and whose leadership is seriously flawed?

The first candidate is the conservative of convenience, Mitt Romney. Despite his veneer and how he projects himself as a conservative, his past policies indicate that his first resort to solving a problem is through governmental interference rather than through free enterprise. One fears that after the primary, when it is no longer convenient to be conservative, Mitt’s DNA will resequence him back to being the Massachusetts moderate.

The second candidate is the erratic conservative, Newt Gingrich. Here is a man capable of analyzing grand scale problems and producing grand scale solutions. Often these solutions comport with small government ideology and are appealing to conservatives, although a number of his proposals come across as half-baked, and sometimes conflict with small government ideology. At times, the erratic conservative leaves the reservation to promote global warming or individual mandates.

Newt’s problems might be overlooked for the sake of finding a good candidate rather than the perfect candidate. However, his leadership performance and his history of making seriously flawed decisions that come back to haunt him are the issues which conservatives should not overlook.

Which is worse--a capable moderate or an erratic conservative whose leadership has been tested and found wanting?

If we support Mitt, we compromise our conservative ideology. If we support Newt, we place our conservative ideology into the hands of an erratic conservative who has already been in leadership and who bogged down our agenda through incompetence and intrigue. In either case, we lose.

There is a third option. We can support Rick Santorum, who combines consistent and reliable Reagan conservatism with a history of competent leadership.

Game Still On! Why Santorum’s Campaign Cannot Be Leveraged Out to Support Newt

For the past two weeks, Gingrich supporters have argued that Santorum should quit and support their efforts to keep Romney from winning the nomination. This assumes that Santorum supporters prefer Newt to Mitt, a badly mistaken assumption. I’ll explain why.

Preliminarily, let me note that the three candidates have all won a state, and that Rick has beaten Newt in two of the three contests. Moreover, the fundraising boost that Newt will get from winning South Carolina is likely to go to relieve his campaign’s indebtedness, rather than to propel his campaign forward in Florida. In contrast, despite polling badly in South Carolina, the Santorum campaign reached its million dollar goal 24 hours ahead of its 3-day deadline this past week, finishing with 1-1/2 million in the moneybomb. Meanwhile, Santorum already has campaign captains in every Florida county, and his campaign offices are fully staffed by campaign professionals. Also boding well for Santorum is that prior to the South Carolina election, Rick was polling second in Florida. All this to say, pundits like Palin, Morris, and Rove all have good reasons to agree with Santorum that the game is STILL on.

So, the suggestion that Rick should quit is patently absurd. But that Santorum should quit in order to keep Romney from winning is even more problematic.

The reality is that Santorum supporters find both Gingrich and Romney equally flawed. To be sure, we think that Romney is a conservative of convenience, and that when it is no longer convenient to be conservative, his true DNA will re-sequence back to its Massachusetts moderate form. But this is not any worse than Newt’s problems.

Newt is the erratic conservative, or in the words of one of his own supporters, he is “volatile, to say the least” (Bob Livingston, R-LA). We could point to all the anti-Newt talking points of the season, but the bottom line for many of us Santorum supporters is inability to provide principled leadership. This assessment is especially evident in how he was so soundly repudiated by his own caucus in his ethics scandal, with 75% of Republicans joining Democrats for a 395–28 vote against Newt, serving him with a $300,000 fine.

The portrait of Newt’s leadership as unfocused, undisciplined, erratic, volatile, unaccountable, unresponsive, and incapable of nurturing important initiatives to fruition, is reinforced by the testimony of his former colleagues over and over again. Many of them who had kept quiet over the years so as not to kick a dead horse, have come forward now to warn us of his unreliability. The 90s joke has been given new life with Gingrich’s re-emergence, that there was a roomful of filing cabinets in the Capitol Building, with each drawer marked “Newt’s Ideas,” but only one marked “Newt’s Good Ideas.” The fact that Newt kited 22 checks, including one for thousands of dollars, exemplifies this portrait of the undisciplined life.

Conservatives serving with Gingrich have professed a genuine fear that a Gingrich presidency would take on the kinds of complexity and intrigue reflective of his own personal life. They are not so concerned about the moral issues, but about the kinds of bad decisions that entangle and weigh a person down so as to impede progress and to haunt him years later. This pattern was evident in 1998, an election year following the Lewinsky scandal, and when the “six year itch” typically sees the incumbent president’s party losing house seats. We expected significant gains in the House, but Newt’s legacy of complexity and intrigue caused the Republicans to nearly lose their majority. Rather disingenuously, Newt sells this deep disappointment as one of his achievements.

Based on past performance, a Gingrich presidency would afford many occasions when defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory. Such was the case when House Managers were very effectively prosecuting Clinton’s impeachment and pressing their case. At the critical moment, while Clinton was still on the ropes, it was Gingrich who blinked, and the whole process wound down. So also the government shutdown—again, with victory in sight, Gingrich blinked instead of staying the course and delivering victory. One wonders why Gingrich could not stand toe to toe with Clinton.

With such fiascos, Newt projected onto Republicans the reputation of being hard core, without delivering any of the benefits that should have accrued from their uncompromising stance.

During those intense moments of the impeachment trial, what compromises would Newt have offered to keep his own adultery quiet? If Harry Reid were the one in possession of the embarrassing interviews with Marianne Gingrich, what would Newt have offered to keep them quiet? Entanglements like these can hogtie a president and his agenda faster than you can say Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

Santorum supporters know these things about Newt’s past leadership performance, but they also have other concerns about Gingrich facing Obama in the general election.

In a race that needs to be about the Obama record, Newt is too easily made the issue. It is not a matter of a skeleton in one closet, but a matter of multiple skeletons in many closets. Baggage? Yes, pick a bag, any bag—for there are many bags to choose from. There is so much baggage that the national debt could be paid off in Newt’s excess baggage fees. The Obama campaign would relish putting out a new campaign ad every week exploiting Newt’s own history, personal and public.

Moreover, the whole Santorum campaign has been predicated on Santorum being the full-spectrum conservative, the candidate who best embodies the 3 legged stool of Reagan conservatism: social conservatism, small government and fiscal conservatism, and national security. With Newt’s 10 or 20 year commitment to the individual mandate for health care, and with him carrying water for the global warming alarmists (check out his two books on this issue), much has been said to question Newt on his commitment to small government. But what is indisputable is Newt’s lack of commitment to social issues that are so critical to Santorum supporters.

First and foremost in the Santorum economic plan is the family. The Republican Party is pro-family. Santorum often affirms the Brookings Institutes data that people are most likely to stay out of poverty if they do three things: finish high school, get a job, get married before having children—and stay married. We Santorum supporters are passionate about this, and we cannot stomach a candidate who mainstreams serial adultery and multiple marriage.

Out of principle, we Santorum supporters will not vote for someone to be the candidate for the party of family values whose past personal decisions so profoundly undermine those family values. It is not a matter of us being unforgiving. Rather, it is a matter of whose profile picture is depicted with our banner promoting family values. The very notion of Newt promoting family values is utterly ridiculous. When he refers to himself and his wife by name, we always hold our breath for fear that he will say, “Marianne and I...” or perhaps “Jackie and I.”

All this to say, the effort to leverage Santorum out of the race in order to keep Mitt from becoming the candidate, wrongly and badly assumes that we’d rather have Newt than Mitt. Neither is a viable option for many Santorum voters. For this rease, Santorum MUST not quit this race.

Why the Nationally Renowned Evangelical Leaders Endorsed Santorum by a Supermajority

Evangelicals representing a large number of local and national organizations voted decisively today to endorse Rick Santorum. Here is the story and an explanation why they so overwhelmingly picked Santorum.

We evangelicals had been divided. In Iowa, we were split between Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry. Santorum left Iowa with a win (or a 2nd place win by a handful of votes). Bachmann quit the race, Perry should have, with Gingrich just ahead of Perry at the bottom of the pack.

In liberal New Hampshire, with the help of independents and cross over Obama supporters in the open primary, the moderates and the Libertarian won, but Santorum still came ahead of Gingrich, while Perry picked up but 1% of the vote.

Now Santorum heads into South Carolina with a win and a fourth place finish, and with an estimated 12 delegates, second only to Romney’s 20. None of the other conservatives have any delegates. Although Santorum has a clear advantage over the other conservatives on the early score, many evangelicals still felt divided among themselves. Their desperate desire to unite behind one conservative prompted them to seek guidance from their leaders.

In the effort to unite, about 150 nationally renowned evangelical leaders went to Texas, sequestered themselves for a two day retreat, and forged a consensus. Perry didn’t survive the first round of voting. In the third round, Santorum overwhelmingly beat Gingrich by a supermajority of 85-29.

Why did these evangelical leaders so decisively settle to endorse Santorum? I wasn’t invited, but as an evangelical scholar, here is my educated guess.

Preliminarily, evangelicals certainly were not going to support Romney simply because of his recent conversion to conservative social views; he is suspected to be a conservative of convenience, rather than a conservative of conscience. Similarly, they realize that Ron Paul is far removed from views favorable to the pro-life movement; like Pres. Obama, Paul does not think that the federal government has the responsibility to protect the rights of the unborn to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Of the other candidates, based on news reports, the question of electability was what bumped Perry out, leaving Santorum and Gingrich. This is a telling story, for it suggests that they also considered electability in the final choice between Gingrich and Santorum. To some extent, these leaders perceived Santorum as more electable than Gingrich. This makes sense for two reasons. First, Gingrich is perceived to have so much baggage that it could pay off the national debt in excess baggage fees. Secondly, Gingrich brings no electoral advantage to the election, while Santorum, with his Made-in-America plan, appeals strongly to the Reagan Democrats and the manufacturing sector of the Midwestern swing states http://theo-politico.blogspot.com/2011/12/santorums-made-in-america-economic-plan.html. A win of Ohio and Pennsylvania converts into a Republican victory http://theo-politico.blogspot.com/2011/12/beating-obama-which-republican-can.html.

In addition to evangelical leaders perceiving that Santorum is more electable than Gingrich, Santorum probably increased his lead over Gingrich through the perception that Santorum has more evangelical bona fides than Gingrich. In particular, Santorum is well known for living a life above reproach. I think evangelicals are quick enough to forgive Gingrich for his moral failings. However, evangelicals appreciate the value of a life-long commitment to morals, and are wary about entrusting leadership to recent converts http://theo-politico.blogspot.com/2011/12/marital-fidelity-as-criterion-for.html.

The evangelical leaders probably also gave points to Santorum for his level of commitment to evangelical urgencies. To be sure, Gingrich holds to many of these same urgencies, but not as passionately as Santorum. Throughout Santorum’s career, he has shown that these evangelical priorities are written in his DNA and reach down to his very bones.

Ultimately, I suspect that these many evangelical leaders endorsed Santorum over Gingrich simply because they trust his leadership and because they find comfort in endorsing the most principled candidate.

Respecting the Question: How Does Your Candidate Rate?

One of the marginalizing comments often made about Santorum is that he’s not exciting. Such an assessment comes only from those who haven’t seen see his Iowa victory speech, or any of his 20 minute policy speeches which stir up deep passions in the hearts and moistens the eyes of patriots.

Such a blasé assessment from Santorum critics reflects an expectation of rabble rousing soundbytes when a candidate answers a question. We heard some in the last debate. When Ron Paul was asked if he were responsible for the racist comments in the newsletter edited by him, he converted the question into red meat comments about liberty and the constitution. Perry likewise converted his questions into a launching pad for his pre-rehearsed debate points. Newt is particularly astute in overthrowing questions, and does so with good humor, prompting the notion that he is a great debater. Huntsman was cool and awesome by answering in Chinese.

Romney was brilliant in side stepping Stephanopoulos’ inane question of whether the state has the right to ban contraception. Ultimately, however, he did not answer the question. The reason why Santorum gets these questions ad infinitum is precisely because he respects the question and will answer it fully, without just simply diverting the question to campaign talking points.

Rick Santorum simply answers the question. There is a certain respect that Santorum gives to the question itself, and hence, to the questioner. Instead of steering away from some answer that might lose him a vote here or there, he drives straight into controversy, makes his best argument, and says, “You may not agree with me, but this is what I believe.” And even if he gives you an answer you don’t like, at least he answered your question.

A week or so ago, someone asked Santorum about Social Security. Nothing he said could be reduced to a soundbyte, but his 7 minute reply taught me more about Social Security than I had learned in these many years.

While other candidates depended upon high priced Madison Avenue commercial advertizing in Iowa and New Hampshire, Santorum’s approach was to visit people, give his 20 minute speech, and then engage with them in a 30-40 minute question and answer dialog, precisely because he respects the question and the questioner. This commitment to dialoging with the people reflects an ethos that elitists simply cannot understand or reproduce. After all, so they think, what could they possibly learn from ordinary people?

Campaign managers would say that Santorum’s respect for the question is a liability, a campaign flaw, a lead weight around the candidate’s neck. For my part, this is a flaw that I can live with.

The Five Most Important Things You Need to Know about Ron Paul

#1 Paul will not be the Republican nominee. Here’s why. First, nearly 75% of Republicans would vote for any other candidate than Paul. Paul would lose to any one of the Republican candidates. Secondly, a majority of Paul’s support comes from independents who will not be able to vote in most Republican primaries; in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Democrats and independents crossed over to vote in the Republican primaries, but most of the remaining primaries will be for Republicans only, so that statistically, Paul will not be able collect enough delegates to win the Republican nomination.

#2 Paul holds some views that are very important to Republicans, such as limited government, spending cuts, and a balanced budget. On the other hand, he also holds some views on foreign policy which diametrically disagree with all the other Republican candidates, and with the entire Republican Party. Unfortunately, he would have an extremely difficult struggle getting through Congress his agenda that Republicans like, while on the other hand, he would enact all his foreign policy that Republicans all view as dangerous for our country on day one of his presidency, with the stroke of a pen.

#3 Paul lacks leadership ability. I prove this in three points: First, in his 20+ years in Congress, he has introduced hundreds of bills, but only one ever passed—an inconsequential bill to sell a government building in Texas. He has forged few or no alliances with his colleagues in the House; his colleagues consider him fringe, more so than any other member of Congress. Secondly, for years, he edited a newsletter which contained articles written in the first person which were extremely racist; he claims not to know anything about them, but this only betrays a lack of leadership—if he doesn’t even know what’s being printed in his own newsletter, how could he manage the State Department or the Pentagon? Thirdly, currently, Paul’s supporters are invasively protesting the campaign events of other Republicans. This is probably the first time ever that one Republican’s supporters have ever disrupted another Republican’s campaign events. If Paul cannot control his own supporters, how will he lead the nation and the world?

#4 Paul is not “pro-life” in the same way that other Republicans are pro-life. He is pro-life only in the way that Obama is pro-life: abortion is a bad thing, but the federal government does not have a role to protect unborn life. One might say that Paul is “pro-choice;” he thinks that states should choose whether or not abortion should be legal or illegal. More disturbingly, in one of his own campaign ads, Paul discovered a post-abortive baby that was still alive, but struggling for breath. What did Paul do? By his own testimony, he did nothing but walk out of the room. I know what I would do if I found a baby discarded in a bucket, struggling for breath. I’d go absolutely postal in trying to save the baby. But this man who touts his record of delivering thousands of babies, simply walked out of the room, and then is so callous as to tell the story in a campaign ad that is supposed to prove how pro-life he is. Here’s the link to his ad: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMkAsLPrnJGc&h=QAQEUTJaoAQF9Xd9qUByOdCdvHCH7UsjRUHihogU1Vf843A

#5 Paul does not understand radical Islam. He thinks that it is our own American policy and actions that provoke Islamic terrorism. To refute this naive and foolish notion, one need only ask, “What did the 10 million Buddhists do to deserve being killed by Islamic radicals over the centuries?” Indeed, why do Islamic radicals persecute Copts and burn their churches, and destroy their livelihood in our own era? Or, why did Islamic radicals commit genocide against Orthodox Christians in Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century? Hindus claim that Islamic radicals have killed 60 million Hindus over the centuries. Look at how eagerly the Taliban destroyed the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan in the 90s, not to mention persecuting and executing the Buddhist monks in the same period. And go back to how they violently took over the whole of North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries from Christians who gave them no resistance. Amazingly, the Christian Crusades, which were merely a response to the violent takeover of Christian lands by radical Islam, are condemned ad infinitum and always painted in the worst possible light, while naive people like Ron Paul and his supporters keep saying that Islam is a religion of peace. I might concede the argument that mainstream Islam is a peaceful religion for the sake of discussion, but there is a radical Islam that does radical things like strapping bombs to their own Islamic women with Down ’s syndrome to blow up unarmed civilians at a bus depot, or to blow up their own little children in their own schools. Such people would not hesitate to detonate a nuclear device right over the Paul homestead in Texas, if they were able to do so. The notion of negotiating with such people fails to understand that their primary goal is to make us dead.

Ron Paul is the quintessential RINO.

For more analysis:

The picture at the top is Ron Paul happily posing with KKK Grand Dragon Don Black from whom he has accepted significant donations.

Five Post-NH Primary Facts

Fact 1: Romney's impressive 39% win in New Hampshire netted him only 4-5 delegates out of the 1,144 necessary to win the nomination. That means he leads 2nd place Santorum by only .0035% of the total delegates needed. Game still on.

Fact 2: Ron Paul cannot win the Republican nomination. This is so for two additional facts. First, the overwhelming majority of Republicans would vote for any Republican other than Paul. Secondly, a significant majority of Paul's supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire are Democrats or independents who crossed over to vote in these two open states. Such Democrat and independent voters will not be able to cross over in the majority of Republican primaries which are otherwise closed. Moreover, one suspects that some of the Democrats voting for Paul are actually staunch Obama supporters who are trying to thwart the Republican primaries, and who will vote for Obama in the general election. Statistically, Paul cannot win a majority of delegates to secure the nomination.

Fact 3: About 20% of the votes were for conservative candidates, high enough to have given third place to the conservative candidate if voters had coalesced behind one. This high percentage is especially noteworthy considering how liberal New Hampshire is and that the lower half of the state is heavily influenced by media in Romney's home state.

Fact 4: South Carolina is much more conservative than New Hampshire, making a Romney win in South Carolina far from certain.

Fact 5: If conservatives do not get behind one candidate in South Carolina, Romney will win.

Honest Assessment of Santorum's Conservatism

There are some who are so blinded by their support for their candidate that they make the most absurd claims. One such claim is that Santorum is a big-government statist, or even a socialist--that he is not for limited government. People who make such absurd claims forfeit their political legitimacy and should be ignored altogether.

Here is a fair assessment of Santorum's conservative principles, backed by facts and independent analyses:



http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fwosg%2F2012%2F01%2F06%2Frick-santorum-yes-he-is-a-true-conservative%2F&h=aAQG-0oNRAQEiXIJlV0IA2dX9g7knLhpC00vHjWuasXiJvw

Santorum's Post-Iowa Strategy

To understand Santorum's post-Iowa strategy, it is key to understand Romney's precarious position. First, Romney spent five years and $5+ million in Iowa, but actually received fewer votes in yesterday's Caucuses than he did in 2008. He has plateaued. Secondly, polling data indicate that supporters of Gingrich, Perry, and Bachmann are less likely to switch their allegiance to Romney should their preferred candidate suspend. Thirdly, the most significant reason for not supporting Santorum was the perception of his unelectability, an obstacle that has suddenly been removed; this point is reinforced by Santorum's remarkable million dollar fund raising one-day feat today. These factors all suggest that Santorum has an intensity of momentum going into New Hampshire that Huckabee lacked in 2008.

Nonetheless, some pundits are claiming that Santorum's win in Iowa is nothing but a flash in a pan. Such analysis depends upon the unlikely meteoric recovery of Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry which would suck the air away from Santorum. However, Gingrich and Perry were so far removed from the top tier winners of Iowa that their campaigns are no longer legitimate, especially since both of them spent so much time and effort at scoring in Iowa. Their poor performances in Iowa are likely to send a good portion of their supporters scurrying to the Santorum campaign next Tuesday on election day. Meanwhile, Gingrich and Perry are most likely to focus their negative ads against Romney, as Gingrich has made clear. Santorum will benefit from all this at Romney's expense.

A key mistake of pundits who anticipate Santorum's eventual demise is that they underestimate Santorum's campaign organization in both New Hampshire and South Carolina. Indeed, pundits probably view Santorum's prospects in light of Huckabee's demise who did not have sufficient time to build a campaign presence in New Hampshire or in South Carolina after his Iowa win.

What makes Santorum's situation different from Huckabee's is that he has already invested much into both states. He has made 30+ visits to New Hampshire in the past year, more than anyone else but Huntsman (who lives there). Santorum has garnered 23 endorsements from New Hampshire state representatives. In South Carolina, Santorum won the state's most significant straw poll this summer. For the Dec 10 debate, Santorum supporters sported 20 debate parties for their candidate in South Carolina. Support for Santorum in these two states are intense.

So, I think a reasonable expectation is that Santorum will perform respectably in New Hampshire. Romney is expected to win significantly, with Huntsman coming in second--understandably since both candidates have strong ties there. However, Santorum's Made-in-America plan will appeal to Reagan Democrats and to those in the manufacturing sector. Santorum hopes to join these blue collar voters with New Hampshire's 23% Evangelical Republicans and considerable Catholic population in a viable voting block.

If Santorum outperforms expectations in New Hampshire, he will be able to move on to South Carolina to wage a campaign where Huckabee faltered.

Red State's Erick Erickson Would Think George Washington a Failure

In an effort to save his own prognosticating derriere, conservative Red State bloigger Erick Erickson, who has been utterly dismissive of Santorum and his campaign for the Republican nomination (see here), claims that Santorum is a statist (see http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/12/28/no-surprise-iowa-social-conservatives-are-about-to-shoot-us-all-in-the-foot-again/ and http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/12/29/rick-santorum-earmarxists-and-the-pro-life-statist/).

This claim follows weeks and months of dismissive comments that were pedantic and lacking in substance. They amounted to little more than sandbagging Santorum's efforts to get off the ground. Lacking any real complaint about Santorum, Erickson resorted to saying that Santorum is whiney, Santorum is angry, Santorum is arrogant, Santorum is not likable, as if such subjective and disputable claims could justify a dismissal.

For several weeks, I criticized Erickson for his shallow analysis. My comments posted on his blog were polite, but were so effective that he blocked me from posting comments. This says a lot about Erickson's character--not only does he dish out baseless criticisms, but he also cuts off dissenting views from other Reagan conservatives.

With Santorum surging so much so that some are suggesting that he might steal first place in Iowa, Erickson now realizes that thinking conservatives have not been swayed by such shallow criticism. Consequently, he spelled out his best case against Santorum.

An uncritical reading of Erickson's case against Santorum might make people think that Santorum was Tom Daschle's and Harry Reid's best friend in the Senate. But Erickson's case needs to be evaluated in light of what he doesn't say about Santorum. His analytical method is akin to damning George Washington by citing his every miscue, fault, and failure (which were myriad) while ignoring that he defeated the British and founded our country.

For Erickson, Exhibit One which would prove that Santorum is a big-government proponent is that he voted for various Bush initiatives. Erickson claimed that Santorum undermined the conservative opposition to these Bush initiatives. In reality, however, these initiatives were widely supported by Republicans, with minimal Republican dissent. Indeed, the only Republican senators who voted against them were liberals such as Lincoln Chafee and Judd Greg. By Erickson's criteria, all of our Republican Senators during the Clinton and Bush years, including 2008 conservative favorite Fred Thompson, would be damned as liberals. The fact that Santorum voted with conservatives increases his conservative credentials, not reduce them.

Exhibit Two is Santorum's endorsement of Arlen Specter. Yes, we all despise the RINO, but there was no way that Toomey could possibly win a statewide election in 2004; he only won in 2010 by 2%, and that was a landslide year for Republicans. So Santorum took advantage of Specter's predicament and traded him an endorsement on the condition that Specter would approve Bush nominees to the Supreme Court. It worked. The pro-choice Specter nearly chomped his tongue bloody while saying good things about Roberts and Alito to get them confirmed. These two justices are likely to serve as stalwart Constitutionalists for two or three decades, even if Toomey votes for another liberal Obama nominee like Sotomayor. Erickson, instead of condemning Santorum, should be praising him for his brilliant maneouver.

These two exhibits are the core of Erickson's case against Santorum. But in claiming that Santorum is a statist, Erickson is blind to what is otherwise obvious to the rest of us Reagan Conservatives. In the words of the Riehl World View blog, Rick Santorum has done more to advance conservatism thus far than someone like Erickson will ever do in his entire life http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2011/09/why-erick-erickson-will-never-lead-the-conservative-movement.html Consider just a couple of points in passing.

First, Santorum was the first of the candidates to endorse the Ryan plan. No statist would ever do so. Santorum has pledged to cut 5 trillion dollars in the next 5 years.

Second, Santorum co-sponsored and fought for a balanced budget amendment that failed by a single vote, prompting Santorum to demand that the RINO (Hatfield, OR) who voted against it be stripped of his chairmanship. He did so even against such stalwart Republicans as Jesse Helms who defended the RINO. Santorum's fight led to the RINO's early retirement.

Santorum's conservatism is in his DNA. He is not a conservative of convenience like Romney, and his faith and family emphasis is not newly found like Perry's, and his expertise and stalwart positions on national security is mined from the purity of Reagan conservatism. Erickson negative assessment of Santorum is skewed badly by ulterior motives (see http://theo-politico.blogspot.com/2012/01/ulterior-motive-behind-red-states-erick.html).

The Ulterior Motive behind Red State's Erick Erickson's Attacks against Santorum

Suddenly, conservative Red State bloigger Erick Erickson is panicked and has started working overtime getting his attack machine rowing at ramming speed to attack the good ship Santorum. He has twittered and bloggered against the Senator, conjuring all his might and intellect to depict Santorum as being the fifth term of FDR, the second term of LBJ, and curtains-for-sure of a once great republic.

Erickson overplays his hand, to say the least, and this is obvious to anyone who knows anything about Santorum. People who exaggerate their criticisms to such a degree should never be taken seriously. But in Erickson's case, there is a motive, one which requires him not only to warn against a putative perfidious side to Santorum, but one which makes him desperate to make sure that Santorum goes down in flames. Here's his motive....

Week after week after week over these last few months, Erickson has dismissed Santorum as a non-factor in the race. At some point, Erickson even wrote that he would no longer report on Santorum because of his irrelevancy; and indeed, Erickson dropped him altogether for a few weeks. But Santorum refused to quit, and Erickson picked him back up only to say that there was no way that Santorum would influence the race in any way.

Now that Santorum is polling so well in Iowa, Erickson is suddenly faced with an embarrassing loss of credibility. The world is about to see how profoundly mistaken Erickson has been. A mistake of such magnitude would be akin to predicting that Walter Mondale would defeat Reagan in 1984. Hence, Erickson is desperate to do anything and everything he possibly can to sink the Santorum campaign in a self-serving effort to save his own prognosticating derriere. Erickson's flaming of Santorum is not an effort to save the American republic, but an effort to rescue his own credibility.

This is the motive behind Erickson's attacks on Santorum. For an assessment of Erickson's case against Santorum, go here: http://theo-politico.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-effort-to-save-his-own.html