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.

A pro-Santorum Response to Steve Deace's Morning Briefing on the Iowa Caucuses

For Deace's original article: http://stevedeace.com/forum/showthread.php?303-Morning-Briefing-Final-Thoughts-for-2011&p=1876#post1876

Steve, You were seriously considering Ron Paul? You really think that Paul is the person who can get things turned around in Washington? In 20 years in Congress, he has passed but a single bill--to sell an old building. He has forged no alliances in Congress. He has persuaded none of his peers of his ideas. His base is a hodgepodge of fringe elements. Leadership is not his strength. For these and many other reasons, Paul will not be elected, but if he were elected, what is the basis for thinking that he can change Washington? Wouldn't you rather support someone with a proven record of forging consensus to get things done?

Your sole expressed reservation about Santorum is a putative tendency to "take the best deal he can get from the Republicrats when I think we need to draw a line on the sand." This is not the Santorum that I know. The Santorum I know stormed the House Bank as a freshman legislator with a very small but effective group of six others to throw the committee chairman in jail and to force others into disgraceful retirement (Newt kited 22 checks himself, but got on board under Ricks influence). The Santorum I know stood alone against accepting a "voice vote" when Congress tried to sneak in a pay raise. The Santorum I know insisted that the RINO who cost the nation a balanced budget amendment be stripped of his chairmanship, and did so in opposition to stalwart members such as Sen. Jesse Helms. The Santorum I know stood for hours debating Barbara Boxer and cornered her into arguing that the baby is not human so long as its big toe is still in the birth canal. The Santorum I know made a deal with Specter that had the biggest pro-choice RINO in the Senate chomping his tongue bloody saying good things about Bush Supreme Court nominees Roberts and Alito who will serve two or three decades, even if Pat Toomey confirms another liberal justice like Sotomayor. The Santorum I know went down fighting for his principles to the bitter end, backing the surge in Iraq and the partial privitization of Social Security, and opposing Islamic extremism as he lost his re-election bid in the 2006 Republican bloodbath. To say that Santorum cops out on the best deal when he should stand and fight does not ring true to me. It sounds like a manufactured excuse for dismissing him.

Your enthusiasm for Gingrich's articulation of how government should work is probably well placed. We should note, however, that Gingrich is better at articulating how government should work than he is at running government. He lost the confidence of his fellow Republicans not because of his strong stances, but because he would articulate a strong stance and then blink, leaving the Party with the stigma of taking an unpopular stance without any benefits that would accrue from winning the fight.

You raise two specific questions pertaining to the Santorum campaign:

First, it is not relevant to the campaign if some Santorum backers rail against Bachmann for whatever reason. For my part, my only reservation about Bachmann is her lack of experience, and that even if she were to win Iowa, she would merely play the role of spoiler for Romney since she has little campaign organization or strategy beyond Iowa.

Second, if some Santorum supporters who are Christians have absolute disdain for Bachmann, it is irrelevant to the campaign. I suspect that such disdain for her by Christians who support Santorum is rather anomalous. I read the Santorum Facebook groups all the time and never see "absolute disdain" and "total and complete loathing" for Bachmann. Quite the contrary. Most comments about Bachmann in the Santorum Facebook groups have the deepest respect for her opinions, even if her sole legislative achievement is a lightbulb bill. There has been nothing but compassion expressed for the Bachmann campaign in today's news about the defection of her campaign manager.

Skeletons in the Candidates' Closets: Is Specter in Santorum's Closet?

Most candidates have skeletons in their closets. Romney ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy for his Senate seat, flipped on abortion, and created Romney-care. Perry ran Al Gore's presidential campaign. Ron Paul has his racist newsletters, his promotion of the morning after pill as a contraceptive, and his neo-confederate supporters. Newt has so many skeletons that his closet can't contain them. Bachmann has no skeletons that I know of, but she's only been in Congress for five years.

Santorum's skeleton is Arlen Specter, his fellow Pennsylvania senator who was a RINO extraordinaire. Santorum and Specter had huge disagreements on policy, but managed to work together for the good of Pennsylvanians. But by 2004, conservative Republican Pat Toomey arose to offer Specter a primary challenge. Santorum supported Snarlin' Arlin, prompting some conservatives to peg Santorum as a traitor.

This week, Michele Bachmann, when confronted with the notion of backing out so that conservatives could all get behind one conservative candidate, recalled this bit of Santorum's history, hoping to keep undecideds out of Santorum's camp. The badge of shame that Bachmann would pin on Santorum, however, is actually a badge of courage and political insight if one knows the rest of the story.

First of all, Santorum knew the political landscape in Pennsylvania well enough to realize the difficulty Toomey would have in defeating Specter. Indeed, when Toomey ran for the open Senate seat in 2010, he narrowly defeated the Democrat by a mere 2%, even though it was a landslide year for Republicans. Santorum saw that a wasted endorsement on Toomey in 2004 would burn up any goodwill between him and Specter, to the detriment of Pennsylvania.

More importantly, however, Santorum saw a credible opportunity to promote a pro-life, strict constitutionalist agenda. While Washington insiders pondered whether Santorum would endorse Toomey, Santorum had a meeting with Specter to broker a deal. Santorum would endorse Specter if Specter would use his position as the chair of the Senate Judiciary to get Bush's Supreme Court nominees confirmed.

Specter, more than any other senator, really was the man who could open and close the door on Supreme Court nominees. He shut the door on Robert Bork. In 2004, he shot off a warning to Pres. Bush not to nominate pro-life judges (). He was poised for a great self-aggrandizement, courtesy of the mainstream media just as soon as he might be given the chance to sink a conservative nominee. As a Republican, he could easily do so by saying that his party's president had nominated someone too extreme for America.

As it turned out, Specter accepted the deal. In fact, when Bush nominated Alito and Roberts, Specter gave considerable support to them, so much so that Democrats had no credibility in opposing their nomination. Instead of stepping into the limelight for another few minutes of stardom, Specter was uncharacteristically quiet throughout the confirmation process.

When Specter became a Democrat, Santorum was asked about his endorsement of Specter, whether he had regrets. Of course, any involvement with Specter would encompass some regrets, but Santorum argued that the deal with the devil was worth it. Nothing would have come out of an endorsement of Toomey, but his endorsement of Specter brought two outstanding conservative justices to the Supreme Court where they will serve perhaps for as many as two or three decades. Santorum's deal was not only the right one, but one that reveals profound long-term insight.

Bachmann and perhaps others will refuse to understand Santorum's strategy--not because it is difficult to understand, but because they want to use it as a campaign issue. Their argument, however, is utterly decimated by the fact that Toomey himself has turned out to be an uncommitted conservative. While Specter confirmed great conservatives like Alito and Roberts, Pat Toomey--whose interest Bachmann feigns so much concern--confirms pro-choice Obama appointees like this one:



As it turns out, if Specter is the worst skeleton in Santorum's closet, if this is the worst thing that Bachmann can say about him, then Santorum is squeaky clean. Considering his vast experience in the House and Senate, Santorum is THE consistent conservative.

Santorum and Reagan's 3-Legged Stool

There's no doubt that the social conservative of this primary season is Sen. Santorum. However, Reagan conservatism is a three-legged stool, and all three legs are necessary for a stool to make: social issues, fiscal restraint/small government, and national defense. Accordingly, I don't support candidates just because they are passionate about traditional moral values. While Santorum makes the headlines on the social issues, it is his stance on all three legs which makes me an ardent supporter.

If it were only a matter of fiscal restraint, (and if there weren't so much racism in his newsletters), I'd be very much tempted to support Ron Paul. If it were only a matter of jobs creation, I might be tempted to vote for Romney. If it were only a matter of good governance, I might be tempted to vote for Perry. But the stool where the three legs of the stool are equally secure and proven is Rick Santorum.

On social issues and traditional moral values, little more needs to be said other than that Santorum rightly asserts that not only has he been the effective leader, but one who has been in the forefront taking the bullets. But Santorum's stance is not merely informed by his Judeo-Christian worldview. Rather, his pragmatic side is evident in that he alone articulates why healthy families are key to a healthy economy. Citing that 40 some percent of families with only one parent are living in poverty, Santorum perceptively argues that you can't fix the economy without strengthening families.


On fiscal restraint and on reducing the size of government, Santorum's bedrock beliefs can be seen in a number of episodes in his tenure in government, but none so keenly than in two particular titanic struggles. The first was the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. For the first time ever, a federal entitlement was ended. While Gingrich is quick to take credit for this, it was Santorum who co-authored the bill and did the heavy lifting as the floor manager. The second epic struggle was over the 1995 Balanced Budget Amendment which Santorum co-sponsored . This bill was passed by a 2/3rds majority in the House and sent to the Senate . The final vote was a nail-biter, coming down to the vote of a RINO, Mark Hatfield. He will forever be remembered as the Senator who prevented the Balanced Budget Amendment being sent to the States which almost certainly would have ratified it, so that we would not be in the mess we are in today.

When the Senate defeated the bill by a single vote, Santorum vociferously railed against RINO Hatfield, arguing that he should be stripped of his chairmanship and removed from Republican leadership. Although Republicans did not take this punitive step, it was clear that Hatfield would be challenged in the next primary, and he retired the next year.

On national security, Santorum is well known for his strong stance on defense. He still remembers how we swore our most sacred vows that there must never, ever be another 9/11. None of the candidates is more informed on the threat of radical Islam. Frankly, with the exception of Santorum, the Republican candidates are all rather weak on foreign policy. On the other hand, Santorum's strong suit is the Middle East and Latin America. While the economy is the central focus of this election, I fear that the next President is likely to face a significant foreign policy challenge that will once again occupy his attention. That all important 3 a.m. phone call must be answered by someone who has depth in national security.

Yes, I am an Evangelical and social conservative. But social issues do not drive my motivation to support Santorum. I'm in Santorum's camp because his is the best stool for conservatives in this primary season.