RLC 2014 Round Up
He did not announce his candidacy, but Santorum’s presence
at the 2014 Republican Leadership Conference was more than a cameo appearance.
In 2012, Santorum ran on the argument that Mitt Romney was
the worst possible Republican candidate to challenge Obama. I’ll not review the
subpoints, but in post-election reflections, all the pundits suddenly came to
the same conclusion, and did so as if it were their own discovery.
Santorum was the last not-Romney candidate, and by the end
of the campaign, he carried 11 states, despite party elitist meddling to
prevent victory announcements in Iowa until after the New Hampshire and South
Carolina primaries. The most frequently expressed complaint against Santorum
was that he had no chance to win; what a difference the end result would have
been if South Carolinians had seen Santorum victorious in Iowa.
Santorum had been labeled as a one-song candidate for social
values. This was a marginalizing and tidy pigeon hole, a popular narrative that
put Santorum into a precisely defined category for a media and an electorate focused
more on Gangnam style in 2012 than on the future of the country. In reality,
Santorum was the candidate most expert in the Middle East, the candidate with
the most comprehensive economic recovery plan, the candidate whose balanced budget
plan was projected for five years precisely so that he and the House and Senate
members supporting it would be held responsible by the voters in a second term
election. Indeed, it was by a single Senate vote that Santorum’s
1995 Balanced Budget Amendment failed, a day whose infamy should be altogether clear to
Americans who now face an $18 trillion deficit with a clear path and a
pedal-to-the-medal Legislature that will see that number double and triple by
the time Hillary’s grandchild will be enrolled in NYC’s most prestigious
elementary school.
What is Santorum up to now? He’s making sure that everyone
knows him as the
Blue Collar Conservative, one who consciously integrates his
social values into a compelling economic message that should rebrand and
re-vision the Republican Party. He capably explains how this is a winning
message for Republicans and that it is a message which brings with it all the urgencies
of conservative Constitutional Republicans. Santorum sang a different song at
RLC, one which was dominated by this new vision, with red meat anti-Obama
rhetoric served only in small portions so that the audience might grasp that one
does not win elections by anti-Obama-ism alone, but with a message which each American’s
name on it.
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