I was in Washington state when I first heard of Rick Santorum. It was in 1993, the year of the House Banking scandal, and Rush Limbaugh kept on saying the scandal was big, really big…big enough to really shake up the Democrat controlled House of Representatives. Some upstart freshmen Republicans were blowing the lid off the insider secret that one of the perks of being in Congress was a “you keep the change” policy whenever you bought stamps, etc. at the House Bank. Santorum was one of the Gang of Seven who took on this deep-seated corruption in Washington and won (finally, a campaign cliché that is true!). House Banking Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski went to prison, and a number of others were disgraced and did not run for re-election. These freshman Republicans were the political fruit of eight years of Ronald Reagan, and Rick Santorum was one of the shining stars.
After finishing my Master’s, we moved to the northern suburbs of Philly, and were privileged to have Rick Santorum as our senator. One of the big political debates of the day was welfare reform. We all knew welfare was being abused, and news reports of welfare recipients driving fine Cadillacs were featured in the news. Authoring the legislation and leading our cause was our own Rick Santorum. However, while Newt was being portrayed as the Gingrich who stole Christmas, Santorum’s motivation had a different tone to it, one characterized by true compassion. He was motivated not so much by a desire to end abuse of the system, but rather by a genuine concern to help people overcome government dependence so that their lives might be more meaningful. This compassion is written into the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, and it was Rick Santorum who wrote it in.
With Newt’s derailing of the Republican Revolution and his subsequent resignation, it was a frustrating decade for Republicans, especially so for pro-life Republicans. The pro-life agenda was being high-jacked by activist justices, and our cause seemed at a stalemate. Everyone was saying that abortion was a matter for the states, undermining our whole pro-life election strategy. In this context, just as he broke the House Banking scandal, Rick Santorum also broke the scandal of the heinous procedure known as partial birth abortion. Few of us had heard of it before, but Santorum authored the bill to ban it, and in a short period of time, Americans nationwide not only knew what the term meant, but also grasped the absurdity of the pro-abortionists’ claim that the fetus was not human and could be killed so long as a small portion of the baby’s body was still in the womb. It was Rick Santorum who made Barbara Boxer of California famous by checkmating her into arguing that the baby was not human if its little toe was still in the womb. It was in this national debate when the pro-life movement finally started swaying hearts and minds, so that now most Americans think abortion is nothing less than killing a human baby. Santorum can stand up and honestly say that every major pro-life legislation that has passed in the Senate in the last 20 years was authored by him. While most Republicans profess pro-life positions, Santorum really, really believes in it, and every pro-lifer owes him a debt of gratitude for leading the battles.
By this time, Santorum had arisen to the third highest ranking Republican of the U.S. Senate. He achieved this high rank at the young age of 43, a significant point of contrast with Bachmann who was already 43 when she ran for her first political office. Santorum rose so quickly through the ranks largely in part due to his ability to get major Republican urgencies passed through Congress and signed by a Democrat president. His appeal to Reagan Democrats was seen especially in that he won his Senate seat in a state that had not voted for a Republican president since Reagan’s second term in 1988. When George W. Bush lost the state by 4.1% in 2000, Santorum won it by almost 7%, an 11% vote spread.
My ideas about national security were informed on one hand by the utter incompetence of the Carter administration, and on the other by Ronald Reagan’s success in crippling the evil empire through American strength. Apparently, this was true of most Americans, for when 9/11 happened, we all vowed the most solemn oath to ourselves that this would never, ever happen again (Ron Paul might have been the one of the few exceptions). The country was unified over the war on terror, with Democrats strongly supporting Pres. Bush’s foreign policy that you’re either for us, or against us. All of us were determined not only to destroy the terrorists, but also to pacify once and for all a belligerent and non-compliant Iraq that was funding terrorism throughout the Middle East.
During those days, Santorum became a leading voice against Islamic extremism. He made himself a student of the Middle East and of Islamic apocalyptic politics. He wrote the Syria Accountability Act of 2003 and the Iran Freedom Support Act of 2006. As Newt has indicated, Santorum is THE foreign policy expert.
While extremists in Iraq were strapping suicide bombs onto developmentally disabled women and killing their own daughters in schools built by American compassion, Santorum was speaking at events such as Islamo-fascism Awareness Week. In the midterm election of 2006, when Democrats had traded their patriotism for political expediency, Santorum was one of the few politicians still articulating a vision for winning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was on an outdoor stage in Uniontown, Pennsylvania that I first met Sen. Santorum. I was absolutely transfixed by his extemporaneous message and how clearly he conveyed the urgency to win the war against Islamic extremism. Santorum has more knowledge about the Middle East in the tip of his pinkie finger than Obama has in a roomful of advisers. I thought surely Santorum would be the candidate for president in 2008.
Unfortunately, in 2006, Pres. Bush not only failed to inspire people with a vision of victory in Iraq, but he hardly made any effort to do so. In many ways, once Bush was re-elected in 2004, he quit campaigning. People most outspoken, such as Sen. Santorum, were left on their own, and they became vulnerable to Democrat attacks. I had never been involved in politics before, but I saw how right Santorum was and how wrong the Democrat attacks were against Santorum, so I volunteered for the campaign.
In addition to unsubstantiated attacks, Democrats recruited the namesake son of a popular governor, Bob Casey, Jr. to run against Santorum. No doubt a large number of voters were fooled into voting for the man who died 6 years earlier. The combination of these tactics, and Santorum’s refusal to moderate his conservative views, as well as Bush’s lack of popularity led to Santorum’s inevitable defeat. The defeat of the U.S. Senate’s 3rd ranking Republican and 2008 presidential hopeful was the most significant loss of the midterm campaign, and ultimately led to the 2008 lackluster candidacies of Romney and McCain.
That was five years ago, the first year that presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann came to Washington as one of 435 Congressional delegates. During his time in Washington, Santorum authored and championed numerous pieces of legislation that were signed into law (I can list 7 off the top of my head), and served on numerous committees and subcommittees, including two chairmanships. No one will accuse him of lacking experience.
After 2006, Santorum kept fighting for his beliefs. He wrote regular newspaper editorials, served as a news analyst, and began writing a weekly internet article on the ongoing threat of Islamic extremism called The Gathering Storm (here’s the index for his 217 articles: http://www.eppc.org/publications/view.abstract,typeID.49/pubIndex.asp). I read these short but depthy articles every week. During these years, few were taking notice of the dangerous axis between Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s socialist dictator and belligerent Hugo Chavez, but Santorum did.
While doing my PhD in New Testament at Cambridge, Obama became president, and did everything possible to lurch this country toward the far left, with huge surges in spending and growth of the federal government. Santorum’s response was to begin campaigning for conservatives in the 2010 elections. Since Santorum is a heart-felt social conservative, he went to Iowa to campaign (successfully) against three liberal Supreme Court justices. By the time I returned to the U.S., I began noticing the numerous trips Santorum was making to Iowa, a tell-tale sign of a potential candidate testing the campaign waters.
When Santorum announced his candidacy on June 6, 2011, the anniversary of D-Day, I was ecstatic, because I already knew that Santorum was the right person for the presidency. However, such elation was tempered by what seemed to be the insurmountable difficulty of overcoming the stigma of his 2006 defeat. So, for the first several months, I have stayed on the sidelines, until I could see a clear course for victory. On the eve of the Florida election,Santorum is still in the mix, with one victory. His campaign is solvent, with adequate funding to sustain his candidacy. The campaign continues to grow with professional staff in the upcoming states.
Note, however, that winning the nomination is not the end goal for Sen. Santorum. He also has a plan to win in November, at the general election. Republicans simply cannot afford to write off Pennsylvania any more. This state has not voted for a Republican president since 1988, and no one is more likely to pick up Pennsylvania than Santorum.
But Santorum’s appeal will go beyond his home state. With his credible economic plan to revitalize manufacturing, he will appeal to Reagan Democrats throughout the Midwest. Romney and Gingrich simply cannot do this. Of all the candidates, Santorum has the best chance of beating Obama in the electoral college.
Yes, I really like Santorum, and think he is the right choice—not merely the best choice out of a number of flawed or deficient candidates, but the right choice. He is the consistent conservative on social, fiscal, and national security issues. He has the depth of experience and knowledge for the job. He is a man of character, a rock standing out in an ocean of doubt and compromise. After watching him for the last 21 years, he is the one who I trust to answer the 3 a.m. call.
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