The Santorum Challenge

The Post editorial page, where they hate Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, is today full of nice words about Rick Santorum. Does this mean he poses a real threat to Romney? I doubt it, but I guess I don't really know. The Post is a bastion of neocon warrior thinking, eager for a showdown with Iran, and Santorum at least talks the most bloody-minded line of all the Republican candidates. That explains part of their comfort with him. Another part is probably that he is the candidate most like George W. Bush, and the Post has several ex-Bushies on staff. Santorum is a "compassionate conservative," as Michael Gerson puts it today. Santorum does like to talk about the problems of the poor, but so far as I can see this is all talk. He wants poor people to get and stay married, but then so does just about everybody on both the right and the left, and Santorum has no more idea how to encourage marriage than I do. (Actually, since he flatly opposes gay marriage, I would say that he has less idea how to promote marriage than I do.) His economic plan calls for gigantic tax cuts for the rich and nothing, so far as I can see, that would actually help poor people. Since he supports a very aggressive foreign policy, he certainly can't pay for his tax cuts by reducing military spending, and that means either endlessly expanding deficits or huge cuts in programs that help the poor and elderly. How compassionate is that?

But, again, I think his campaign will founder on the rock of birth control, which Santorum opposes in all circumstances. He once said:

Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.

Maybe the point of supporting Santorum is to use him to drive Gingrich, Perry, and Huntsman from the race, leaving Romney as the inevitable nominee.