Last week, Rasmussen Reports polled likely voters in the swing state of Ohio to gauge how the three GOP candidates matched up against President Obama. Somewhat surprisingly, Rick Santorum polled in a dead heat with Obama and Mitt Romney was slightly edged out by the incumbent president. Can Santorum withstand a full-scale assault on his conservative social values as the GOP frontrunner until the November elections and keep that edge?
Throughout his candidacy, Santorum has made a point to emphasize his pro-life, pro-family platform. He has made controversial comments on gay marriage, the role of women in the military, abortion and contraception which have been, until recently, largely ignored by the media and voters. While the GOP base may not mind his focus on social conservatism, liberals in the news and entertainment media will see his comments as so abhorrent they may take it upon themselves to ensure his campaign is over before it starts.
For the first time since his failed 2006 reelection campaign for Senate, journalists are pouring over Santorum’s book It Takes A Family and picking out what, in their minds, are the most offensive parts. Santorum is currently under fire for comments in the book (which he attributes to his wife) that discuss how “radical feminists” have devalued women who choose motherhood over going into the work force. With journalists at every major news organization waiting on their own copies to arrive since Santorum’s unlikely sweep last week, there will certainly be more potentially explosive tidbits from the book. The year after the book’s release, we saw the most conservative excerpts of the book quoted in and out of context in his opponent’s attack ads, and many analysts have cited these as a contributing factor in Santorum’s 18-point loss, a historic margin for an incumbent Republican Pennsylvania U.S. senator. In Business Week, G. Terry Madonna, a polling expert and public affairs professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, explained, “Santorum was putting an emphasis on the cultural issues, which didn’t sit well with independent, suburban swing voters in this state.”
A recent poll conducted by Winthrop University of South Carolina residents showed almost 30 percent were unable to name Joe Biden as our vice president. How many Americans would be able to understand Santorum’s comments on the possibility of states banning contraception were based on the premise of states’ rights verses a Draconian desire to institute a Catholic theocracy in the United States? When Salon.com‘s warnings that “Rick Santorum really is after your birth control” go mainstream along with a Santorum candidacy, would a Santorum campaign outspent in advertisements and reviled in the liberal media be able to withstand the firestorm and clearly explain the nuances of his social conservatism?
I wonder if that will be a more effective campaign than Obama wants to drag your pastor out of the church and through him in jail. All of us who went to mass this weekend are more concerned with real government overreach and action than trumped up charges against Rick Santorum. People in the media always focus on the macro and forget the micro.
The problem the media and moderate independents will make against Santorum will be easily defended by linking the authority in everything he says to Christ. No one can argue with Christ. Whoever does is not a conservative anyway, and has the incorrect outlook on govt. and the founding. He should even quote verses to support his point (Judges 13:9, Hosea 9, John 1, Jeremiah 1, Luke 3, Psalm 138-9 and Lev 18 and 20). Santorum's problem is linking his faith to Christ. He never mentions Christ. Without Christ as the authority, he may not win, because people may get offended. He should also bring up the State Statutes where the Founding Fathers executed homosexuals to prove the Constitution promotes only Biblical morality. Santorum should base everything he says on Christ and the framers. If he does that, he can't lose.
I hope this is satire.
You're kidding, right?
Santorum isn't qualified to be president. He has no executive or leadership experience. He spent 18 years in Washington and sponsored or cosponsored 51 spending bills AND zero spending cuts. He is part of the problem. n nThe fruitcake conservatives are giving Obama another term. Congratulations..you fell into Obama's trap.
What the big O was responsible for 9-9-9? The GOP owns its own clown car circus.
I saw Jesus yesterday in the 7-11 scoping out the two for one pizza slices. He held up his wrists and thought you might be cheered up to know everyone argues with Christ.
Why not go all they way and push for a constitutional amendment that eliminates the Establishment Clause and makes the Roman Catholic Church the official state church of the United States.
Family values and social conservatism measured by his ripping off of PA taxpayers to the tune of $75M for on-line schooling while his kids could have attended VA schools where he paid his property taxes? How about starting up a charity and using 90% of contributions received for himself? n nHow about a liberal voting record that included supporting all union-sponsored bills, championing Medicare Part D and like Ron Paul, never finding an earmark he didn't like — including the Bridge to Nowhere?? n nLike Mitt Romney, he cannot even define conservatism as is evident in his "It Takes a Family." As noted in Reason Magazine, Sanorum writes: "In the conservative vision, people are first connected to and part of families: The family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of society." In contrast, most conservatives and our Founders would likely agree with Barry Goldwater: " "Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development." This change in emphasis is quite striking ,considering that creeping socialism has, in recent history, invaded family welfare through government programs. n nIt amazes me that even the conservative blogs are ignoring Santorum warts while burying Newt for his. A vote for Rick is a vote for Obama.
Similar to what you write above, Santorum has said "Our country is not founded on the individual." That is a betrayal of the principles of both our nations founding and the Republican party. In saying this, Santorum passes beyond social conservatism into a theocratic statism that is as un-American as Obama's economic statism. n
Have you actually read the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution? n"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. nWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." n n"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." n nIndividual liberties are granted by God and exist in a community and state.
Individual liberties exist — it's a question of whether the government respects them or not. As for whether they are granted by God, the concept of natural rights is not dependent on the existence of God or any other deity. It is natural to the human species, regardless of whether the species is result of evolution or creation. n nIn any case, even if we grant that, as you wrote, "Individual liberties are granted by God and exist in a community and state," no where in that statement is it said, as Santorum said, that the nation was founded on the family.
Online schooling is better than teaching the lie of evolution in public schools. Some union bills are better then others. He won't get elected on the points you bring up. It is the fundamentals that are important and he is sound on all of them.
What, his kids had a $75M on-line school course? Wow! Well, those CD extra feature bonus disks add up. Ten dollars here, ten dollars there, pretty soon you're talking some serious bread. Ok then, we're putting you down in the undecided column.
It wouldn’t matter to those who can’t name the VP if you broke it down as a States’ Rights issue. They’d fear or suspect mission creep. And the prevailing sense that he’s enamored with the rights and rituals of centuries past places him in a category that is unfathomable. Cold and disposable sex and sexuality are here to stay. n nI really like and admire Charles Murray but his view on what can be accomplished in the working-class by an elite re-moralizing is maddeningly superficial. The Institutions he champions, when they held sway, carried enough power and glory with them to firmly establish culture. A large part of that power and glory was due to the maintenance of standards that however difficult and however much failure assailed the desire for and attempts at fidelity, they were accepted as holy and good.
Unalienable rights don't end. This is for your benefit. If they could, you could lose your rights.
But back to Vatican I Rick. n nIn the first debate he spoke of the “10th Amendment running amok.” n n
Rick is right on there.
Based on last quote, if Santorum thinks contraception a mortal sin, then it’s wrong and “the states do not have the right to do wrong.” If his Faith can't be trapped like this because of separtion of Church and State then why advance an issue that's pressing to you but not the electorate? n nFinally, what can the right say about the 10th Amendment that any honest, non-partisan person, at this point, can believe? The right developed the individual mandate, not the left. That the left rammed it down the throat of the electorate can't be cause to enounce it unholy simply by claiming that it was right then based on market outlook, but not now.
As the framers said, any law that violates the Scriptrues is wrong, period! nActually the framers promoted States' rights and they were Christians.
Some of the founders, like Jefferson and Madison were essentially pro-states rights. Others, like Washington, Adams, and particularly Hamilton were not. n nAs for the framers saying that any law violating scripture was wrong … really … John Adams, for example, wrote: "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history." (From "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America") n nOr George Washington: "If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution." From a letter to letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, n nGouverneur Morris is a sadly overlooked founder — he wrote the last draft of the Constitution and is responsible for the "We the People" preamble. He may have put it best, when he said, "God is sufficiently powerful to do his own business without human nAid."
Yah. The original context for denying a Federal established church is way way down the rabbit hole.
You took the Adams quote out of context. Reason and Revelation are the same thing from different channels. n n"All human authority must rest on the Divine Law." n–James Wilson. Lectures on the Law. One of only six men to sign the Declaration and Constitution. n nHamilton said the same thing: n n[T]he law . . . dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. n– Alexander Hamilton, Signer of the Constitution nThe Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Harold C. Syrett, editor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), Vol. I, p. 87, February 23, 1775, quoting William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), Vol. I, p. 41. n nGW's quote is what I believe as a Christian. Morris is only saying the Constitution was not inspired.
???? irony? Many were Deists, not Xtians.
Even thomas paine wasn't a deist: The fact is none were deists. The secular media has did it's job well. n n“There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of one over the other, was never the design of heaven. … The Reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.” n n–Common Sense n n
"Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. " — The Autobiography of Ben Franklin. n nThing is, many Deists are Christians; the two are not mutually exclusive. n nThomas Paine, however, did not consider himself a Christian, but a Deist, writing: "How different is [Christianity] to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical." in The Age of Reason. n nI guess the secular media has been busy rewriting the original texts, nu?
What Paine considered himself is irrelevant. It is what the colonists considered him, and based on Common Sense, they thought he was a Christian. Otherwise they would have ostracized him, like when no cemetery would take him, so they buried him in his backyard. n nFranklin believed in God's Providence too. That would preclude him from being a deist. A Deist believes in the clockmaker god, that has no interest in his creation. Franklin did not believe that. None of the framers believed that.
I don't really know how to classify Adams and Jefferson but I don't think they were Trinitarians. To the extent that belief and avowal of the Trinitity is fundamental, neither could credibly be described as Christians. n nIn one of his letters to Jefferson, he writes at how astounded each would be to encounter the Three in One. It's questioned poetically, but that doesn't lessen its clarity or impact. n nI think the context was the day of judgment. I'll try to unearth quote and post it. n nThe line of demarcation has smoothed some due to the decline in the practice of organized, Christian worship : the sects can ill afford to detest one another when they feel themselves under collective seige. Romney's candidacy gave rise again to the untouchable status a denier of the Trinity can hold.
I can't edit one of my comments now because there's been a reply (which I appreciate). n nBut if I could edit it I'd remove the snarky Vatican I comment. First of all because it is snarky and written while sneering. n nAnd secondly because it might leave the impression that Vatican II teaching on contraception is at variance with Vatican I, and it's not.
People care more about anyone who wants to force his morals on them, no matter what those morals are (for example, gay marriage is shoving it down everyone else's throat and not much appreciated), than they care about what anyone else believes or wants to do in private (or at most among like-minded individuals). The problem that social conservatives have with regard to this, which isn't a problem in their eyes (which is the problem), is that they are quite ready and pleased to moralize about what they believe and what they believe everyone else ought to be doing. Knowing someone has beliefs that aren't shared, especially if the person is moral or loving of their children, etc., is a plus. Hearing those morals in a lecture isn't. I think Santorum will get hammered by the elite left (MSM, etc.) to expound his morality and if that is what the campaign becomes about, no way can he win.
Keith, Expounding morality is the only way he can win. It is what sets him apart from obama. Law is established morality. So our law is founded on Christianity. Thank God the majority are not the media. Our morality is what the framers established, not any other religion.
I agree that you're right that the only way Santorum can win is on the social issues because I think they will become the issue if he gets the nomination. Just a glance at TheHill.com and there's Pelosi going “Duh!” at Republicans for no female witnesses on what they call the “birth control hearing” which isn't what it was … and then there's another article on Republicans getting the “War on Women Label.” The talk (there at least, a not Republican friendly web site) is no longer about Obama and religious freedom, but about “Republicans being Republicans” — the way it's coming across, wrongly … but there it is.—
I can't believe that in this serious period in our history, a presidential candidate emerges who is actually stating that contraception is a sin…I just can't believe it. What someone does about such an issue is personal and the government (or Rick Santorum as a potential president) has no business telling people what to do. I'm a conservative, but he is a RABID social conservative. n nWe have serious issues domestically and in foreign affairs. Can you imagine Rick Santorum running every presidential decision through his Catholic filter? The republican infighting over control of the party (between conservatives and moderates) is out of hand…and we are giving Obama another term in the process. People aren't looking at the big picture here…Obama wants to divide and conquer. Daily Kos is encouraging democrats to cross over and vote for Santorum in the primaries to ensure he is nominated. What a freaking mess…all because the conservatives couldn't coalesce behind Romney early.
Would you rather have Barak Obama or Rick Santorum as your president? As things stand, you're going to have to pick one or the other, unless you choose to do nothing. What are you going to do?
Vote Libertarian. Both men are completely unacceptable to me. If the contraception hating social cons want Santorum, let them carry him over the finish line. Good luck with that. n nIf the social cons take over the GOP completely and foist Santorum on us, it will be time to bolt the GOP. They always threaten us with that if they don't get their way–well, it can work both ways.
What, exactly, is a "social con"? n nWhat do they believe? Do they all think alike? n nDo you know any social conservatives? If so, what have they said or done to you that makes you so angry?
I live in Tennessee, the state that gave us the Scopes trial. I know a great many social cons.
I know one social conservative, who said that America was not founded on the individual. That made me angry. That social conservative was Rick Santorum.
Kay, n nYou would not like the founding fathers and they would not like you since they believed abortion was a grievous sin, which they punished with fine and imprisonment. They penalized Sin because they knew God would judge us for it: n n"As nations can not [sic] be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects[,] providence punishes national sins, by national calamities." n–George Mason. The Father of the Bill of Rights. The Constitutional Convention. Robert A. Rutland, ed., The Papers of George Mason (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1970), p.966. n n
I do not agree with Santorum on the contraception issue. However, on other social issues I do agree with him. I think government, even of, and for, and by the people, still has its limits. There should be room for individuals and institutions to have their own life, unobstructed by government. To make the possibility of abortion a prerequisite to government aid (which in America is simply the rechanneling of citizens funds through the government to individuals or institutions) seems to me to be unfair. There is a lot of discussion about religion and society going on. Here follow my thoughts about a Christian perspective on government, freedom, and human rights (one which I think many Jewish people could concur with): nFrom a Christian point of view, God has given governments the task of ruling justly over all its citizens regardless of their religious views. This is clear in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 13. At that time a "pagan" Roman empire ruled the area surrounding the Mediterranean. Paul says that God has appointed governments to give impartial justice to all. This is the basis of Christian support for the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In democracies, the governments are formed by representatives chosen by the citizens, so that, finally, the voice of the people is decisive. Each citizen has his or her own world-and-life-view, which informs his or her voting patterns. No one world-and-life-view should be privileged above another. Instead there should be room for all, voters and representatives, to think, speak, and act on the basis of their own world-and-life-view. Militant humanist secularism disputes this, claiming that one perspective, their own, has the privilege of saying what truth is in all aspects of public and private life. Humanists who acknowledge their own perspectives, but give room for others, whoever they may be, to have their own educational institutions, houses of worship, etc., are being true to the principles of democracy.
Sorry there are no "nuances" in Santorum's social conservatism? It is loud and clear that this backwater prince will only get the votes of same. Catholics are not a monolith, neither is the Catholic church. From country to country the church will follow the principles that help the populace at hand. In some parts of South America the church is a force in social change for the people. However, Santorum represents his own twisted and perverse thinking about sex. Sex for him is something special, between a man and a woman to procreate — only. Therefore, after menopause sex is forbidden because it is for pleasure alone? Moreover, other than penetration for procreation is perverse in his eyes. I think his wife needs to clarify his dim wit views or just get herself a lover on the side. I recommend a woman, since she knows the manual pretty well.