Let me be blunt: If Republicans nominate Rick Santorum, they will lose.
The prospect of four more years of Barack Obama holds some appeal for many Americans, but probably not for most Republicans. It may give doubters among them some comfort, however, to know that Obama and Santorum share the same prayer: that Santorum be the Republican nominee.
It gives me no pleasure to rap Santorum, a man I know and respect even if I disagree with him on some issues. Not that he minds. He’s a scrapper who loves a fight — and he forgives. Bottom line: Santorum is a good man. He’s just a good man in the wrong century.
This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong about everything, but he’s so far out of step with the majority of Americans that he can’t hope to win the votes of moderates and independents so crucial to victory in November. The Republican Party’s insistence on conservative purity, meanwhile, will result in the cold comfort of defeat with honor and, in the longer term, potential extinction.
Increasingly, the party is growing grayer and whiter. Nine out of 10 Republicans are non-Hispanic white and about half are highly religious, according to Gallup. This isn’t news, but when this demographic is suddenly associated with renewed debate about whether women should have access to contraception — never mind abortion — suddenly they begin to look like the Republican Brotherhood.
Add to that perception the abhorrent, pre-abortion ultrasound legislation proposed in Virginia, and you can kiss the pope’s ring and voters’ retreating backsides.
The proposed law, temporarily tabled, called for women seeking an abortion to be forced to submit to a vaginal ultrasound. Aldous Huxley’s “The Devils of Loudon” comes to mind, but he was writing about exorcisms in a convent of 17th-century France. When did Republicans, who supposedly believe in less government intervention, begin thinking that invading a person’s body against her will was remotely acceptable?
Saner minds have prevailed, at least for now, but the fact that the bill was ever conceived and taken seriously by at least some number of legislators gives freedom-loving voters every reason to run the other way.
Informed consent is, in my view, a reasonable goal. Surely removal of a human fetus deserves the same level of awareness we would insist upon in removing, say, a gall bladder. If some women change their minds after viewing the contents of their womb, then they obviously needed more information than they had going in. Still, any procedure should be voluntary, and inserting a probe into a woman against her will is rape by any other name.
Obviously, this is no place for the state.
The Virginia bill and the broader (bogus) message often repeated on left-leaning talk shows that Republicans are campaigning against birth control have created a perfect storm for defeat. The math is clear: Sixty-seven percent of women are either Democrats (41 percent) or independents (26 percent); more women than men vote; 55 percent of women ages 18-22 voted in the 2008 presidential election.
Republicans are caught in a nearly impossible situation, none more than the more temperate-minded Mitt Romney. It is important to remember, however, why contraception came up in the first place. Republicans were forced to man their battlements by the Obama administration’s new health care rule mandating that Catholic organizations pay for contraception in violation of conscience. From there, things spiraled out of the realm of religious liberty, where this debate belongs, and into the fray of moral differences.
Santorum’s original surge was based not on social issues but on his authenticity and his ability to identify with middle-class struggles. He was the un-Romney. But now this appealing profile has been occluded by social positions that make him an outlier to mainstream Americans.
Republicans may sleep better if they nominate The Most Conservative Person In The World, but they won’t be seeing the executive branch anytime soon. It’s too bad this election season got lost in the weeds of religious conviction.
It wouldn’t have happened if the Obama administration had simply taken one of several other routes available for providing birth control to women who want it. Instead, Obama aimed right at the heart of the Republican Party and, one can only assume, got exactly what he wanted: a culture war in which Rick Santorum would be the natural point man and, in the broader public’s perception, the voice of the GOP.
Kathleen Parker’s email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.
No, let’s really be blunt. If Santorum is nominated, Obama could open all the presidential debates with a traditional Kenyan prayer and still win. These Republicans are the brand of lunatics you end up with after demanding party purity and rigid adherence to ideology. The real issue is the moderates and sane conservatives refused to stand up to the vocal fringe that began hijacking their party because it really helped them out in the 2010 elections. Well what about now? Not only have they blown their chances for this year’s election, but likely future ones too. New voters aren’t likely to join the party of anti-this and anti-that.
Party purity? Tell me, how many pro-life Democrats are there?
Obviously not even comparable. There is no party purity requisite for Democrats even close to that of Republicans. How many Democratic pledges are being forced on candidates? How many far-left candidates are emerging to unseat moderate Democrats? How many Democrats are being insulted as DINOs?
Okay, just ask pro-life democrats how much support they get from their party. On the other hand, pro-choice Republicans are a dime a dozen. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Scott Brown….Democrats are as guilty as Republicans at enforcing party hegemony by whatever means seem most convenient at the time.
What are you even saying? Obviously there isn’t going to massive party support regarding specific issues if those issues run counter to the party platform. Obviously. There is a difference between that and demanding party purity which was my initial point. Democrats don’t get demonized or challenged for having independent stances on certain issues. That’s just factually true.
Democrats are NOT as guilty as Republicans in this regard — that’s a ridiculous assertion. Like I said, how many Democratic pledges are being forced on candidates? How many far-left candidates are emerging to unseat moderate Democrats? How many Democrats are being insulted as DINOs? You’re not being intellectually honest here.
Ask Joe Leiberman.
Maybe the ‘moderate’ Democrats are actually far-left already, or have learned to keep their heads down because their leadership is?
Obama just fired his faith based advisory council……remember when he had to demonstrate his Christianity and they created this ‘store front’?
Got quietly slipped under the bus this week……
Nice catch….
Here I disagree with Ms. Parker. Romney was anointed front runner status before the race even began. And he has managed to lose it through his own inept blundering. If he cannot connect with Republican voters, how is he going to connect with independents and conservative, working class democrats? He won’t.
Santorum may have positions out of the mainstream on birth control, but it is no secret that the Catholic Church is just about the only major Christian denomination that maintains birth control is immoral. And it is no secret that Santorum is a devout Catholic. In America, it is still okay to actually believe in your faith instead of just pandering to it.
And given Santorum’s views on birth control, I offer you and the world a big SO What? Birth control is legal, and will remain legal because nobody is seriously proposing we outlaw it. I notice you are sticking to the social issue mantra–tell me, Miss Pundit, what do you think of Santorum’s economic plan? It’s bad enough when the liberals in the media can’t get their heads out of the birth canal, but to have our own Republican pundits stuck in the same place is really demoralizing to me.
Keep going. Make Santorum look good, swing those Republican votes to him so he gets the nod. If he is nominated Obama won’t even have to campaign and he will still get re-elected in a landslide.
That will happen either way!
I sincerely hope your candidate gets the nomination.
However, your claim that nobody is seriously proposing abortion be outlawed – really ? Do you even know your own party ?
It’s true that all of the Republicans have been incredibly inept. Mitt Romney, a moderate at heart like his father Gov. George Romney, can’t run under his true colors because there is no room for moderates in today’s hard-right Republican Party.
Romney’s appeal is to college-educated suburban Republicans; he doesn’t connect well with the Rush Limbaugh know-nothings. Santorum appeals to lower-middle-class high school graduates and the evangelical Christian wing of today’s Republican Party, but doesn’t connect well with the suburban, college-educated crowd. It’s a class divide in the Republican ranks.
All of the Republican candidates are trying to out-looney each other to prove that they are the real tea party nutcakes. And so as they all pledge allegiance to Grover Norquist and the anti-contraception crowd, they lose any chance of getting elected. As they get more desperate, they sound more crazy.