Santorum is an imperfect but acceptable alternative to the self described 'severely conservative' liberal Willard Romney - by far the better of two choices.
How am I deluding myself?
Santorum is a social conservative, and if you want to view him through that lense and that lense alone, then you can conclude he’d be better than Romney.. However if you look at his overall record, the guys record really isn’t all that different. You take social issues out of the mix and you have basically a guy does not believe in limited federal government and is on the record repeatedly saying so. Only difference is WHAT issues santorum feels the government should be overly involved in.
For his social causes he will use the force and power of government to be as intrusive as it can be... for things he doesn’t agree with, not so much.
You don’t have a huge ideological conservative in Santorum. What you do have is another “compassionate conservative” like Bush with “social conservative” leanings. If you want small government, Santorum ain’t gonna give it to you.
I am not defending Romney, he sucks.. Santorum’s a milk toast, Romney’s sucks... viewed under the context of limited government, there isn’t much differnce between the two.
And that’s not even getting into the electability issues Santorum has.
Basially the election boils down to a vote of confidence in Obama... And every poll out there say people want his lame arse gone. So any republican who doesn’t come across as an absolute monster will likely win. Its a shame that given that, we have a guy Santorum who is easily painted as one with his own soundbites, and a guy who can’t easily be painted as one, but will likely govern farther left that I would like. However both are better than the current occupant, but only one has any shot at electability, and it ain’t Santorum.
Personally I think Newt was the only candidate truly worthy of the Job, but that isn’t going to happen...so 4 more years of crap. Just a question of how much.