Charles, Santorum voted against an amendment that specifically would have eliminated funding for programs and activities carried out by the National Endowment for the Arts.
According to the ACU:
As I said, I’m not picking my President over a vote on NEA funding that has been included in every appropriations bill passed by a republican house and senate, a minor part of huge appropriations bills. Especially not on votes that won by a 76-22 margin.
Santorum has said that he voted on some things in the Senate based on what he knew the people he represented would want. I’m not sure I agree with that, and I know others want more conservative purity from their candidates, but it is a sound principle of representative government. I have no idea why he voted the way he did on this particular issue, but I bet if he was given time to refresh his memory, he’d answer the question, whether we liked the answer or not.
It’s a fool’s errand trying to explain every vote taken by a senator over their career. Individual votes can be found and spliced together. Santorum apparently voted conservatively enough during his time in office that he ended up with a lifetime 88.1 ACU rating, only 1.9 points less than Gingrich, who I am assured is a solid Reagan conservative. Organizations know which votes were important, and which were not, and are often better at judging and rating candidates.