Rick's Loose Lips

NRO ^ | 2/23/2012 | Michael Barone

[WPaCon]

A candidate’s strengths can also be his weaknesses. Take the case of Rick Santorum.

One of his strengths is perseverance. For more than a year, he made hundreds of appearances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, with no visible result in the polls.

He persevered and ended up finishing first in the Iowa caucuses on January 3. Then, after poor showings in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada, he finished first in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado on February 7.

Now he’s leading Mitt Romney in most polls nationally and in Romney’s native state of Michigan.

Santorum’s other strengths include spontaneity and authenticity. His speeches are unscripted, and he answers, often at considerable length, every question at campaign events.

And those answers are sometimes not what any competent political consultant would recommend. Which is where Santorum’s strength becomes a weakness.

For example: In an interview last October with the evangelical blog Caffeinated Thoughts, Santorum said, “One of the things that I will talk about that no president has talked about before is, I think, the dangers of contraception in this country.” Contraception, he went on, is “not okay.”

“Maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things,” he added. And he has said later that he doesn’t seek a ban on contraceptives — a good thing, since that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut 47 years ago.

[heye2monn]

Stop what? Standing up against killing babies and destroying families? NEVER.

Despite your wild claims, Santorum is not running on banning contraceptives. You and your fellow libertarians/liberals are afraid to oppose him on the bigger issues of male-female marriage, drugs and abortion — because Santorum is within the Republican mainstream of those issues.

You insult social conservatives with your talk about settled issues. The institution of slavery was not a settled issue in the mid-1800s even though it had been around forever. Many times, peoples and nations have come to their senses and behaved better, through religious and political movements — not least to abolish slavery and stand up for the pro-life cause.