Chalk it up to Ego. Or perhaps a messiah complex. In my experience, conservative candidates tend to think they are the *only* one who can save the country. Whereas right now, as Rush once said, a can of orange juice really would be better that the current occupant of the White House (but no, I don’t think Romney rises to that lofty standard). Pseudo-Utopian disasters always come from one of two sources: A) Those who genuinely believe the world is waiting for their particular combination of genius and character to solve all problems, or B) those willing to cynically use the utopianism fantasies of others to enrich and empower themselves. I believe the GOP and Dem elites, as well as most of the communist leadership of the last hundreds years, belongs to the latter group. It’s about swimming pools and sex and living large. Whereas good people like Santorum and other Don Quixote candidates belong to the former. In this situation in which we find ourselves, the self-appointed messiahs are capable of doing almost as much damage to the cause of freedom as the cynics. Their egos will not let them do the math, and you can’t really do the right thing if you don’t do the math. Santorum will only quit if the money vanishes. Bank on it.
Spot-on, brilliant analysis. Don Quixote indeed, I’d never thought of that analogy.
The other difference is though, that there are no “fake” Democrats running anywhere, whereas we have “fake” Repubs in almost every race I can think of.
I can’t think of a single instance of a conservative running on a Dem ticket, spouting off Lefty-Marxist drivel in order to get elected, and then voting to the right once he/she is sworn in. Doesn’t happen, and their voters are never confused or betrayed.