Santorum and Romney, the New “Crusaders”

The religious crusades in the foreground of the Republican electoral campaign during the latest televised debate for the Tuesday primaries in Arizona and Michigan saw Rick Santorum accusing Obama of trying to “secularize” American society. Santorum went so far as to evoke the influence of the “devil” in American society, and Romney defined a recent measure on contraception as “the greatest assault on religion in the history of the United States.”

But Santorum is more than just a religious crusader: He represents a real challenge to Obama on winning the working class. The ascent of the Italian-American and Romney’s struggles are forcing the presidential camp to rework their election strategy. Santorum gets a part of his constituents from blue-collar workers, the phenomenon of the “Reagan Democrats.” He’s an extremist on abortion, gay rights and all things moral or religious, but he has a strong appeal in industrial Midwestern states because he knows how to make his own working-class roots resonate with blue-collar voters. Romney, on the other hand, can claim no such background. He grew up in Michigan, but was the son of a chief auto executive who also happened to be governor of the state.