Santorum Seduces Heart of America

Rick Santorum loves presenting himself as the “bombardier” fighter for the right-wing conservative American, ready to bring the country back to its original “Christian” values and heritage of “liberty” of the founding fathers. Since his campaign’s debut, this great strapping brunette with all the allures of a well-brought-up school kid, blushing easily, but a natural public speaker, displayed color. He would be the candidate to defend the “family,” “this unity based on American society” which “strengthens it.”

At the risk of appearing extreme, his first interventions were dedicated to defending his Christian heritage, which speaks as much to the “right-wing nation” as it does to deep America, pervaded by Bible reading. Spearhead of the anti-abortion fight and opposition to gay marriage, Santorum, a 53-year-old ultraconservative Catholic, father of seven children, who likes sleeveless woolen waistcoats and Mass in Latin, sometimes spends his meetings denouncing “the freedom of morals outside of marriage” and “relationships between people of the same sex.” This is a fight led with a quixotic ardor, in an America where seven states have legalized gay marriage.

Siding with Israelis Against Iran

But, as one goes along the campaign eliminating other conservatives, this outsider has benefited from the projector lights and times of growing speech during the televised debates to enlarge his angle of attack, awakening a pro-worker populist fiber “as natural at his place” according to the observer David Gergen.

Bringing up his Italian immigrant grandfather, who landed in America without a cent and worked all his life in a mine numerous times, Santorum, newer than the speaker Newt Gingrich, has aroused curiosity by pleading, not without eloquence, for a revival of the manufacturing industry in the United States, lauding businesses who repatriate their factories the exemption from massive taxes.

He has also proved an efficient aggressively on meeting Mitt Romney, denouncing his health care law in Massachusetts as a copy conforming to the Obama law, to the great delight of the tea party. Santorum also positioned himself in an offensive manner on foreign politics, promising to be on the side of the Israelis against Iran and to go bombard the nuclear installations of a country described as a “radical theocracy which has sworn to destroy Israel and Western civilization.”

A “Christian Extremist” Image

This very hard speech risks even discouraging independents, already little convinced by the “Christian extremist” image of Santorum, which Democrats exploit with enjoyment. If he presents himself as “the only authentic conservative of the course,” Santorum, who was representative of Pennsylvania in 1990 before becoming senator from 1995 to 2006, remains vulnerable to Romney’s attacks on his elected outcome.

Defending the interests of Pennsylvania, he notably voted in favor of bonuses to the gas industry, which today represents interest in the private sector, here winning an “insider” Washingtonian reputation having contributed to deepening the abyssal deficit of the federal budget.

A social conservative, Santorum is by definition favorable to an important state regulatory role, even if he distances himself of it notably by the massive deregulation of the energy sector and the economy. Brain-trust Romney will do everything to highlight his contradictions.