Religious Determination Is Worth Its While for Santorum

I am the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. What’s more, I am the conservative alternative to President Barack Obama. That is the message from the Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum since the start of his campaign. After his surprising victories on Tuesday in Minnesota, Missouri and especially Colorado, he is doing everything he can just to strengthen that message.

Santorum is very conservative. Gay marriage is out of the question, abortion in all cases (also in case of rape or incest) is unmentionable and family is the indestructible cornerstone of society.

Yesterday, he went to Dallas to speak in front of a group of pastors. His story had to make clear that he is the only candidate with whom Christian norms and values are safe. “A few years after I started getting involved in the pro-life issue, my children, when they would read the paper, used to think my first name was ‘ultra,’”, he jokingly said about his ultraconservative opinions. And: “But once you speak out on the moral issues, you now have your head above and out of the trench and you are going to be shot at.”

Political Tide

That linearity now works to his advantage because Santorum is riding the political tide. In earlier speeches, Santorum mainly emphasized his vision of the economy and how to make the United States into a producing nation again. But Santorum mainly seems to owe the sudden rise of his popularity to his reputation of being indestructibly conservative; in the U.S., a number of moral issues have suddenly been the center of attention again since last week.

As such, a law has been accepted in Washington state that enables gay marriage; in California a court of law earlier determined that a law that prohibited gay marriage was unconstitutional.

Next, there is the fuss around the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. This foundation, named after a woman who died of breast cancer, collects money for the fight against this disease. On Tuesday, it was announced that the foundation board had decided not to give any more donations to Planned Parenthood, an organization that tests women for breast cancer but also helps with family planning and abortions.

After a storm of protest on Twitter (1.3 million tweets), the foundation surrendered. It announced that the monetary donations will resume. Next, the White House introduced a law that would also force religious hospitals to provide emergency contraception.

Clear Position Statement

These are all issues on which Santorum has always taken a very clear stance, more clear than his opponents. And thus, Santorum is now back to being the darling of conservative Republicans. They find Romney too moderate and Gingrich not credible enough as a die-hard conservative with his three marriages and long record of service in Washington.

Santorum’s positions have ensured that he now has the most primary victories and that the Republican presidential race is back to square one: Romney is the front-runner, but doubt about his candidacy remains while a clear anti-Mitt is yet to emerge among his opponents.