No More Sideline Issues

Santorum’s exit emphasizes the importance of the evangelicals.

With Rick Santorum’s departure from the race, it’s semi-official: Mitt Romney will face Barack Obama as the Republican candidate for president in November. As such, a genuine Wall Street multimillionaire who makes most of his income from past investments will be fighting to take over the White House.

That will put an end to the sideline issues raised by the religious fanatic who ran against Romney in the primaries. Instead of abortion, contraception, gay marriage and home schooling, the battle will again focus on the original election issues: the economy and the federal budget.

But it has been made clear that, while conservative evangelicals and the tea party movement may not represent a majority among Republicans, their influence has again increased. The same questions are being asked on both sides of the political spectrum: Romney cannot assume that the same right-wing base that rejected his candidacy in the southern states will now suddenly unify and rally behind him.

On the opposite side, Barack Obama can no longer hope that the horrifying prospect of a Santorum, Perry or Bachmann candidacy will be enough to motivate the Democratic base. With the election campaign only really beginning now, both men will be promising prosperity and demonizing the other side. This politics of fear — in George W. Bush’s day, it was the specter of international terrorism — has proven to function well in recent years.

So from now through November, the campaign will be dominated by lies and campaign promises, the latter in inverse proportion to their chances of implementation. Policy is trivialized and politics self-destructs.