Goodbye, Santorum

Since Rick Santorum announced his decision to drop out of the U.S. presidential race last Tuesday, the main fight for the White House between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has now officially begun. Specifically, the Obama campaign immediately launched a fierce attack on Romney through various channels. With exaggerated fervor, both camps are currently accusing the other of waging “war on American women.” Meanwhile, one Democratic Party strategist has hit the headlines right across the political spectrum for a disparaging remark about Romney’s wife Anne and about women who choose not to work.

By contrast, Santorum has almost totally disappeared from the fickle media circus, which is why I would like to look back one last time on his campaign, which probably generated the most surprise of the Republican primaries. After all, who would have expected a few months ago that Santorum, of all people, would emerge as the most serious threat to Mitt Romney?

Santorum played the practically archetype role of the underdog in this presidential election campaign, joining the fray with no great financial backing, no prominent support and no real campaign organization. He was the underdog who proved popular with voters and who surprised the party establishment, the media, and even tea party icons such as Sarah Palin by winning no fewer than 11 states. And he was the underdog who managed to delay a decision in the primaries until April despite his vastly inferior financial muscle.

But why should it have been Santorum who emerged as Romney’s main conservative opponent? On the one hand, this is undoubtedly due to the fact that conservative alternatives such as Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann or (to an extent) Newt Gingrich too had already lost face or had become the victims of Romney’s attacks. According to this interpretation, Santorum was the only one left, someone who was largely unknown — and therefore still fresh — on the international stage, even though he had lost his last election (for his seat as senator for Pennsylvania) by a margin of 18 percentage points.

On the other hand, Santorum’s worthy success was entirely deserved. For a politician, the former senator came across as surprisingly honest and authentic. He could haul his mother, who is in her 90s, onto the stage or include his disabled daughter in press photos or on badges without being accused of trying to ingratiate himself. Santorum preached that families held the key to the nation’s salvation. And, unlike many of the other candidates, the father of seven succeeded in embodying this ideal in a credible manner and free from scandal.

His conservative stance on issues of social policy such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality or women in the armed forces became his trademarks. The media, too, undoubtedly played their part in quickly compartmentalizing the devout Catholic. Yet the son of Italian immigrants never minced his words when answering questions on social policy, and he played on his role as a social conservative to appeal to conservative Christian voters. As a result, he also became the enemy of many liberals: For a considerable time, the first hit from a Google search of “Santorum” was a smear website launched by gay activists.

From the position of the underdog with clear values, Santorum mounted repeated attacks on Romney, the favorite. He accused him of lying and portrayed him as fickle and as a friend of the economic elite. And he repeatedly attacked Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, which is believed to have been the model for the national “Obamacare” law.

Even if the Democrats are only able to recycle quotations like these once or twice, history tells us that the primaries will quickly be forgotten. Santorum will shortly make a show of standing behind Romney; he has already announced his desire to fight for a defeat of Obama despite his decision to drop out of the race. And Santorum gained a great deal of respect with his election campaign and could certainly play a more important role in the Republican Party in the future.

This year, however, is certain to end on a high note. He is now one of a group of candidates such as Mike Huckabee (2008) or the Democrat Howard Dean (2004), who came from nowhere and shook up their parties before ultimately failing to be nominated. At any rate, Santorum did the 2012 election campaign good. To serve as a reminder of his campaign, let us remember his election campaign song “Game On” — none of the many parodies of this music video currently doing the rounds on the Internet even comes close to the original.