Encounters of the Second Kind

Mitt Romney’s main rival, Rick Santorum, swears exclusively by religion. This crusader with the air of an alien is scary, especially to women.

The Republicans are feeling blue. The base shows so little enthusiasm for their presidential candidates that worst case scenarios are already being mentioned here and there. Thus, some say we could forsake the primaries altogether if they have not managed to bring out a candidate sufficiently convincing, if not exactly indisputable, and reshuffle the cards at the August convention in Tampa, Florida. The delegates would then pull out of their hat a rare bird – if not exactly a rare gem – and enthrone, presumably after some vicious haggling, the providential man (or woman) that has a chance of beating Barack Obama on Nov. 6.

Yes, but who? In Roswell, in northeastern New Mexico, the mood is readily ironic: Why not an alien? In this town with 50,000 inhabitants, born out of the cattle trade in the second half of the nineteenth century, they are well-versed on this topic. Roswell could have gone down in history as the place from where the Enola Gay departed on its long journey that ended with the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Or it could be known for the place where scientist Robert Goddard developed the liquid propellant technology for rockets in the 1930s. But it is a whole other thing that has given Roswell a lasting and universal notoriety: In July 1947, a UFO crashed nearby.

At least that is what the commander of the Roswell air base very imprudently claimed after he was brought some scrap pieces from a flying object, a priori unidentified, discovered in a ranch from the vicinity. “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer” trumpeted the Roswell Daily Record, which still congratulates itself on this scoop. The emotion was such that the following day, the army was backtracking and assuring the public that the UFO was really nothing more than a weather balloon.

This remained the official version, but the bungling was enough to feed to this day the suspicion and the imagination of those who are certain that the authorities are hiding something from the American people. Roswell has become the world center for “ufologists,” and a Martian’s head appears in the coat of arms of the town, which organizes a UFO festival every year on July 4, Independence Day. “Roswell, a good place to crash”, teases the local tourist office.

What has this got to do with the Republican primaries? Nothing, except that the candidates for the presidency all nonetheless have a somewhat extraterrestrial quality. Some of them have flown across the political firmament like UFOs: You have barely noticed them when they have already disappeared. Remember Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman? And those who have managed to stay in the race seem so disconnected from reality, so far from people’s concerns that you would think that they have just landed from another planet.

Mitt Romney, although his feet on the ground are those of an acute businessman, rational and pragmatic, is no exception. When he suggests $10,000 bets or mentions the Cadillacs his wife drives, the former Governor of Massachusetts seems to forget that, if he becomes president, he must first and foremost pull the country out of the crisis and millions of Americans out of poverty, not host a club for millionaires.

Nevertheless, it is his rival, Rick Santorum, the “second man,” who is obviously sailing on the furthest orbit by conducting a crusade that, although delighting the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, threatens to take America back decades.

“Santorum sounds less like a presidential candidate than a religious leader”, suggests USA Today, noting that Santorum, a fervent Catholic, has stretched the rhetoric of the Christian right to the extreme. It is no longer enough just to oppose abortion and radically so, you must also condemn contraception. It is no longer enough to promote family ideals: You must proclaim that feminism ruined the traditional family, and so it is essential to fight it.

Rick Santorum’s views support legislative initiatives that catch the attention of public opinion, worry progressives and horrify the majority of women. In Virginia, women wanting an abortion will first have to see the fetus on an ultrasound. In Oklahoma, a bill would force them to listen to the heartbeats of the “unborn child.”

But in the Senate in Washington D.C., the debate has taken on a national dimension. Senator Roy Blunt, the Republican from Missouri, had introduced an amendment to a budget law that would have allowed employers to refuse to finance contraception methods through the health insurance that their employees must subscribe to by invoking “religious beliefs” or “moral convictions.” The amendment was rejected 51-48 last Thursday with a Democrat majority against a Republican opposition on the grounds that the text would have conferred employers an abusive right to determine what is “moral” and what is not.

This vote brought to light the changes that the Republicans would be likely to introduce in the private lives of Americans should they take the control of both houses of Congress in November (the Democrats currently own a slight majority in the Senate).

Some also criticize the declared desire of Rick Santorum to abolish the separation of church and state, the same separation which was strongly reasserted by the future first and only Catholic President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, in his famous speech of Sept. 12, 1960, which aimed at reassuring a people scared at the thought of no longer being governed by a Protestant. Santorum, who claimed to admire Kennedy, has declared twice recently that this speech made him “throw up.”