United Liberty

Let us make fresh.

The reason why Rick Santorum would not oust Barack Obama in November, is not his faith. It is simply that he is running a ‘social message’ of uniform decency against a ‘social message’ of uniform healthcare. Plainly, Obama’s health plan, is vital: but not more pressing than the economic calamity of bailouts, frauds, money-laundering, spending and public debt. These are focal issues of the 2012 election.

Santorum is the politician everyone can super-impose themselves on. He’s no CEO like Mitt Romney, no renowned speaker like Newt Gingrich, not intellectual like Ron Paul. No, he is a regular Pennsylvania lawyer, who argued some weird World Wrestling Federation cases. Somehow he is unspectacular enough, that he could almost be your town butcher, postal deliverer or stockyard piler. You would think this is a strength. But it is not.

Eventually, while trying to keep your political pronunciations to a minimum, to correspond to the widest social base possible, you hit a tollboth going 160 mph. Santorum is earnest, he surely is: means well to families and the elderly, but he has yet to prove his salt. His record is plain: he has taken massive amounts of Washington D.C. beltway funding, voted to raise the debt ceiling, is in cahoots with the (so-called) ‘military industrial complex’  and dislikes many anomalies of our population: young pregnants, migrant-labor, jobless, gays, blacks. He has been able to entrench his campaign in an atmosphere of rustic humbleness and simpletonness.

Problems arise, when Rick Santorum speaks in debate. His style is uneasy and querrulous, seemingly seeking for an answer, that doesn’t immediately arive. Now I know, this is a libertarian blog: I should keep an open mind, but I also have to take a stand for America’s future. Rick Santorum isn’t the one to beat Obama in November. Formality aside, there are just plain too many (true, viceral, encroaching) powers Santorum wants to expand. More little Washington D.C. capital domes, in more small-town America towns.

Aside the fact, for a moment, that he has not only not suffered, indeed prospered in the lest weeks due to a late come-from behind werewolfing, but has essentially bought votes. Next to the other Rick, Perry- Santorum has been the second highest-spending in the rubric: dollars-per-vote. Whether or not he is really in touch with small-towners, around the country remains to be seen, and it is late to do so. Where exactly Santorum’s business finesse would come from, in this 2008-onward recession, nobody knows. He has not run much aside from a campaign staff and bureau in Washington D.C. Stuck in a version of America, that does not change makes him clash with candidate Ron Paul who favors a more William Jamesian ‘flowing’ form of liberty.

Rick Santorum’s definite strengths are his elliptical way of debating, and his overall likeablity. Until just a few weeks ago, Santorum was a gut-punched fighter on the side-lines of this main event. We need to follow him more closely, to ascertain whether his words are really worth their listening price, or if it’s all hollow spending. So far he is the candidate with the most high-and-low fluctuations, bleeping on the radar early; only to re-disappear quietly like he came. It is hard to make out a coherent campaign strategy: perhaps he is the unsuspected candidate.

Ron Paul has been gathering delegates in many states (even ones where he has not won-outright) and his political constituents, have been able to fortify their trenches over the past two months. Mitt Romney, the most well adaptive candidate, has also seen fluctuations in his possible voters, but solidly routs these whenever they occur. Newt Gingrich has been the grand outcast, neither getting on the ballot in Virginia, nor contending in Michigan. His ‘Southern Strategy’ might yet add to more mayhem for the GOP, and not do him much good politically.

Santorum’s message, as fine-spun as it seemingly is, gets hung-up when the question arises: “What role should government have in morality?” And for this line, Santorum should be preparing himself for better in weeks to come. If there is no separation of church and state (and that’s fine), how close would his faith, ethic, outlook, decisions extend from the Potomac River? For me, Rick Santorum talks great (no teleprompter) but considers it a hassle, to have to explain himself. Unfortunately for his presidential prospects, Americans are the most scrupulous defenders of individuality.

Powers once given: are hard to take away from government.

It’ll take more than nice savings, to earn our trust.

Our votes are hardest won, Mr. Santorum.