An Introduction to Rick Santorum

Here is Rick Santorum's speech in Iowa the other night after the results showed that he had tied Mitt Romney for first place after a miraculous rise in the polls late in the campaign. This speech introduces Rick Santorum to the American public and it is extremely good. In fact, it made me cry. Regardless of all the problems and all the brokenness, America must be a wonderful place if it produces men like this and voters who vote them into public office.



Just three quick comments.

1. He is careful to distinguish himself from libertarianism as much as from socialism, to which I can only say "Amen." This is refreshing and extremely important. Of course it raises questions about how he would hold the Republican coalition of traditional conservatives, Evangelicals, libertarians and national security hawks together if he distances himself from the libertarians. But my impression is that most of Ron Paul's supporters will vote Democratic or Libertarian Party anyway.

2. He has a clear linkage between social issues, especially the family, and economic issues. Jay Cost has more on this intriguing aspect of his position here:

Asked a question about how he would stop members of Congress from insider trading, Santorum began by saying that we shouldn’t need a law to prevent legislators from profiting off of non-public information, because such actions are unethical. But because our representatives don’t act ethically and morally, he said, we’ll have to pass a law to force them to do so. And then we’ll have to hire people to enforce the law. And congressional offices will swell with these new hall monitors. And the entire system of enforcement will cost Americans money.

You see, Santorum said, earnestly, “People say, ‘All we need to care about is cutting taxes and cutting government and everything will be fine.’ But if people don’t live good, decent, moral lives, government is going to get bigger. And that’s why I say families and faith is an important part of the foundation of economic limited government.”

It’s an elegant formulation—marrying values and morality to smaller government—and, superficially at least, it’s quite compelling. Santorum is the only man in the race selling this idea. The audience in Rockingham loved it.

3. Would Rick Santorum be another big government Republican president like the two Bushes? I don't think so. I think his conservatism is serious and real. He just knows how to explain why conservativism is actually compassionate, not when it imitates big-spending liberalism, but when it limits government and respects the "little platoons" of civil society.

And, besides all this, he is hated vociferously by all the right people.