Unless I missed something, I agree with EVERY…. SINGLE….
WORD uttered by Rick Santorum in his interview
on Face the Nation yesterday. Bob Schieffer was remarkably
hostile, but Santorum kept his equanimity, kept smiling, didn’t
back down, but never got peevish (although he did, rightly,
insist on correcting a misstatement by Bob Schieffer about
his child being “stillborn”). Santorum is right that mandated amnio
tests are a horrible idea; right that federal intervention in
education is a bad idea; and right that some environmental
extremism amounts (in a CLEAR attempt at metaphor rather than
direct meaning) to a kind of “theology.” Indeed, he took time in
his Ohio speech (at issue on Face the Nation) to explain that he
was NOT talking about Obama’s theology of “the Bible,” in other
words not talking about his actual religious faith, but instead
saying that the belief system in extreme environmentalism was a
sort of theology.
This is absolutely standard political discourse. John Pitney
explains it here. Of course, the double standard here is the
same as the one existing on so many other topics: The Left can use
language against the right without any heads being turned, but if a
conservative uses the exact same language, the
establishment media goes bonkers in a paroxysm of utterly false,
utterly cynical outrage.
Look, I have no problem questioning if the black liberation
theology to which Barack Obama listened from Jeremiah Wright for 20
years (!!!!) has next to nothing to do with Christianity. In fact,
it has nothing to do with love; all it is, is hatred, from a man
Obama identified as his mentor. But Rick Santorum did not question
Obama’s Christianity. He compared Obama’s environmental worldview
to a “theology,” in the sense of deep-seated belief without
empirical proof (as the natural sciences consider empiricism).
All of that said, if I were Santorum, I would for now back off
any voluntary social-issues discussions other than those
currently in the news independently of his comments (i.e. the Obama
Admin’s assault on religious liberty). Every time he goes there,
the establishment media will take his words out of context — and,
worse, since he talks without a prepared text, he often leaves a
little room for misinterpretation, just enough to get himself in
trouble. (Almost always, even a semi-careful parsing of his words
makes absolutely clear what he really meant, even without his
subsequent explanations, but the establishment media can’t be
bothered with being even semi-careful.) Also, while the
substance of his social-issue commentary is eminently defensible
even to those who don’t agree 100%, the actual language he uses can
lend itself to being characterized as extremist. It is NOTHING OF
THE KIND, of course, but it is easy to mischaracterize.
Santorum’s biggest task now: He needs to start working overtime
to broaden his economic message to explain how his plans would help
not just manufacturing, but help small businesses across
the board, especially small retailers, and how it would help the
whole economy. He needs to connect his economic message to the
concerns of the suburban professional mom as well as the
blue-collar dad. His proposals actually would be quite good for
those other audiences, indeed for the whole economy, but he’s not
really closing the loop in his explanations thereof. Right now he
just lists his economic-platform planks; he needs to
explain how his policies would be beneficial.
Look, the man obviously is very good at most of this; he
wouldn’t be leading the field right now if he weren’t doing a ton
more right than wrong, in terms of communicating. But just a little
polishing around the edges could really help increase his electoral
upside and stop providing openings for the Left to attack him
in ways that really do (unnecessary) damage among some independent
voters. Just because Santorum keeps getting better and better
as a candidate doesn’t mean he can’t get even better still. The
man’s a winner. A few improvements, and he could become a
big winner, rather than an achiever of hair’s-breadth
victories that leave everybody breathless from the drama.
