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The Spectacle Blog
That’s what Bill Kristol thinks he is seeing. It amplifies Stacy McCain’s report that Santorum is fighting back after a bad week. One factor neither one mentions that adds to this sense is the growing (not huge, but growing) backlash against Romney for his culturally inept (a Romney specialty) line that his wife “drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
Cultural identification matters. That’s what allows Santorum to survive mistakes, or distorted attacks on his record, when others can’t: People identify with him.
View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/02/27/michigan-momentum-with-santoru
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Willard Romneyfeller| 2.27.12 @ 10:59AM
No worries... we've order up 24 hours of pain for Santorum in all media outlets.
Randy | 2.27.12 @ 11:01AM
Mitt will win because he's way ahead with early voters.
Casey Abell| 2.27.12 @ 11:16AM
Even Quin can't be delusional enough to think Kristol really likes Santorum. Weekly Standard has never paid any attention to the social issues beloved by Rick.
All Kristol wants is a brokered convention. Then the Romney-loathing Bill Kristol (with maybe a smidgen of help) can pick Chris Christie, er, somebody as the GOP nominee.
As Alana Goodman points out at Commentary, the trend is not Santorum's friend in Michigan. If the primary had been last Tuesday, Santorum would have won. Now he's slipped just behind. A Santorum win is still possible, but increasingly unlikely. http://www.commentarymagazine......-michigan/
Meanwhile, AZ is lost for Santorum.
Marco2| 2.27.12 @ 11:18AM
Well, I see you've finally joined Kristol in his parallel universe. Treatment is the usual recommendation.
Floyd Looney | 2.27.12 @ 11:20AM
Romney is not a conservative, fiscally, socially or culturally. It is as simple as that. I don't see why it is so hard for some people to accept it.
Drek| 2.27.12 @ 12:03PM
People for Santorum are laying in store for themselves some serious disappointment.
If we go with Romney we're going to be hit with the street theater, street violence, class warfare and we're going to be regaled with the details of mormonism.
If we go with Santorum, we're guaranteed a candidate that will resemble more the church lady than the church lady, and we'll have to put up with that idiotic sweater vest to boot.
Nock| 2.27.12 @ 12:12PM
Wishful thinking on Kristol's part. Of course he is going to promote the biggest NeoCon chickenhawk in the race. Got to make sure the Democratic Crusade in the Middle East continues!!!
Lil Ricky Santorum| 2.27.12 @ 12:14PM
God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids. God bless you all.
Bo Darville| 2.27.12 @ 12:30PM
Mitt's wife drives a couple of Cadillacs? Outrageous! She should be driving a Geo Metro.
Jake| 2.27.12 @ 1:11PM
Kristol makes this prediction not on recent polls , which show the exact opposite , but, on several personal conversations with Michiganders.
He writes " it feels to me as if Santorum could win."
All righty then.
The PPP analysis of early voters gives Romney a huge advantage.
I don't understand the rationale that it's great idea for Santorum to focus on Satan and snobs and sinners while throwing up , but,
it's a Cardinal sin for Romney
to say his wife drives Cadillacs.
Depending on the model, some Ford F 150s are more expensive than Cadillacs.
Class warfare is just as active on the right as it is on the left.
MikeBee| 2.27.12 @ 2:07PM
Two points from a man in Michigan:
Point #1: Just last week, the Free Press of Detroit put in its support for Romney. We used to have two newspapers in Detroit: the conservative Detroit News and the liberal Detroit Free Press. Now they have both joined, and they are both liberal. So, Romney is receiving the endorsement of liberals. I tend to vote against the liberal newspapers' candidate.
Point #2: the MI GOP is stupid enough to allow Democrats to vote in their primaries. This year, the MI Dems don't have any real pressing needs in their own primary, so they should vote in ours in pretty good numbers. They will back the candidate that they believe Obama can beat. Look for them to support Romney in some pretty good numbers. Just four years ago, they voted for McCain, sending him the state "GOP" endorsement, helping their man, Obama, to win.
Oldefarte| 2.27.12 @ 2:31PM
First of all, let me state and leave no doubt that IF SANTORUM IS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE, I WILL VOTE FOR HIM [OVER OBAMA] IN NOVEMBER. That said, if that is the case, Santorum and the Republican Party will lose, and this country will quickly spiral our of financial control due to Obama's/Democrats' socialists governmental policies, defecits/debt and anti-Israel dominated middle eastern foreign policies. I hope Krystol will be able to look his fellow Jewish relatives, friends, neighbors etc in the face after the results of his political support seemingly explodes and Israel and the US are reeling from the effects of a Muslim dominated overthrow of Israel and possibly another Holocost looming over the horizon!!!!!!!!!
Bill| 2.27.12 @ 3:02PM
Guess Who?
voted for
1. Raising the debt ceiling 5 times
2. Planned Parenthood
3. Medicare Part D
4. NCLB
5. Bridge to nowhere
voted against
1. "Right-to-Work" law
Ans: Ricky "Keystone big-government pro-union RINO" Santorum
mjs_pa| 2.27.12 @ 6:04PM
So which one of these items would romney have voted no on?
btw...Santorum is big labor? Pa. union leaders say 'ridiculous'
http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....127.story?
Bill| 2.27.12 @ 4:42PM
Santorum voted against the "Right-to-Work" law, and those labor unions will spend millons of dollars destroying him if he gets the GOP nod. Unlike Gingrich, Santorum never mentions his stance on big labor unions because Santorum cannot offend his beloved labor union bosses.
Oldefarte| 2.27.12 @ 5:02PM
'.....Santorum a Good Man in Wrong Century
Monday, February 27, 2012 09:57 AM
By: Kathleen Parker
Let me be blunt: If Republicans nominate Rick Santorum, they will lose.
The prospect of four more years of Barack Obama holds some appeal for many Americans, but probably not for most Republicans. It may give doubters among them some comfort, however, to know that Obama and Santorum share the same prayer: that Santorum be the Republican nominee.
It gives me no pleasure to rap Santorum, a man I know and respect even if I disagree with him on some issues. Not that he minds. He's a scrapper who loves a fight — and he forgives. Bottom line: Santorum is a good man. He's just a good man in the wrong century.
This doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong about everything, but he's so far out of step with the majority of Americans that he can't hope to win the votes of moderates and independents so crucial to victory in November. The Republican Party's insistence on conservative purity, meanwhile, will result in the cold comfort of defeat with honor and, in the longer term, potential extinction.
Increasingly, the party is growing grayer and whiter. Nine out of 10 Republicans are non-Hispanic white and about half are highly religious, according to Gallup. This isn't news, but when this demographic is suddenly associated with renewed debate about whether women should have access to contraception — never mind abortion — suddenly they begin to look like the Republican Brotherhood.
Add to that perception the abhorrent, pre-abortion ultrasound legislation proposed in Virginia, and you can kiss the Pope's ring and voters' retreating backsides.
The proposed law, temporarily tabled, called for women seeking an abortion to be forced to submit to a vaginal ultrasound. Aldous Huxley's "The Devils of Loudon" comes to mind, but he was writing about exorcisms in a convent of 17th-century France. When did Republicans, who supposedly believe in less government intervention, begin thinking that invading a person's body against her will was remotely acceptable?
Saner minds have prevailed, at least for now, but the fact that the bill was ever conceived and taken seriously by at least some number of legislators gives freedom-loving voters every reason to run the other way.
Informed consent is, in my view, a reasonable goal. Surely removal of a human fetus deserves the same level of awareness we would insist upon in removing, say, a gall bladder. If some women change their minds after viewing the contents of their womb, then they obviously needed more information than they had going in. Still, any procedure should be voluntary, and inserting a probe into a woman against her will is rape by any other name.
Obviously, this is no place for the state.
The Virginia bill and the broader (bogus) message often repeated on left-leaning talk shows that Republicans are campaigning against birth control have created a perfect storm for defeat. The math is clear: Sixty-seven percent of women are either Democrats (41 percent) or independents (26 percent); more women than men vote; 55 percent of women ages 18-22 voted in the 2008 presidential election.
Republicans are caught in a nearly impossible situation, none more than the more temperate-minded Mitt Romney. It is important to remember, however, why contraception came up in the first place. Republicans were forced to man their battlements by the Obama administration's new healthcare rule mandating that Catholic organizations pay for contraception in violation of conscience.
From there, things spiraled out of the realm of religious liberty, where this debate belongs, and into the fray of moral differences.
Santorum's original surge was based not on social issues but on his authenticity and his ability to identify with middle-class struggles. He was the un-Romney. But now this appealing profile has been occluded by social positions that make him an outlier to mainstream Americans.
Republicans may sleep better if they nominate The most conservative person in the world, but they won't be seeing the executive branch anytime soon. It's too bad this election season got lost in the weeds of religious conviction. It wouldn't have happened if the Obama administration had simply taken one of several other routes available for providing birth control to women who want it.
Instead, Obama aimed right at the heart of the Republican Party and, one can only assume, got exactly what he wanted: a culture war in which Rick Santorum would be the natural point man and, in the broader public's perception, the voice of the GOP......'
RJ| 2.28.12 @ 1:51AM
Thanks for posting the Kathleen Parker article. I understand you do not favor Santorum and I am not challenging that.
My comment is directed towards the media regarding some problems which I see this article as illustrating. I wish commentators would just give us an honest, objective insight like an umpire calling balls and strikes rather than act as a cheerleader for some side or candidate regardless of the facts.
We have many media cheerleaders and Parker's statement about nominating "the most conservative person in the world" is an example of excessive hyperbola. Many of the GOP voters are concerned that Santorum (and Romney & Gingrich) is not conservative enough. Ms. Parker's other statements are "He's just a good man in the wrong century." and "The Republican Party's insistence on conservative purity..." I don't think any GOP voter thinks we have ever been offered anything approaching "purity." Our record is that we have been settling for less for a long time: Bush 1, Dole, Bush 2, McCain and, in the Congress, Boehner. For many GOP voters, this year is no different.
More importantly, she states that the GOP and in particular Santorum is "associated with a renewed debate about whether women should have access to contraception..." But that has not been Santorum's position. The issue before us is whether contraception, which is currently affordable and readily available, should be mandated by the government for employers to provide free of charge to their employees. A much different issue which goes to the scope of government. It has been the Democrats and their media which has decided to misframe this issue and we can expect more of the same from now through election day. Whoever the GOP candidate is, will need to be able to battle through the media fog on issues. Conservatives however should not allow the distortion of the media to impact our decision on who we select, because the media will do it to any candidate who carries the GOP banner.
I agree with what Newt said at the last debate. None of our 4 candidates are extremists; Obama and the Democrats are the extremists. It is proven by their record: annual trillion dollar deficits; shutting down domestic energy in times of threatened world supplies; "stimulus" for supporters; crony capitalism; war in Libya without Congressional consent; the NLRB's threatened shut-down of the Boeing South Carolina plant; violating Chrysler bond holder rights; and Obama Care.
mjs_pa| 2.27.12 @ 6:06PM
Talk about tone deaf:
Romney on NASCAR: I don’t follow it closely but I have some friends who own NASCAR teams
http://hotair.com/archives/201.....car-teams/