As I wrote 18 months ago, back in 2010:

It is folly, if not sheer madness, to think that a former U.S. senator who lost his last re-election campaign in a home-state landslide could possibly turn around and be elected president.

Or at least that’s what conventional wisdom would say. It’s a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid. It’s also a good thing for Rick Santorum that he has a history of making absolute fools of the Washington chattering classes. Santorum, the courageously conservative former two-term U.S. House member and two-term senator from Pennsylvania, is openly considering a run for the White House. Conservative leaders and voters are preternaturally stupid if they don’t at least give him a serious hearing…

I wake up this morning to hear pundits and DC activists still discounting Santorum’s chances. Again, they are wrong. The shape of the nomination fight to come is now clear: With Ron Paul continuing to take his minority share of the votes, other conservatives will rally around Santorum rather than Gingrich. Eventually, a weak Romney, without a personal “connection” to voters and without any strongly philosophically committed base, will succumb. Santorum will be the nominee. Obama will overplay his hand attacking Santorum’s allegedly awful remarks about homosexuals. He’ll try to slime Santorum in other ways, too. But Santorum isn’t really vulnerable to sliming the way other candidates are. He’ll win swing states in the heartland and will make a good enough VP choice to shore up weaknesses elsewhere. I haven’t done the state-by-state math, but he’ll end up with about 300 electoral votes to Obama’s 238 or so. Santorum will be the next president. And he’ll govern very, very well.