Albert Mohler has summed up the “predicament” that is Rick Santorum’s candidacy.
Rick Santorum is still a long shot for the Republican nomination, but his candidacy and its coverage in the mainstream media tell us a great deal about the fate of conservative candidates and conservative convictions in the public square…
You do not have to agree with the way Rick Santorum chooses to argue on all issues to recognize the central predicament he represents. Far more Americans than we would like to think agree with Maureen Dowd than with Rick Santorum. The moral convictions Santorum articulates are deeply rooted in the Christian inheritance of Western civilization, but the denial of that inheritance has been a central aim of moral progressives for years.
Mohler is right. Far more Americans have a liberal moral sense than many conservatives would like to admit. Whereas Santorum might sound perfectly reasonable to social conservatives and evangelicals, he sounds like an unelectable religious fanatic to others. The public ‘s response to Rick Santorum tells us as much about us as it does about him.
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3 Comments
Kyle Barrett
The response does tell alot about us, especially us as Evangelicals. If Santorum doesn’t articulate explicitly Christian moral ideals, Evangelicals won’t vote for him. But if he does articulate those moral ideals in explicitly Christian terms, he sounds like a fanatic. I care that a candidate share my conservative values – spiritual, economic, social – but at the end of the day, I’m looking at a voting record that lines up with those values and not just a confessional statement. Evangelicals seem to focus on the latter exclusively. How else do you explain the jump of Evangelicals from Bachmann to Perry to Santorum?
Bobby
Kyle- well said. I am glad that Santorum continues to be honest and explicit with what he believes and what he wants to get done. If Santorum goes head to head with Obama and loses, he will do so by knowing he didn’t compromise just to be electable.
Paul
He’s right. If the Huckabee of 2008 (and really, if Governor Huckabee) ran for president, he’d be pummeled, even though he was essentially a fiscal liberal and a social conservative…i.e., exactly what I’d love to see out of a president. But, instead of getting elected for holding wise and pragmatic views on how government works, he’d get demolished for being an outspoken Christian. Which is what happened in ’08. It was too bad then, and it’s too bad now.