Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Rick Santorum Sweeps the Field -- A New Front-Runner?

Seismic shifts in the GOP primary race Tuesday, we are told, as Rick Santorum comes in first in all three caucuses, handily in Minnesota and Missouri, and solidly in Colorado.

Before we anoint him the presumptive Republican nominee, we must remind ourselves of a few facts.  These were caucuses, not primaries. Voter turnout was low, with only the more committed (read, "extremist") voters participating. In Florida, for instance, where Mr. Romney won decisively, some 2 million Republicans voted in a simple primary. Last night in Colorado, in contrast, some 65,000 caucus-goers cast their ballots. Caucuses take time, effort, and political engagement that is rare in both parties. We can’t imagine how annoying it must be for a demon-seeing Frank Paretti fan to sit and listen to a gold standard libertarian Ron Paul supporter for two hours. And vice versa.

The Christian right comes out for these things on the Republican side of the Great Divide. Rick Santorum is their man, as he seems most willing to eliminate a woman’s right to choose, is most vociferous in opposition to the concepts of global warming and evolution, and is most stridently opposed to legal rights for homosexuals.

Religion is poised to rear its head ever higher in these primaries. Hitherto the GOP line of attack against President Obama has been that the economy is not going well, he is the president, therefore he is to blame. Latest economic indicators point to an uptick in our economic prospects. The Republicans are dropping that line of attack for now, and falling back on the old tried and true. For decades they have relied on the Three G’s: God, Guns, and Gays. God has been trotted out; expect the other two to follow close behind.

Mitt Romney, fixated for months on the economy, abruptly shifted gears in Colorado, going for the Rocky Mountain High-on-Jesus types. He didn’t exactly get all fire and brimstone on us, but he did dip his toe in the holy water, trying to paint the Obama administration as veritable Satanic extremists over their insistence that all institutions nationwide provide the same health care options to their employees.

We suspect that Mitt Romney talking religion isn’t going to work for him with the Christian right. It will seem as odd to them as Christine O’Donnell talking witchcraft. The proselytizing, well-scrubbed elephant in the room this election is Mr. Romney’s Mormonism. To Christian extremists, there’s some pretty wacky stuff going on in that religion, which many of them think of as a "cult." (Wacky Stuff Example: One must wonder if the Mormon leadership has performed one of their ubiquitous "proxy baptisms" on Ronald Reagan, for instance, as is their wont with individuals they have great admiration for, offering the delights of Mormonism to the spirits of those who have passed beyond this veil. The practice is soft-pedaled by the Mormon Church as little more than proselytizing beyond the grave, nothing binding about it, missionary work to the stars. We would like to hear Mitt Romney’s Missionary Position on corpses. We see we have stumbled upon a necrophilia pun here, and we will now back slowly and quietly away from it.)

At any rate, Mr. Romney’s religious turn helped him not a jot in Colorado, and he is doubtless re-thinking what he has to offer in the marketplace of ideas. But until Mr. Santorum wins a big primary in a big state, with casual voters lining up for him as completely as they have lined up for Mr. Romney, he cannot be termed a front-runner.

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