Can Santorum be our next president?
So, Rick Santorum is running for president, again. Does he expect to win?
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, is an experienced campaigner, and he wouldn’t be doing this with any other thought in mind. I suspect he’s thinking he’ll raise his right hand to God and pledge to uphold the Constitution, in front of the Capitol and his fellow citizens, on Jan. 20, 2017.
Of course, there is hardly any guarantee Santorum will actually win his party’s nomination and go on to defeat the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In fact, the odds are stacked heavily against him. For one thing, it’s been eight years since he last held elective office. As politics goes, that’s a long, long time.
True, he ran second to Mitt Romney in the chase for the nomination four years ago. But the GOP fielded a notoriously weak team in 2012. Can you say Herman Cain?
This time around Santorum faces a much stronger line-up. Jeb Bush. Scott Walker. Ted Cruz. Rand Paul. Then, there is Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who may yet move to the head of the line; he looks awfully strong; if he ever gets to the front he may be off to the race against Hillary, and quite a race it would be.
Santorum knows his way around the issues, and he’s quick on his feet. He knows what he knows, and he’s not shy telling you about it. But he’s on a slippery slope. There was a young Minnesota governor once by the name of Harold Stassen. He was known as “the boy wonder.” He thought he’d run for president. He did so the first time in 1940; the last time was 2000. In all, he took the plunge 12 times.
I’m not sure when people first snickered at Harold Stassen; I do know they eventually were laughing out loud at him. It made no difference to the former governor.
A smart fellow, Harold Stassen; but he got it in his mind once too often that he would make a wonderful president. So he ran and ran and ran again and again and again.
If he’s not careful Rich Santorum could end up being the next “perennial candidate”: a bright enough guy who couldn’t overcome his love of the spotlight, his enthusiasm for the chase, his conviction that he’s THE ONE.
Politics is like life in general: nothing succeeds like success. Without success in politics, you’re nothing but a punching bag, a guy who gets his head handed to him every four years.
One of the last times I spoke to Santorum, more than four years ago after he addressed a tea party rally on the outskirts of Greensburg, I said to him, “It sure looks like you’re running for president. Why do you want to run?” I must have sounded incredulous.
Without missing a step as he walked to his car with an aide ready to whisk him to his next event, he said, “You sound like my family.”
If his family was uncomfortable with him running in 2012, wonder what they were telling him before he made a formal announcement of his 2016 candidacy in his hometown of Butler a week or so ago?
Then, again, it’s possible that the families of candidates can become just as intoxicated as the principal himself in the pursuit of a fading dream. Potomac fever is contagious, you know.
Now, here’s a thing you may not know about Rick Santorum: he got started in politics by volunteering to work in the campaign of Sen. John Heinz, an Eastern establishment liberal Republican, the kind of Republican conservative Republicans love to hate, the kind they have wiped from the face of the earth in the last 30 to 40 years.
Here’s another thing: his initial fascination with politics centered on process: just how does a candidate go about getting himself elected?
It sounds a little amoral in this day and age. Nowadays, politicians, especially Republicans, speak grandly of “core values” they will not compromise and which they swear on a stack of Bibles to defend.
One suspects Santorum is still fascinated — maybe even transfixed — by the great game. In a post-announcement interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC, Santorum was clearly in trimming mode: sawing off a limb, he let the reality-show Duggars plop to the ground with a resounding thud.
He then laid the groundwork for a campaign geared to working class, blue collar Americans — a change of emphasis significant enough to qualify as strategic.
You could almost see the wheels turning in his head. There is little doubt Santorum gets a kick out of politics. It’s grueling, to be sure; most candidates fall flat on their faces — after all, there can be only one winner. Nevertheless, politics has a certain allure. Above all, it leads the way to the making of history and of doing really significant things. Rick Santorum loves it!
Why else, at the age of 57, pursue the dream of a victory which, if it comes, would be one of the most stunning upsets in the history of American politics?
Rick Santorum may still look young but he’s far from callow. He must realize the odds are long. But with ego and energy on his side, he presses on. Just about all he needs now is cash and enough votes in the early primaries to carry him forward. And if he manages to reach the Pennsylvania primary, there can be no ducking out, like last time.
Two runs for the presidency does not a Stassen make. Nevertheless, for Santorum, the second time around must be the charm.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books – “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.