Santorum and the Tea Party crackup
2012 Elections, Headlines Saturday, January 7th, 2012
By Michelle Goldberg, Reuters
It’s easy to read too much into Rick Santorum’s stunning finish in the Iowa caucuses after months of dismal poll numbers. In some ways he won by default, emerging as the last conservative candidate standing because no one took him seriously enough to attack him. Nevertheless, by virtually tying with Mitt Romney, he has become the leading conservative alternative in the race. And that should put to rest the exhausted conventional wisdom that the American right is primarily motivated by a desire for small government. Because Rick Santorum sure isn’t.
Since the Tea Party burst onto the political scene in 2009, we have heard over and over again that the revolt against president Obama was driven by anxiety about government expansion. Because conservatives told pollsters they were most concerned about fiscal issues, conventional wisdom hyped the belief that the culture wars were passé. In Politico, for example, Ben Smith wrote that the Tea Party had “banished the social issues that are the focus of many evangelical Christians to the background.”
Certainly, Tea Party voters wanted to shrink government spending and lower taxes. That’s perfectly in line with the ideology of the religious right, which holds that families and churches should provide the social safety net. According to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition’s main legislative goals in 1994 and 1995 were tax cuts for middle-class families with children and balancing the budget. And fifteen years later, polls showed that the Tea Party was largely the old Christian right in a new guise. A September Public Religion Research Institute survey found that three quarters of Tea Partiers describe themselves as Christian conservatives, while only a quarter identify as libertarians. The Tea Party-inspired House prioritized anti-abortion legislation even when it meant raising taxes, championing a bill that would have ended current tax breaks for individuals and small businesses buying health care plans that cover abortion, as the vast majority of plans now do. Nevertheless, the notion of the Tea Party as a libertarian force endured.
Santorum’s emergence as the anti-Romney, though, should make it impossible to ignore the fact that many on the right, including large numbers of self-described Tea Partiers, want more government control of our lives, not less. According to a CNN entrance poll, Santorum won a plurality of Iowa Tea Party sympathizers—64 percent of voters overall—with 29 percent, followed by 19 percent each for Romney and Ron Paul. He’s getting at least some Tea Party support in New Hampshire, winning the endorsement of Jerry DeLemus, chairman of the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC. This despite the fact that Santorum has often disparaged limited government. In 2005, for example, he told NPR that conservatives who have taken a “Goldwaterish libertarian point of view when it comes to the interaction of government in people’s lives” have done so “to the determent of the country.”
To read more, visit: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/01/06/santorum-and-the-tea-party-crackup/
Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=5405
Ron Paul is the only true conservative running. The rest support bailouts and more military intervention abroad and neither is a conservative stance, as they both involve higher spending.
That’s true. Not that I agree with the conservative platform, at all.
But, Ron Paul, in all his kooky, misguided glory, definitely reps the conservative ideology more than the other fundie minded RINOs.
Ron Paul is certainly the best candidate still standing, but having participated in the Goldwater/Johnson race in 1964 and learning that my own mother supported LBJ because “Goldwater scared me,” I have doubts. I’ve met Ron Paul. I’m also a constitutional scholar, so I understand where even his most so-called “extreme” positions come from. I know him to be a reasonable man who would not rush through bills to immediately privatize social security or legalize drugs or other measures considered extreme—as some of the more vociferous talk show hosts are saying to disparage him.
RINO or not, one of the things Santorum has going for him is that he’s still fairly young and might be swayed at some point to pull a Reagan and change his RINO stance.
Flame I agree with your evaluation of Dr. Paul. He is still my candidate and I pray that despite the blitz of media to the contrary, I believe he is the only candidate with a sincere desire to cut spending and return to a constitutional government.
You know. As surely as Obama lied, Ron Paul is lying. He couldn’t possibly cut one trillion. Why? The congress spends money. His foreign policy won’t work either. The ‘minute’ we pull out of a country (which no-one will let him) and they self destruct, he will be blamed and be unable to govern.
I agree that everyone has some serious. Right now, we need the cleanest, most Alinsky – proof candidate. Come on people. Learn the constitution it’s Congress who appropriates funds.