Santorum's Surge

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2012/01/santorum-surge

The big news of the Iowa caucuses is the surge of Rick Santorum. What does it mean?

Part of it is just good timing. His surge was late enough that he hasn't yet been subject to the wave of press scrutiny and attacks from rivals that the other candidates were subjected to when they showed up high in the polls.

But it also means that there is a constituency in the Republican Party who appreciates a candidate who was willing to take on Ron Paul on foreign policy. Senator Santorum was the only one who did that consistently in the debates, taking a hard line against Islamic extremism in Iran and challenging Congressman Paul when Mr. Paul tried to suggest that American pull back from its overseas commitments. Mr. Santorum, a Catholic, was also consistent in speaking about the importance of family values in policy. I've also commented in the past about Mr. Santorum's immigration position:

Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania, who, after extended discussion by the other candidates of the right techniques for securing the border with Mexico — Mr. Perry favored "Predator drones" and more national guard and border patrol "boots on the ground," while Mr. Romney called for a "fence" and an end to tuition breaks for "kids of illegal aliens" — remarked that as the son of an Italian immigrant, he though "we should not have a debate talking about how we don't want people to come to this country."

When the negative attention does descend on Mr. Santorum, some of the questions that will be asked again are about his failure to win re-election in his own home state of Pennsylvania. Others will center on his tax plan, which the Tax Foundation, a generally sensible outfit, gave a dismal D+, the worst of any of the Republican candidates, saying " it fails to reduce significantly the complexity of the current tax code."

Update: More thoughts on the state of the race, these with the benefit of a full night's sleep and a conversation with a former Santorum aide, are here.

by Ira Stoll  |  Jan 3, 2012 at 10:37 pm Related Topics:  Politics, Religion, Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list