Bill Kristol notes the obvious: Santorum’s general performance in the campaign has been courageous. He’s not afraid to take stands that the experts say will doom him. So while I thought it was unseemly for Santorum to label himself with the virtue of courage in the recent debate, it’s true enough he deserves to get credit for being, say, the non-Romney on that front. Bill’s question: Is he courageous like Goldwater? If so, he will be the unwitting source of a new birth of progressivism in our country. Or is he courageous like Reagan? If so he will have the eloquence, fortitude, and disarming charm to make his allegedly extreme views mainstream.
CLARIFICATION: I was reporting on a new openness to Newt in Georgia NOT SHARED BY ME.
February 24th, 2012 | 11:56 am
Santorum’s not likely to be either. Reagan was a once-in-a-generation combination of integrity, good sense, eloquence, and likeability. You’d have to be delusion to expect Santorum to replicate him. Goldwater lost badly but inspired a new movement within the Republican Party. What new or unrepresented views is Santorum espousing? Social conservatism is hardly a new idea. A few years from now, we’ll just remember Santorum as a less pleasant and less skilled version of Bush II and Mike Huckabee, with a Rust Belt twist.
February 24th, 2012 | 12:23 pm
Is he courageous like Goldwater? If so, he will be the unwitting source of a new birth of progressivism in our country.
For the record, the enhanced majority the Democratic Party won in the House of Representatives in 1964 lasted all of two years; their margin in the Senate remained unchanged; and they were compelled to relinquish the Presidency four years later. Of the salient legacies of the 89th Congress (Medicare, Medicaid, and the Voting Rights Act) two were passed with the co-operation of about a third of the Republican caucus and one with the bulk of the Republican caucus.
While we are at it, one might also note that in 1964 the economy had been expanding for four years and Lyndon Johnson’s performance was (per Gallup) deemed satisfactory by about 3/5ths of the electorate. It is rather unsurprising that he was returned to office, Mr. Goldwater’s abrasive personality notwithstanding.
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