Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Why isn’t Rick Santorum the GOP 2016 frontrunner? | WashingtonExaminer.com

This week Rick Santorum returns to Iowa for the first time since last year’s presidential campaign. For Santorum, whose victory in the 2012 caucuses started an improbable run at the Republican nomination, the visit will look like a campaign swing: an appearance at a party fundraiser, a visit to the Iowa State Fair, a speech at a gathering of social conservatives. Santorum hasn’t signaled whether he will run again in 2016 and is unlikely to make any sort of formal declaration soon. But the trip will certainly send the message that he’s getting ready to run.
If he does, one thing is already clear: Santorum will again be underestimated. In 2012, he won 11 primaries and caucuses, making him the solid second-place finisher in a party that has a long history of nominating the candidate who finished second the last time around. (See Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.) And yet now, no one — no one — is suggesting Santorum will be the frontrunner in 2016, should he choose to run. As far as the political handicapping goes, Santorum’s 2012 victories don’t seem to count for much.
There are reasons for that. A significant number of people, including moderate Republicans, think of Santorum as a sort of religious politician, obsessed with social issues and motivated largely by his pro-life convictions and Catholic faith. Santorum certainly fed that perception at a few crucial points in the 2012 race with comments on contraception and the role of religion in politics. But anyone who watched his campaign for more than a few minutes saw a candidate with a wide-ranging agenda, one who spoke at far greater length about the economy and national security than about social issues.
And of all the Republican candidates in 2012, Santorum was the one who came closest to a position on the economy that might appeal to middle-income voters alienated by both parties. At nearly every stop, Santorum talked about voters who haven’t been to college, who aren’t the boss, who are out of work or afraid of being out of work. And then, when millions of those very people stayed away from the polls in November — they could have been the margin of victory for Mitt Romney — finding a way to connect with them instantly became a top priority for the Republican party.
Briefly put, Romney lost because he failed to appeal to the millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living decline in recent decades. Of all the GOP’s possible candidates, Santorum has the most cogent analysis of that loss, and a plan to avoid repeating it in 2016. That’s the topic we started with when I sat down with him at a Washington coffee shop last week.
“We have a tendency as Republicans to really identify with achievers,” Santorum began. “We’re big fans of free enterprise. We know the greatness of our free market system that has created wealth beyond any other country in the world. So it’s natural for us to see successful entrepreneurs as heroes, because in many respects they are, because they’ve been part of building something that has greatly benefited everybody in society.”

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