A look at Santorum

My wife grew up in a Catholic working-class family in Pennsylvania so I know something about the environment that produced Rick Santorum. I always liked him as a senator and I'm happy to see him emerge as an alternative to Romney -- though I think his chances of beating Romney are slim to none. Santorum is the closest to my own political ideology which if I had to label it would be "social conservative" and "economic populist", or, if you insist, economic liberal.

On the one hand Santorum is a principled defender of the sanctity of life and the traditional definition of marriage -- stands which are grounded in his Roman Catholic faith. And by all accounts as a faithful husband and father of seven children he practices what he preaches. In the Senate he was a leader in the fight against AIDS in the two-thirds world and supported funding for community health centers here at home. He has a concern for "the least of these" that isn't evident in a lot of conservative politicians.

On the other hand Santorum isn't a cheerleader for Randian trickle-down economics that has become Republican orthodoxy, and he's not afraid to bring up issues the rest of the field won't -- issues like stagnant social mobility and growing inequality. Unlike the buffoonish Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 plan (admit it some of you took him seriously), Santorum offers a tax policy that would benefit struggling families -- a tripling of the child tax credit. He understands that you can't have limited government without strong families.

Here's more from Rich Lowry writing at National Review Online:

Santorum’s calling card is his social conservatism, and he’s competing for Iowa’s evangelical voters with Texas governor Rick Perry and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Santorum is more knowledgeable than Perry and more careful than Bachmann, and he has demonstrated more swing-state appeal than both by winning two statewide races in heavily Democratic Pennsylvania. His 18-point reelection shellacking in 2006 is his albatross, although Ronald Reagan himself might have lost in Pennsylvania in that GOP annus horribilis.

It didn’t help that Santorum’s outspokenness on social issues — especially those related to homosexuality — made him a figure of hatred and vulgar mockery on the left. But he’s not a thoughtless culture warrior, in it for the bombast. Santorum links his social conservatism to the struggles of the working class in one of the few thematic departures in a Republican primary that has been more about personalities and past heterodoxies than substantive differences.

In the debates, Santorum has constantly talked about increasing economic mobility. In a heresy for a Republican, he’s acknowledged that some countries in Europe are more mobile than we are, and he has noted the disparity between the unemployment rates of college-educated and non-college-educated Americans. Santorum proposes zeroing out the corporate tax rate for manufacturers to provide them a boost as a source of blue-collar jobs. “We need to talk about people at the bottom of the income scale being able to get necessary skills and rise so they can support themselves and a family,” Santorum said at the CNBC economy debate. He’s right, although he is one of the few Republicans who seem determined to have the conversation.

He’s always clear that the breakdown of the family is an inescapable factor in limiting economic aspiration. He cites the widely divergent poverty rates of two-parent and single-parent families. “You can’t have limited government,” he says, “if the family breaks down.” He speaks powerfully of how, when he was growing up in a very modest home, a mother and father were “the most important gift I was given.” He wants to triple the personal deduction for each child, making his tax-reform proposal the most pro-family of any on offer from the GOP candidates.

I'm sure there are many flaws one could find in Santorum as a candidate and individual -- and he'll be getting a lot more scrutiny now -- but that's the case for all of them. He deserves a serious look.