On Monday evening, Mike DeWine appeared on the MSNBC program The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to explain his decision to switch his allegiance from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential race. The Ohio attorney general reminded the audience of the value of a longer campaign season, arguing that it allows for a thorough sorting of the candidates. In this instance, he concluded that candidate Romney wasn’t getting any better.
DeWine joined Santorum as the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania enjoys a surge, leading nationally in the polls, and in Michigan and Ohio, two decisive states on the primary trail in the next two weeks. Is the rise of Santorum any different than the previous anybody-but-Romney moments? The DeWine leap suggests a different context, frustration deepening with Romney.
Now Santorum will be tested, too, under the glare that comes with frontrunner status. Will he show the necessary steadiness and maturity, striking the tricky balance, leaning to the right to capture the nomination without losing touch with the center essential for victory in November?
The past few days haven’t been reassuring, Santorum spending part of the time in Ohio, with a Saturday evening stop in Akron. Earlier in the day, he told a Columbus audience that President Obama’s agenda is “about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible.” He eventually clarified his fuzzy thinking, holding that the president promotes the ideas of “radical environmentalists” who believe “man is here to serve the Earth.” Santorum added: “We’re not here to serve the Earth. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective.”
Actually, environmental stewardship or protection is all about man, about, say, cleaning the air that man breathes, about preserving ecosystems that allow man to thrive, about addressing greenhouse gases that threaten how man lives.
Mike DeWine stressed that his candidate wants to talk about jobs. Yet Santorum makes that task difficult when he seems to relish sharing his extreme views about birth control, insisting that pre-natal testing encourages society to “cull the ranks of the disabled.” Expressing puzzlement that public schools gained such a foothold, he appeared out of touch with what made the country so prosperous during the past century.
Rick Santorum may know exactly what he is doing, appealing to the influential far right in the Republican nominating process. He is a vehicle for anger and frustration. Yet this is not a country in need of a debate over birth control or the purpose of environmental protection. The White House isn’t the place for a crusader. The country requires leadership to address the real problems it faces.
