It’s possible that the decision to embrace Santorum, announced by social conservative leaders Saturday, may have come too late to be truly effective. Because of that, there are a host of questions about the impact of the consensus that emerged around the former Pennsylvania senator’s candidacy during a meeting in Texas this weekend.
Will the groups represented at the gathering take material steps to help Santorum? Will Santorum’s campaign see an infusion of money, volunteers and grass-roots activity?
How will the other conservatives who have been trying to become the Romney alternative — former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry — respond? Will they try to go after Santorum, even as they work to deny Romney a victory? How will those in the movement who backed either Perry or Gingrich respond?
Finally, will this have any impact on Ron Paul, a candidate with a real following and the wherewithal to keep going, despite the fact that many in the party want to ignore him?
Santorum could have used this new support weeks ago, as he was beginning his rise in Iowa and before Romney developed a head of steam. Had it come then, he probably would have won the Iowa caucuses, possibly changing the complexion of the race. He might have been able to pour more money into South Carolina earlier and buttress against what always was likely to be a poor showing in New Hampshire. Coming the weekend before the most crucial contest so far in the GOP nomination battle, the embrace of Santorum is helpful but at this point far from a decisive boost.
More than anything, the rebellion by social conservative leaders speaks to the mismatch between Romney and the base of the party he seeks to lead. Throughout this campaign, the lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy among the party’s conservative base has been a powerful undercurrent but little more than that.
Romney is not the ideal candidate for social and religious conservatives — or for the new force within the party, the tea party movement. That’s hardly news, however. Saturday’s announcement in Texas adds to tensions between the party establishment, to the extent it exists, and its grass-roots conservative activists.
Romney’s 2008 candidacy foundered on questions of whether he was authentically conservative and whether his changes in position on abortion and other issues were genuine or just politically motivated. He claims now that he campaigned that year as one of the conservative alternatives to Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), but the real conservative challenger in that race was former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
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