The skepticism about Rick Santorum’s decision to run for president emanated from deep inside his old inner circle, among his closest friends.
He was, after all, not even five years removed from a crushing 18-percentage-point Senate reelection defeat. That, and dismal numbers in all the presidential polls, seemed to signal an end to his political career.
Both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum said they are opposed to discrimination in hiring based on sexual orientation during Sunday's Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire. (Jan. 8)
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None of Santorum’s former Senate colleagues endorsed him. And, most important, he had seven children at home, including a very sick one who needed him in ways that argued against running for president.
When he had lunch last summer with his friend and ex-colleague Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the former Senate majority leader reminded Santorum that he was finally making some much-needed money and was building a successful work life away from politics.
“He was going to put all that on hold,” said Lott, recalling his warning that a presidential run might be folly given Santorum’s personal circumstances and his prospects of becoming the nominee. “It was going to be an uphill battle,” said Lott, who has endorsed Mitt Romney.
But just as he had done so often before, Santorum ignored the skeptics.
In the passionate, determined way that has emerged as both a great asset and a great vulnerability, the former senator from Pennsylvania dove in, spending months in Iowa as an afterthought, at the bottom of most opinion polls, only to sling to the front in the past two weeks.
Santorum’s resurrection is a story about the power and limits of his rare combination of ideological clarity on social issues, willingness to tweak the GOP orthodoxy on economic issues and eagerness for political confrontation. It is the same mix that has brought Santorum unexpected inspirational victories as well as heart-rending setbacks.
On deeply personal issues, Santorum has a tendency “to let emotion get the better of him,” said former senator John Sununu (R-N.H.). “There’s a real sincerity there, which made it easy to work with him. That kind of sincerity is why he caught up in Iowa,” said Sununu, who has not endorsed anyone.
When Gary Bauer, the conservative activist and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, endorsed Santorum on Sunday, he said in a news release that the former senator embodies “the Reagan-inspired conservatism that unites the GOP.”
At the same time, Santorum was attracting legions of antagonists at rallies in New Hampshire who, in addition to not sharing his socially conservative vision of America, confronted him on it. The irony, of course, is that he is drawing huge crowds.
Predicting the Santorum bubble, which seemed improbable five weeks ago, would have been impossible five years ago, after Pennsylvania voters booted out the two-term senator.
“He started off down 15 points, and by the end it was a Kabuki dance,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in Pennsylvania. A Quinnipiac Poll in April 2005 showed that he trailed now-Sen. Robert Casey (D) by 14 percentage points, before Casey entered the race.
The fall of 2006 was not a good time to be a Republican. But it seemed particularly bad for Santorum. The Bush White House’s popularity had cratered amid the struggles in Iraq and the fallout of the poor federal rescue effort that followed Hurricane Katrina.
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