Santorum - why is he surging.

Well, first of all, I have to admit I was wrong about a couple of things.

Like everyone else for a long time I thought the GOP's position was "Anybody but Romney."  Recently however I realized the real position is "Anybody but Romney OR Ron Paul."   Ron Paul in fact was the original "anybody but" man.  I thought I should point that out. 

Next, I thought Santorum was dead - that Gingrich would be the downfall of Romney, not Santorum.  Now it looks like Santorum may beat both Romney and Gingrich.

Romney has apparently shot himself in the head when he said he didn't care about poor people.   He failed to realize that his major weakness was his wealth/low tax rate.   His situation lets Democrats control the discussion.   With Romney at the fore of the GOP, we could and would make this race about the wealthy trying to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.   

When Mitt said he didn't care about poor people, he demonstrated a weakness on the subject.  The GOP realized this and went looking for a new candidate.  It will take a lot for him to recover and win.   Even if he does, he will come out of the battle half beaten to death and the Democrats will pounce on him in his weakened state, focusing on those wounds.  Throw in the fact that Romney's health care plan was the basis for Obamacare, and a Romney vs. Obama election becomes would require some major strategic shifts for the GOP to win.

Santorum was the only guy left unbloodied.  Gingrich has too many ethical problems and a history of bad blood.  Ron Paul is an actual, real libertarian, which despite the GOP's PR campaign, is something conservatives absolutely HATE (How dare he think abortion should not be illegal?  How dare he talk about cutting the military budget in half - or worse - ESPECIALLY as it is the only part of the budget that is really excessive when compared to other countries!)


Santorum is a clear religious right fanatic.   Most likely he will be be strengthened by the religious majority, mainly because his clear weaknesses in a national election are also his strengths in a GOP primary.

No GOP can truly attack his hateful religious prejudices against gays, women, and god knows who else.  Not without alienating their own party and losing the GOP primary.

But the Democrats can - and will - attack Santorum for being a racist.  With Santorum as the GOP candidate, we will find out that the 2/3 of the country that thinks gay couples should have legal recognition thinks.   10% of the population is gay and in 2010, 31% of them voted Republican.  Not with Santorum on the ballot they won't.  Nor will blacks.  Nor will women (Santorum really should just shut up about women - people might forget he thinks they shouldn't be allowed to work or fight in the armed forces.)

At this point I have the say that Obama's re-election is almost guaranteed.  With the economy turning around and the best GOP candidates (Huntsman, Rubio, Christy) out of the running, they can't win.