As Popularity Increases, Santorum Makes Controversial Remarks
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(DETROIT) — Rick Santorum is on a roll. He’s drawing huge crowds on the campaign trail. The latest Gallup poll shows him ahead of Mitt Romney by eight points nationally. Even in Romney’s backyard of Michigan, Santorum looks like the candidate to beat.
Yet, his success at driving enthusiasm on the trail in the short-term may hurt him in the long run.
After his three-state sweep in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri two weeks ago, Santorum argued that it was his stance on the economy — not social issues like contraception — that was responsible for his success.
To prove he was more than just a one-dimensional candidate, Santorum and his supporters promised that he would be talking about jobs and the economy. After all, his blue collar roots and his focus on reviving America’s manufacturing sector was going to be a strong sell in places like Michigan and Ohio.
Instead, Santorum has been spending almost all of his time since his wins the other week talking about almost everything other than the economy.
Santorum appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday and sought to explain his comments that President Obama’s agenda was based on a “phony theology” — a remark that he made at a campaign stop in Ohio over the weekend.
“I’ve repeatedly said I don’t question the president’s faith,” Santorum said. “I’ve repeatedly said that I believe the president is a Christian. He says he is a Christian. But I’m talking about his world view or his — the — the way he approaches problems in this country and I think they’re — they’re different than how most people do in America.”
Santorum got tangled up in his words on the campaign trail on Sunday too. As ABC’s Shushannah Walshe notes, he’s been introducing new lines into his stump speech, comparing GOP voters to the so-called “greatest generation” and this year’s election to World War II.
In a mega-church in Georgia on Sunday, he ramped up his rhetoric, urging his crowd not to be complacent about the Obama administration as Americans initially were before they finally learned that “this guy over in Europe” was “not so good of a guy after all.” (Santorum’s historical analogy appeared to be a reference to Adolf Hitler.)
And he spent a series of media interviews last week disassociating himself from the comments of one of his wealthiest benefactors, Foster Friess, who joked that “back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”
To be sure, Santorum’s success with very conservative voters and evangelicals is helpful in the upcoming primaries. But, in Michigan where just 39 percent of GOP voters in 2008 identified as evangelical, the economy, not social issues, remains the driving agenda.
The more Santorum spends talking about home schooling and “phony theology”, and not the economy, means that he misses the chance to expand into a real three-dimensional candidate.
Apparently hoping to change the subject back to jobs, Santorum wrote an Op-Ed in the Detroit News on Monday declaring that when it comes to the economy and the manufacturing sector, “America can do better. Much better
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