Comments like the “man on dog” thing, blaming “liberals” for the RCC pedophile scandal, his shallow statements about “virtue” and “family,” his utter lack of self-awareness, etc. He just strikes me as an unreflective, facile little hustler. He’s like a used car salesman. I don’t get any sense at all that the man is a particularly deep thinker, he possesses no great air of authority or gravitas and he lacks compassion. What he does is get himself elected by pandering the the most base instincts in the in the least enlightened people in his constinuency. Scapegoating homosexuals to get elected is hardly a sign of vision or serious intellect.
Sounds lke a typical politician. So the question then becomes: how can one politician defeat another politician? That’s not really that difficult a question to answer, now, is it?
Gravitas. I’d love to see more of it,too, but if we kicked out all the Congressmen without gravitas, the House and Senate would be a lonely place. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing…
Well, I think they can. The last two elections that Santorum won he won fairly, but they really were flukes. Yeah, yeah, I can hear the cries of “Sour grapes!” already, but believe me, I know what I’m talking about.
We all remember 1994 as the Year of the Angry White Male, when Newt Gingrich led the Republican Revolution, sweeping many Republicans into both houses of Congress. Senator Harris Wofford was expected to win reëlection, but this unusual surge in Republican zeal, paired with the overt support of all Pennsylvanians’ beloved Senator Arlen Specter, Santorum won, despite his being far more conservative than Pennsylvania is. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, though, Santorum’s margin of victory was still very narrow, despite these advantages. I should also note that Santorum’s position was helped by the diminished stature of outgoing Democratic Governor Bob Casey, Sr.
In 2000, I have no idea why the Democrats screwed up. The 2000 Democratic candidate, Ron Klink, was not the most exciting campaigner, and his campaign was pretty disorganized. It was also severely underfunded by the national Democratic party, and got very little attention from it. Regardless, Klink only lost to an incumbent senator by six points, as has been pointed out on this thread already. Had Klink had a better organization, had he gotten a little more attention from the party, we’d be talking about his reëlection right now, not Santorum’s. And again, don’t forget that Specter campaigned for Santorum again that year, which was a major shot in the arm for the junior senator.
I don’t want to speak too soon, but it looks like the Democrats are finally getting wise and are really trying to oust Santorum. Bob Casey, Jr. is the de facto nominee because the national party edged out all other contenders to make sure the nominee didn’t get damaged in a primary fight. (Former Pennsylvania Treasurer and former Republican Barbara Hafer had been considering a Senate run, but was… discouraged.) Santorum is scared, since he’s really ramping up his 2006 campaign. He’s also pulled the plug on any 2008 presidential aspirations. And while I’m sure Senator Specter would be glad to help him again, he’s in terrible health these days, and you have to wonder if he’ll be able to do it.
So that’s why the Democrats haven’t been able to beat a tool like Santorum. Hopefully they’ve learned, and will come strolling out of the wilderness soon.
Santorum’s major legislative claims are having been a major writer and backer for the Welfare Reform Act, and for CARE (the faith-based initiatives act), and the partial-birth abortion ban.
All from his website, so I can’t guarantee that any of those claims are correct- but it seems to me he has gravitas.
Actually, you may want to check on the numbers. In Fiscal Year 2001 (the fiscal year in which Bush took office), here is the funding level for the larger federal education programs:
Education for the Disadvantaged (Title I) – $10,014,621,000
Impact Aid (aid to school districts with large amounts of federal land) – $993,302,000
Special Education – $7,439,948,000
Vocational & Adult Education – $1,825,600,000
Here is what these levels were in FY 2005:
Title I – $14,843,474,000 (48% increase)
Impact Aid – 1,243,862,000 (25% increase)
Special Ed – $11,673,600,000 (57% increase)
Vocational and Adult Ed – $2,037,733,000 (12% increase)
I couldn’t find data comparing the number of kids in school in 2000 compared to today, but I did find some information from the Census Bureau that may help us in discussing this. According to the 2000 Census, there were 61,297,467 children between the ages of 5 and 19. Presumably some of those don’t go to school, but we’ll have to work with this data because I can’t find any other precise measurements. 20,219,890 of those kids were between 15 and 19, so we can assume they are no longer in school now. There were 19,175,798 kids between 0 and 5 in the Census, so let’s assume they are all in school now. That would mean that today there are around 60,253,375 kids in school now. Of course that number will be a little higher due to immigration, but I don’t think it’s a huge jump.
So it appears that the feds are spending dramatically more money for education now and that the school age population is relatively constant. I don’t think your unsubstantiated assertion that “The population has also gone up. The spending has not kept pace with the increase in poulation.” holds any water.
No evidence, really, but that’s what her reputation is around the Senate. For example, in Washingtonian magazine’s yearly poll of Hill staff she usually places in the top three of their “not a rocket scientist” category.
How does any of that shit show gravitas? Kicking people off of welfare? Whatever. I’m not going to debate it, but it’s a cheap and easy pander. CARE? A backdoor attempt to funnel money to Christian churches (which has actually turned out to be rather ineffectual) and a truly vicious attack on the humanity of women with an attempt to ban a particular method of abortion which would force doctors to use less safe methods. The ban only prevents doctors from performing intact D&X procedures, (and there is no such thing as a "partial-birth abortion. That’s not a medical term, it’s just bullshit sloganeering invented by anti-abortion activists) it does NOT prevent 2nd term abortions, it just prevents doctors from using the most safe method. The law also makes no exception for the health of the mother which underlines my contention that Santorum lacks compassion.
Again, much like your disproven contention about federal education dollars, you may want to do a little research on this before making erroneous claims.
The CARE Act, if you would have done some easily available research at thomas.loc.gov or www.independentsector.org (the trade association for charities) has little to do with faith-based charities. Independent Sector sums it up:
Tax exemptions. Exactly.
How does that contradict me?
Tax exemptions are not “funneling money to Christian churches.” It would basically give an above-thel-line tax deduction to those filers who do not itemize their deductions. I’m not sure how that would “funnel money” to any church. It would simply give a tax benefit to those who give to any charity.
Plus, of course, the numerous other provisions of the law that have nothing whatsoever to do with faith-based organizations.
The tax incentives are only one way the measure uses to get money to churches. The more insidious method was Title VI, which give block grants to states who are then allowed to dole them out to churches. Fortunately (as I said) the tactic has been largely ineffectual since the states have been fairly responsible about. My wife, who is a government grantwriter for a large religious charitable organization, has said that the Faith-Based Initiative has not raised any extra money for her. At it’s inception, though, the idea was to launder money to churches through block grants.
Santorum has been a major backer of, and writer of, three of the most major and controversial pieces of legislation in the last ten years (Welfare Reform, CARE, and Partial-Birth Abortion), and you hand-wave it off because you don’t like the bills?
Cripes, get a grip. Even if you vehemently disagree with them, you have to admit that they’re major pieces of legislation, and that Santorum therefore has weight and pull- exactly what ‘gravitas’ is all about.
What I meant by gravitas was not political power but a personal quality of seriouness, authority, leadership, etc. It’s not something that’s acquired, ypu just either have it or you don’t. GWB has political power but zero gravitas. Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan all have (or had) gravitas. Jimmy Carter, Dan Quayle, GWB and Rick Santorum do not.
Maybe, like charisma, it’s subjective, but that’s what I meant.
Gravitas is one thing, but substance is quite another.
Dennis Kucinich has oodles of substance, but he’s got about as much gravitas as Peewee Herman.
I think gravitas is much more subjective a quality than is “substance”. And while you have to have substance to have gravitas, you don’t need gravitas to have substance. I think the debate over “substance” has much more substance to it than the debate over gravitas.
I would agree with that. A person can be a substantive thinker without having gravitas. Maybe it’s an alpha male thing. Some people project authority and some don’t. It’s hard to put a finger on why but I think it’s undeniable.
I think it’s possible to have gravitas without substance. For example, in 1920, the Republicans nominated Warren Harding because he “looked Presidential”. Harding had all sorts of gravitas. He was also dumb as a post, uncreative, and ignorant of all of the issues facing the nation, and spent his presidency drinking bootleg liquor, playing poker, and letting his advisors loot the Treasury.
Santorum is on Hardball right now, and he’s doing a very good job articulating his ideas, despite Chris’ rapid fire interview style. I’m actually pretty impressed with the guy!
What the OP referred to was his appearance on The Daily Show. It’s coincidental that I happened to see that episode, because I generally try to avoid Stewart’s smugness, but I thought the pair-up of Santorum (noted cultural-conservative) and Stewart (poster-boy liberal) was interesting, to say the least.
I thought the exchange was quite interesting. The two obviously don’t agree on a great deal of things, but had a good Q & A session, with Stewart peppering Santorum but with Santorum standing his ground. Stewart made good point in questining the fact that althought the 50’s may have been less crass, the country also allowed for some pretty horrible civil rights violations to occur. Santorum made the point that although things weren’t perfect, we have an environment in today’s culture that makes raising a family more difficult.
Both were respectful and, I thought, engaging. It reminded me of Stewart’s now famous appearance on Crossfire. He delivered an interview that challenged the guest with whom he disagreed, without it devolving into a shouting match.
Based solely on the appearance to which the OP referred, I don’t see how you come away with such negative opinions of the guy.
Real gravitas, yes. The *appearance * of gravitas requires only the ability to keep one’s mouth shut, not substance - and in politics, the appearance suffices.