Guest Column I: Ryan Carroll

THE LESSON TO BE LEARNED FROM SENATOR RICK SANTORUM

The only thing worse than coming in second in a two-man race is not being able to hate the person who came in first. For me and my fellow members of the token runner-up in today’s political arena (also known as the Democratic Party), the effect of this feature is roughly akin to having cancer slowly devour our spleens over the course of a four-year election cycle. In short, the Republicans have consistently managed to make themselves less detestable to us—their mortal enemies, and that more than anything else has been fueling the bitter political discourse in this country. With Helms, Thurmond, and Lott all gone, it has become harder to see the GOP as a bunch of racist bigots (even though the highest ranking elected minority official in the Republican Party is the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland). Since we out-raised and out-spent them in the 2004 election, it has become harder for us to paint the reigning right as a conglomerate of bloated, corporate and special interests. Facing this dilemma, all that I’ve been able to say for the last two years is “Thank God for Rick Santorum.”

As the self-appointed spokesman of the Religious Right in the U.S. Senate, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania has come to be viewed by me, and many Democrats over the last few years, as the new object of our hatred. For meddling in the Terry Schiavo case, sponsoring the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, championing the Gay Marriage Amendment and tacking on funding for faith-based initiatives to every OMNIBUS Bill in sight, Santorum has become the sworn enemy of all who still treasure the Separation of Church and State clause in the Constitution. Yet my hat is off to the good people at New York Times Magazine for throwing me a moral curveball in the dirt and making me reconsider a man who is so easy for my liberal mind to hate. I find myself now grudgingly admitting that even I might learn something from the honorable Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

The problem with Santorum is that he is a political absurdity that does not come about very often in the modern political age. Radicals have always existed and have always been detested on both sides of the isle, but usually their vastly different areas of pomposity can all be linked to one overriding feature: namely, their own self-promotion. In the age of CSPAN and the 24-hour news-cycle, holding office and being psychotic at the same time brings with it considerable benefits, ones which said radicals are typically all too eager to exploit. They have become good sport, and while hated by the opposition, they are often respected as well. Sure he’s a crook, but what Democrat wouldn’t want a bloodthirsty Tom Delay fighting for the Democratic cause instead of a more moderate, popular, respected, and altogether more spineless Joe Lieberman.

Where Santorum begins to complicate things, though, is when one realizes, as the NY Times Magazine did, that he is not out to advance himself. He doesn’t meddle in life termination matters and champion faith-based initiatives because is playing some political angle. He does this because he feels that he is right, and he cannot simply stand by and let what he believes to be the wrong decisions continue to be made. Santorum is a man with six children, one car, no money, and no family legacy, yet for virtually no foreseeable political gain, he is willing to risk the very position that he has fought so hard to gain against so many more privileged individuals. When public opinion strayed away from support of the Nuclear Option and the Schiavo involvement, Santorum stayed put, content to put his life’s effort on the line and stoke the Religious Right because he felt they were correct, not because they are the voting block that will one day elect him President. Ironically, despite all the friends I have in the PA political circles who will be injecting Red Bull directly into their veins in an effort to beat him next year, Santorum is in many ways exactly the kind of person that we should all be glad can still succeed in American politics. He is proof that there is still an open door on the hill for the Mr. Smiths of America to enter, and that everyone’s 15 minutes of fame is not an event, but an audition, with another 15 minutes coming in the next news-cycle if only one can get enough people to listen.

Anyone who knows me knows that I often speak of the two processes in American politics and how the one drives the other. There is an electoral process and a policy process, and for all intents and purposes, the policy process no longer exists. It comes into play only when a law is broken down into the fine details and legal requirements that ultimately determine whether a law will be effective, or even implemented at all. Senators and Congressmen don’t write these requirements and they seldom even read them. Often it is merely enough to support bills that say “Child” or “Patriot” in them and back that support up with the talking points of “accountability” and “national security.” Elections drive American government, and there is no policy decision, smart or stupid, that is made without its electoral value first being considered.

Santorum seems to have virtually no comprehension of this duality, and by conducting himself in such a manner, he has shown not only that he has the political instincts of a small-mouth bass, but also that he very well might not be in Washington much longer to champion the actions that he does. His reelection bid in 2006 will effectively be a fight for his political life, and the left’s insatiable desire to silence him before he can assume even more power is as universal as it is concerted. He has strayed so far from the moderate Pennsylvania constituency that elected him that he has made himself not only a target, but a vulnerable target—something the 3^rd most powerful man in the Senate should never allow himself to do. (Seriously, outside of the testicle-deficient Tom Daschle, who would ever allow such a thing to happen?) This situation begs the questions: 1) Why has Santorum done this to himself? and 2) What lesson could anyone possible learn from this behavior?

The answer to both questions is perception, a hard-to-define trait that ultimately forms the cornerstone of the ideological split in Congress. Santorum possesses two things, faith in God and faith in his interpretation of that God, and this has endowed him with the enviable quality of being a politician who wants to be right, not one who wants to remain a successful politician. This makes him a formidable foe because even when all is lost, as in the case of the Nuclear Option, gay marriage, the Schiavo case, and quite possibly the 2006 midterms, Santorum will fight on because he has nothing to lose. This has set him on a course of perception wherein his utmost desire is to be a good servant of his God. This might seem foolish in the complex world of politics, but why else would the Democrats throw a man who is for all intents and purposes a Republican—Bob Casey Jr.—at Santorum in ’06? The perception might be foolish, but it is also attractive.

But what is far more important is the perception that Santorum has regarding the policy process, and I must admit, this viewpoint of his is starting to change my own electorally-driven religion. If we are to make an assumption that the 100 Senators in Washington are all there because they want to help as many people as they can, Santorum’s perception actually begins to carry some weight. Faith-based initiatives are small change as political angles. They don’t stir up the Right the way abortion does, and only over time are they able to gain enough power and support to penetrate the bureaucratic stranglehold on social services. Yet Santorum has recognized something that Democrats have not yet come to grips with: that Liberalism had its shot during the 1960s and it failed, and that government just might not be the proper mechanism to cure poverty, crime, and other social ills. In this light, Santorum’s willingness to back billions of dollars in appropriations for faith-based marriage incentives doesn’t seem so crazy. Welfare hasn’t made the poor better off, but when one is married, they are statistically less likely to be poor. So why not simply get people to marry?

It is a small example, and it doesn’t come close to touching the whole realm of faith-based policy in the federal government (a measure that now accounts for ¼ of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget and 1/5 of the Department of Health and Human Services). However, it is something new. Something that hasn’t been tried, and something that Santorum seems to be willing to attempt if it means more people will be better off. Should he bite his tongue more on Schiavo? Absolutely. Should he consider contracting out funds to non-religously affiliated organizations for these social services and thus save the church-and-state separation? Probably. Should he look at the whole picture more and see that school-sponsored prayer is inevitably going to result in a lot of non-Christians getting beaten up in the school yard? Definitely. But should he conform to accepted norms and practices that have failed in the past, and now for the first time lack the political muscle necessary to prevent them from being overhauled permanently? Most likely, not.

If I lived in Pennsylvania, I would want to take Santorum down right now, and I will still readily lend whatever support my PA friends ask for to help accomplish the task. But I can’t help but think that by removing him, though it is a political necessity for the Democratic Party, we might end up killing a great deal of what we love about this country in the process. To replace him with a man only six inches more to the right, who has succeeded on the back of money and legacy that was given to him at birth, is not saying a great deal for the American Way, much less the treasured Mr. Smith. Beating Santorum won’t win back the Senate or revive the Democratic Party from its 2^nd place slumber. We are going to beat him merely because he’s the only top-tier guy that we can beat. By 2008, the few remaining scraps of the New Deal (Social Security, Medicare) will have been eaten away and in such dismal times, beating up a vulnerable icon is sometimes all you can hope for. But to see Santorum’s defeat through Santorum’s perception, all we have done is commit treason against the highest principles we hold. All that the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania cares about, in the end, is his family and his faith. We are going to sling mud and defeat an impoverished Senator who is only doing what he feels is right, and we are not even going to replace him with someone who can demonstrate the same character with our own ideals. This is a dirty business, this democracy we cherish, and the Honorable Senator from Pennsylvania, who we all may hate but must be forced to respect, is likely to be our system’s next blood-soaked casualty.

Ryan Carroll will be spending the summer as an AFL-CIO intern. He has been assigned to work in Indianapolis, IN, to help the SEIU Local 3, currently on strike.

The original article, "The Believer" by Michael Sokolove, can be found in the May 22, 2005 issue of the New York Times Magazine.