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Sunday, October 29, 2006
Brooks on Santorum [Jonah Goldberg]
Kathryn mentioned and linked, but didn't excerpt. If I were Santorum's advisor, I'd start dropping Xeroxes of this column like leaflets into occupied Europe over the Philly suburbs and everywhere else he needs GOP moderates and independents to break his way. And I'd cut ads with that Bono quote right away. Here's the begining:
Every poll suggests that Rick Santorum will lose his race to return to the U.S. Senate. That's probably good news in Pennsylvania's bobo suburbs, where folks regard Santorum as an ideological misfit and a social blight. But it's certainly bad for poor people around the world.
For there has been at least one constant in Washington over the past 12 years: almost every time a serious piece of antipoverty legislation surfaces in Congress, Rick Santorum is there playing a leadership role.
In the mid-1990s, he was a floor manager for welfare reform, the most
successful piece of domestic legislation of the past 10 years. He then helped found the Renewal Alliance to help charitable groups with funding and parents with flextime legislation.
More recently, he has pushed through a stream of legislation to help the underprivileged, often with Democratic partners. With Dick Durbin and Joe Biden, Santorum has sponsored a series of laws to fight global AIDS and offer third world debt relief. With Chuck Schumer and Harold Ford, he's pushed to offer savings accounts to children from low-income families. With John Kerry, he's proposed homeownership tax credits. With Chris Dodd, he backed legislation authorizing $860 million for autism research. With Joe Lieberman he pushed legislation to reward savings by low-income families.
In addition, he's issued a torrent of proposals, many of which have become law: efforts to fight tuberculosis; to provide assistance to orphans and vulnerable children in developing countries; to provide housing for people with AIDS; to increase funding for Social Services Block Grants and organizations like Healthy Start and the Children's Aid Society; to finance community health centers; to combat genocide in Sudan.
I could fill this column, if not this entire page, with a list of ideas, proposals and laws Santorum has poured out over the past dozen years. It's hard to think of another politician who has been so active and so productive on these issues.
Like many people who admire his output, I disagree with Santorum on key matters like immigration, abortion, gay marriage. I'm often put off by his unnecessarily slashing style and his culture war rhetoric.
But government is ultimately not about the theater or the light shows of public controversy, it's about legislation and results. And the substance of Santorum's work is impressive. Bono, who has worked closely with him over the years, got it right: ''I would suggest that Rick Santorum has a kind of Tourette's disease; he will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable.''
Posted at 12:42 PM
And that's why its a tragedy he's likely to lose to that empty suit Casey
I will admit I don't like some of Santorum's politics, but the man is an angel of mercy to so many people in the world, a "Compassionate Conservative" in every sense of the way.
Can we trade him to another state where he could win reelection, like my state in Florida where Katherine Harris is a dud and Bill Nelson is an empty suit?
If nothing else, he should take over USAID if he loses reelection. Or make him Education Secretary. Or a UN ambassador. Something, anything, to keep him in the political/government system where he can continue to do the massive good he has been for years now.
Political Theater and the Real Rick Santorum
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: October 29, 2006
Every poll suggests that Rick Santorum will lose his race to return to the U.S. Senate. That..s probably good news in Pennsylvania..s bobo suburbs, where folks regard Santorum as an ideological misfit and a social blight. But it..s certainly bad for poor people around the world.
For there has been at least one constant in Washington over the past 12 years: almost every time a serious piece of antipoverty legislation surfaces in Congress, Rick Santorum is there playing a leadership role.
In the mid-1990s, he was a floor manager for welfare reform, the most successful piece of domestic legislation of the past 10 years. He then helped found the Renewal Alliance to help charitable groups with funding and parents with flextime legislation.
More recently, he has pushed through a stream of legislation to help the underprivileged, often with Democratic partners. With Dick Durbin and Joe Biden, Santorum has sponsored a series of laws to fight global AIDS and offer third world debt relief. With Chuck Schumer and Harold Ford, he..s pushed to offer savings accounts to children from low-income families. With John Kerry, he..s proposed homeownership tax credits. With Chris Dodd, he backed legislation authorizing $860 million for autism research. With Joe Lieberman he pushed legislation to reward savings by low-income families.
In addition, he..s issued a torrent of proposals, many of which have become law: efforts to fight tuberculosis; to provide assistance to orphans and vulnerable children in developing countries; to provide housing for people with AIDS; to increase funding for Social Services Block Grants and organizations like Healthy Start and the Children..s Aid Society; to finance community health centers; to combat genocide in Sudan.
I could fill this column, if not this entire page, with a list of ideas, proposals and laws Santorum has poured out over the past dozen years. It..s hard to think of another politician who has been so active and so productive on these issues.
Like many people who admire his output, I disagree with Santorum on key matters like immigration, abortion, gay marriage. I..m often put off by his unnecessarily slashing style and his culture war rhetoric.
But government is ultimately not about the theater or the light shows of public controversy, it..s about legislation and results. And the substance of Santorum..s work is impressive. Bono, who has worked closely with him over the years, got it right: ..I would suggest that Rick Santorum has a kind of Tourette..s disease; he will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable...
Santorum doesn..t have the jocular manner of most politicians. His colleagues.. eyes can glaze over as he lectures them on the need to, say, devote a week of Senate floor time to poverty. He..s not the most social member of the club. Many politicians praise family values and seem to spend as little time as possible with their own families, but Santorum is at home almost constantly. And there is sometimes a humorlessness to his missionary zeal.
But no one can doubt his rigor. Jonathan Rauch of The National Journal wrote the smartest review of Santorum..s book, ..It Takes a Family... Rauch noted that while Goldwaterite conservatives see the individual as the essential unit of society, Santorum sees the family as the essential unit.
Rauch observed, ..Where Goldwater denounced collectivism as the enemy of the individual, Santorum denounces individualism as the enemy of the family... That belief has led Santorum in interesting and sometimes problematical directions, but the argument itself is a serious one. His discussion of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, for example, is as sophisticated as anything in Barack Obama..s recent book. If Santorum were pro-choice, he..d be a media star and a campus hero.
The bottom line is this: If serious antipoverty work is going to be done, it..s going to emerge from a coalition of liberals and religious conservatives. Without Santorum, that..s less likely to happen. If senators are going to be honestly appraised, it..s going to require commentators who can look beyond the theater of public controversy and at least pretend to care about actual legislation. Santorum has never gotten a fair shake from the media.
And so after Election Day, the underprivileged will probably have lost one of their least cuddly but most effective champions.
So Assistant Principal Santorum wants us to empty our pockets to feed the Thrid World. Hey, dumbshit, we're already doing that right here at home, thanks to the open borders George W. Bush ordered up for us.
