A Tale of Two Rickys
Two pieces on Santorum’s candidacy throw into relief the narrative being developed around his what is becoming a real and growing challenge to Mitt Romney’s campaign of inevitability. First is Byron York’s Washington Examiner piece , which attempts to strike a fair tone and largely succeeds. The thesis — that Santorum’s 18 point loss in Pennsylvania will have to be better explained eventually — is a solid one, and presents a rather simple truth: people want to consider reasons . And there are several presented — from Santorum’s support of the Iraq war to his tendency toward being argumentative to his support for Specter over Toomey in a move that alienated his base of support. But there are other considerations not mentioned that need to be added to the mix: Santorum’s Democrat opponent, Bob Casey, was the son of a popular former governor. He ran as a moderate (to Santorum’s FAR RIGHT IDEOLOGUE WARMONGERING SOCIAL CON). The DNC poured a ton of money into the campaign, outspending Santorum by a 3-1 margin. And Specter, not surprisingly, fucked Santorum. Yet: Santorum twice won a blue state running as a FAR RIGHT IDEOLOGUE WARMONGERING SOCIAL CON. Romney, for his part, lost by 16 pts to Ted Kennedy — and he didn’t bother trying to run for re-election as Massachusetts governor, because he knew he was going to get smoked. So. Yes, Santorum can come across as argumentative and people often don’t like him because he won’t back down, even on points that seem minor. This makes him appear arrogant, etc. To which I say, I can relate. And I’d vote for me . Therefore… Which brings me to the second piece, this time from the Weekly Standard : since the only reason Romney didn’t become a “Washington insider” himself is that he failed to win election in either of his two bids for federal office, and since the vast majority of the Republican party’s Washington insiders are backing Romney, this claim is likely to persuade precious few GOP voters. That leaves Romney with only one real line of attack against Santorum: that the former Pennsylvania senator’s record isn’t that of a fiscal conservative. So, is Romney’s claim true? Was Santorum a spendthrift in the Senate? Fortunately, credible third party analysis is available to help us answer this question, so we need not merely accept the Romney campaign’s verdict as the final word on the matter. The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has been rating members of Congress for 20 years. NTU is an independent, non-partisan organization that — per its mission statement — “mobilizes elected officials and the general public on behalf of tax relief and reform, lower and less wasteful spending, individual liberty, and free enterprise.” Steve Forbes serves on its board of directors. For each session of Congress, NTU scores each member on an A-to-F scale. NTU weights members’ votes based on those votes’ perceived effect on both the immediate and future size of the federal budget. Those who get A’s are among “the strongest supporters of responsible tax and spending policies”; they receive NTU’s “Taxpayers’ Friend Award.” B’s are “good” scores, C’s are “minimally acceptable” scores, D’s are “poor” scores, and F’s earn their recipients membership in the “Big Spender” category. There is no grade inflation whatsoever, as we shall see. NTU’s scoring paints a radically different picture of Santorum’s 12-year tenure in the Senate (1995 through 2006) than one would glean from the rhetoric of the Romney campaign. Fifty senators served throughout Santorum’s two terms: 25 Republicans, 24 Democrats, and 1 Republican/Independent. On a 4-point scale (awarding 4 for an A, 3.3 for a B+, 3 for a B, 2.7 for a B-, etc.), those 50 senators’ collective grade point average (GPA) across the 12 years was 1.69 — which amounts to a C-. Meanwhile, Santorum’s GPA was 3.66 — or an A-. Santorum’s GPA placed him in the top 10 percent of senators, as he ranked 5th out of 50. Across the 12 years in question, only 6 of the 50 senators got A’s in more than half the years. Santorum was one of them. He was also one of only 7 senators who never got less than a B. (Jim Talent served only during Santorum’s final four years, but he always got less than a B, earning a B- every year and a GPA of 2.7.) Moreover, while much of the Republican party lost its fiscal footing after George W. Bush took office — although it would be erroneous to say that the Republicans were nearly as profligate as the Democrats — Santorum was the only senator who got A’s in every year of Bush’s first term. None of the other 49 senators could match Santorum’s 4.0 GPA over that span. This much alone would paint an impressive portrait of fiscal conservatism on Santorum’s part. Yet it doesn’t even take into account a crucial point: Santorum was representing Pennsylvania. considering the state he was representing, one could certainly make the case that Santorum was the most fiscally conservative senator during his tenure. The only four senators whose GPAs beat Santorum’s represented states that were 2 points (Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire), 10 points (Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona), 25 points (Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma), and 36 points (Republican Craig Thomas of Wyoming) to the right of Pennsylvania in the presidential elections. Moreover, of these four, only Kyl (with a GPA of 3.94) beat Santorum by as much as a tenth of a point. It’s an open question whether a 3.94 from Arizona is more impressive than a 3.66 from Pennsylvania. As for Santorum’s potential opponent in the fall, Barack Obama’s three years in the Senate (2005 through 2007) overlapped only with Santorum’s final two years. (In 2008, Obama effectively left the Senate to campaign for President and therefore didn’t cast enough votes for NTU to score him that year.) In both of the years that the two men overlapped (2005 and 2006), as well as throughout Obama’s three years’ worth of preparation for the presidency, Obama’s GPA was 0.00 — a rock-solid F. Now that’s acting like a Democrat — something Santorum has never done. The case against Santorum — being pushed by Romney people — is just plain silly. Romney supported stimulus, TARP, an individual mandate, state-run health care, gun control, federal minimum wage increases tied to inflation, Cap and Trade, and when push came to shove, acceded to the bureaucrats on mandating certain types of coverage over the objections of those in the religious community. You can fault Santorum for certain party votes and for certain persistent ideological tics that tend to alienate some of the more hardcore libertarian ideologues (which is itself something of an irony, if you think about it). You can disagree with his support for private unions, or earmarks, of subsidies for local businesses in the farming and manufacturing sectors. But the fact is, those latter traits make Santorum appealing to Reagan Democrats in ways that Romney is most certainly not — and if voting for Santorum means they don’t have to vote for Obama, I predict that many in the mid west rust belt will happily climb aboard. Too, as Santorum’s grading shows — not just NTU’s grade but the grades from other groups who track such things — he is a conservative, or at the very least, was certainly more conservative by a considerable margin than the average GOP senator during his tenure. As TRS points out , Paul Ryan’s record, cherrypicked the way Santorum’s is being cherrypicked now, would make him seem demonstrably like a big spending liberal. And yet who that calls him or herself conservative wouldn’t vote for Paul Ryan over Mitt Romney, save maybe Ann Coulter? Frankly, I’ve been surprised at some of the “conservative” red meat sites and players who have moved into the tank for Romney. And by surprised , I of course mean not at all surprised. The writing was on the wall after Obama’s election in 2008. Conservatives who acted like conservatives were quickly told by putative conservatives to sit down, shut up, and show Chocolate Jesus some respect, lest the GOP be relegated to a regional party. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. And yet they keep right on fighting for the status quo as if their careers somehow depended on it. Which – (thanks to Ernst) **** update : Big government insider and proto-liberal Rick Santorum vows to repeal every single one of Obama’s regulations.
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A Tale of Two Rickys