February 21, 2012 7:04 PM
Obama and Santorum: social issues/double standards
Sex, Lies and Rick Santorum
The politics of the double standard on social issues.
When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, he declared that marriage is between a man and a woman. For the most part, his position was treated as a nonissue.
Now Rick Santorum is campaigning for president. He too says that marriage is between a man and a woman. What a different reaction he gets.
There's no mystery why. Mr. Santorum is attacked because everyone understands that he means what he says.
President Obama, by contrast, gets a pass because everyone understands--nudge nudge, wink wink--that he's not telling the truth. The press understands that this is just one of those things a Democratic candidate has to say so he doesn't rile up the great unwashed.
It's arguably the most glaring double standard in American life today. It helps explain why candidates with social views that are fairly conventional among ordinary Americans--the citizens of 31 states including California have rejected same-sex marriage when put to a vote--find themselves depicted as extreme. It also speaks to why even some who share Mr. Santorum's social views nonetheless fear that his outspokenness on these issues will only undermine his candidacy.
That has led some folks to suggest that Mr. Santorum simply drop these issues altogether. Their hope is that by concentrating his energies solely on Mr. Obama's management of the economy and foreign affairs, Mr. Santorum might avoid dividing his party and America. However reasonable the argument may be on paper, it is simply not practical.
It's not practical, first, because Mr. Santorum is running as what he is, a conviction politician. Having been dismissed for months by Republicans hostile to his social views, he is not likely to take their advice now. He appreciates that he did not get where he is today by trimming his sails.
Indeed, that's one reason he has now overtaken Mitt Romney as the front-runner in Michigan. Mr. Romney is behind because Republican voters have yet to be persuaded he stands for anything. Mr. Santorum is ahead because even those who might not sign onto all his social particulars are hungry for a nominee who does not bend with the wind.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal
Posted in Rick Santorum | Permalink
