Michael Kinsley discusses Rick Santorum. Personally, I think the Google definition of "santorum" oughta be what you settle for when nothing else seems satisfactory…though in his speeches lately, the one-time senator from Pennsylvania seems determined to make Dan Savage's definition stick.
I still think the Republican community will eventually settle on Romney for precisely the reason a lot of them now don't like him: That they don't think he's serious about all the rightest-wing promises and pledges he's making. Whoever the nominee is, he's going to have to back way off that stuff in order to woo Independents and swing voters, or at least wink to them that he's not serious about limiting their access to contraception or seriously increasing the wealth gap 'twixt rich and poor. Romney can straddle that line and Santorum can't.
Talking to my conservative friend Roger, I get the feeling that he at least would prefer Romney for the following reason. Like a lot of folks on his side of the aisle, he believes the country is a lot more conservative than polls ever indicate. He's long had this wish-dream that there'd be a serious candidate who was so right-wing he made Rush Limbaugh look like Al Sharpton…and that candidate, of course, would win in such a landslide that the liberals of America would throw up their arms in surrender and convert.
Every time a Republican loses — and I heard this a lot from Roger after McCain did — the mantra was "We'd have won if they'd nominated a real conservative!" Obama's looking harder and harder to beat…and while Roger would rather win with Santorum than Romney, he'd rather lose with Romney than Santorum, thereby keeping that dream alive. If Santorum does a Barry Goldwater, it would be hard to argue he wasn't conservative enough. It would be a cinch with Romney.