10 January, 2012

Lexington: Rick Santorum’s ride | The Economist

Lexington: Rick Santorum’s ride | The Economist: Before he went down to defeat (by a margin of 17%) in Pennsylvania’s senatorial election of 2006, he was a champion of George Bush junior’s notion of “compassionate conservatism”, ie, giving taxpayers’ money to faith-based organisations, on the theory that do-gooders who had God on their side perform better than social workers.

Such ideas do not grate only on liberals. They also collide with the strand of conservatism represented in this cycle by Ron Paul, whose army of avid followers insist that the best thing government can do is to get out of people’s way—and certainly out of their bedrooms. Mr Santorum prefers government to serve as an instrument in the urgent task of remoralising a society that has lost its spiritual moorings. These philosophies are opposites, hard to accommodate in the breast of a single political movement. The eventual Republican nominee, even if it is the elasticated Mr Romney, will not find it easy to regroup his party.