BOONE, Iowa — I’m here at the Pizza Ranch, where the surging Rick Santorum is scheduled to speak shortly as part of his last push for support on the day before the caucuses.
If the latest polls and interest in his events are any indication, Santorum has all the momentum right now. His strong socially conservative record fits the mold of candidates who have traditionally done well in Iowa, such as winner Mike Huckabee in 2008. The biggest thing working in his favor is that he’s peaking at just the right time, and it’s unlikely that any negative attacks would be able to take hold so close to the start of voting.
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But should he win Iowa, the scrutiny of his conservative record will begin — and it’s one with a lot of glitches.
To his credit, he had a solid record on taxes, being an early and steady supporter for personal accounts on Social Security and a leader in the Senate on welfare reform — helping getting it passed three times, after President Clinton vetoed it the first two.
However, too many times, especially during the Bush era, he wholeheartedly embraced big government conservatism. Among other things, he sponsored an amendment to raise the minimum wage; backed steel tariffs; sponsored a bill for milk subsidies; took earmarks; voted for the Medicare prescription drug legislation and the pork-laden 2005 highway bill; and infamously endorsed liberal Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey in the hotly contested 2004 Senate primary. He has defenses of his positions, but they won’t hold up to the scrutiny he’ll receive if he wins Iowa.
Now, it’s true that even with all of these deviations from conservatism, he’s still to the right of Mitt Romney, as he doesn’t have a record of liberal positions on abortion, guns and universal health care, among other things. But the problem is, if you’re running as the conservative alternative, merely being to the right of Romney isn’t good enough. Romney has the advantage of money, organization, establishment support and the perception of being the most electable — so he has other things going for him even if he isn’t a darling of conservatives. Santorum’s only chance is convincing voters that he’s the ideologically pure, consistent, candidate that conservatives have been waiting for — and that’s a higher threshold to meet.
