Is Santorum Too Socially Conservative to Defeat Obama?

Is Santorum Too Socially Conservative to Defeat Obama?

David Paul Kuhn
RealClearPolitics
February 19, 2012

From Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, debates over social issues have helped Republicans win the White House. That would almost certainly not be true for Rick Santorum. Polls indicate that Santorum’s strict social conservatism would threaten Republicans’ ability to defeat Barack Obama.

Santorum now leads the GOP field in national polls. He is commonly discussed as a safe, straight-laced and steady conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. But he would also be the most socially conservative Republican nominee in the modern day.

Yet the media has also broadly misreported why this matters. Those Americans who are most offended by Santorum’s positions will likely not vote for any Republican.

Conversely, Democrats have long struggled with the fact that, for example, the same causes that motivate progressive women’s groups have not mobilized women more broadly to the party’s side in presidential elections. This is one reason that, while Democrats generally win women overall, Republicans generally win the majority of white women.

In the 1980 election, when feminism was more hotly debated, only 7 percent of women said that abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment were their top issue. Instead, women and men both said that they were overwhelmingly concerned about the economy, according to exit polls. We can expect the economy to dominate in 2012 as well.

Yet Santorum would represent a different breed of GOP nominee. Santorum’s social views diverge not only from the American mainstream but from -- and here’s where it counts -- the independent voters who elect American presidents.

Santorum’s tone presents another problem. Reagan and George W. Bush were not culture warriors. Neither is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a contemporary social conservative political leader. These men spoke, and speak, delicately about social issues. They choose phrases like “culture of life.” Reagan famously told social conservative leaders in Dallas, “I know that you can’t endorse me, but I only brought that up because I want you to know that I endorse you.”

Santorum does not merely endorse. He preaches. And, as with Mitt Romney’s comments about class, Democrats will spend millions informing Americans about those sermons should they face Santorum.

Santorum’s vulnerabilities, however, exceed controversial comments. Santorum’s issue is not that where he once sat undercuts where he now stands; his problem is where he stands.

Abortion

Santorum advocates abolishing abortion without exemptions for rape or incest. This may inspire more support within the GOP than it turns off. That’s especially true among Republican women. Thirty-six percent of Republican women believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, according to Gallup polling, while 22 percent of Republican men say the same.

The majority of Republicans do believe that abortion should be legal under certain conditions, Gallup finds. But if Republicans felt strongly that some abortions must be legal, they’d likely be Democrats.

Santorum’s problem arrives in the general election. The right traditionally rallies against the status quo on abortion. Santorum’s nomination would represent the polar dynamic. That might uniquely rile the left. It may also sever him from the center. Only a fifth of independent women and men believe abortion should be illegal under all circumstances.

Contraception

Santorum has said contraception "can and should be available.” But he personally disapproves of its use. He told Fox News, “I’m not a believer in artificial birth control.”

Santorum said in a 2011 interview that contraception is "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be” and that “if you take one part out” -- that sex is “not for the purposes of procreation” -- then “you diminish this very special bond between men and women.”

Only 15 percent of Americans, and less than a third of weekly churchgoers, believe using contraception is “morally wrong,” according to the Pew Research Center.

CNN recently asked Americans whether “using artificial means of birth control is wrong”; more than three in four Catholics, Republicans, conservative voters and men said it was not wrong, as did 85 percent of women and independents. The majority of independents also approve of requiring employer health care plans to cover birth control, according to a Fox News poll.

Santorum, like his party, is on strategically safe ground when he opposes mandating that religious institutions cover contraception. But Santorum’s personal disapproval of contraception segregates him from the mainstream.

Bluntly put, to borrow from The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, Santorum appears “schoolmarmish.” And that’s when Santorum’s beliefs taint his entire image. Americans will elect straight-laced, but schoolmarmish? Maybe not. George W. Bush was, notably, both a social conservative and perceived as the more likable candidate in his two campaigns.

Homosexuality

At first blush, Santorum’s stances on gay rights are unremarkable among Republicans. He opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions. So do most Republicans. But less than a third of independents agree. About six in 10 independents believe “marriages between same-sex couples” should be “valid” under the law, according to Gallup.

Santorum’s opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military is also not unique among Republicans. But it too distances him from the center. At least six in 10 Americans and independents, multiple polls show, believe gay soldiers should not have to hide their sexuality.

Conservatives generally lose when the debate over homosexuality shifts from rights to tolerance. And here’s where Santorum stands alone among the GOP contenders.

In 2003, he said in an extended interview on the matter that he supported anti-sodomy laws. “I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts,” he explained. He further compared gay relations with “man on child, man on dog or whatever the case may be.” In recent months, Santorum has expressed concern that homosexual activity could be seen as “equal” to heterosexual activity.

Independents are not with Santorum here either. Gallup finds a record 64 percent of Americans believe gay relations should be legal today and, importantly, three in four independents agree.

Women’s Roles

Santorum, like Newt Gingrich, has been an outspoken supporter of the military’s ban on women serving on the front lines. Santorum caused a stir recently when he awkwardly phrased that position in a CNN interview. He said that female soldiers on the front lines “could be a very compromising situation” because “of emotions that are involved.” He later said he was talking about men’s emotional desire to protect women.

The phrasing itself was perilous for any presidential contender. The public is also not with Santorum on the substance of his point. Two-thirds of Americans and independents support “allowing women in the military to serve in ground units that engage in close combat,” according to a Quinnipiac poll. And there is no gap between the sexes.

Santorum gains some measure of political cover by deferring to the military’s official position -- which prohibits women from units engaged in direct ground combat. But, taken with other comments about women’s roles, Santorum stands on tenuous electoral ground.

Santorum’s 2005 book, “It Takes a Family,” suggests -- but never explicitly states -- that society would be better off if women took care of their families full time. He suggests that materialism brings too many women into the workforce. “For some parents,” he wrote, “the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home.”

The media has exaggerated, however, the impact of his other broadsides in the debate over working women. He criticizes “radical feminists” in his book for refusing “to acknowledge, much less value as equal, the essential work women have done in being the primary caregiver.” Santorum told NBC News that “all I’m saying is” is that “we should affirm both choices.”

Santorum has stepped into an old debate between second wave feminism and third wave feminism -- whether to emphasize women’s career or emphasize the freedom for women to choose a career.

Of course, most Americans cannot afford the choice. In 2010, women became a slight majority of the U.S. workforce. Yet given the choice, women do split on what they prefer.

Gallup has asked for decades: “If you were free to do either, would you prefer to have a job outside the home, or would you prefer to stay at home and take care of the house and family?” Most recently, in 2008, 52 percent of women said they would prefer to work outside the home and 45 percent of women said they would prefer to take care of the house and family -- the male margin was 74 to 23 percent, respectively. Women’s opinions have seesawed. A slight majority of women said in 2003 and 2005 that they prefer to stay home. But generally, since the mid-1980s, Gallup consistently finds that American women evenly divide on working outside the home.

Santorum’s electoral problem is not his criticism of “radical feminists,” as the majority of women do not see themselves in Santorum’s recrimination. In recent decades, Gallup has consistently found that that between one-fourth and one-third of women identify as feminists when directly asked.

Yet while American women shy away from that label, perhaps because of the polarized extremes on all sides, they do take pride in feminism’s larger victories.

In 1999, Gallup found that more than three in four women believed that younger women had a “better” opportunity than they once did to “have a successful career.” In 1992, about eight in 10 American women said the “status in society” of women is “better” than in the decade prior.

Santorum’s potential problem is not that he’s picked fights with feminists. It’s that he appears perilously similar to the archetypal male prig lecturing women on their behavior. That too is a likability issue.

His broader obstacle is that independent voters generally are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Social conservative politicians can thread that needle on the national stage if they speak about values more tactfully than abrasively. Is Santorum more the former or the latter?

A certain irony does shield him. Santorum ascended as a social conservative. Yet he would, as the GOP nominee, benefit from the economy placing social issues on the backburner.

He also would shift a modern electoral paradigm. Republicans have traditionally, and usually to their benefit, framed most presidential campaigns as mainstream (conservatives) vs. extreme (liberals). Santorum’s primary victory would allow Democrats to turn the GOP’s playbook against them. That’s when even backburner social issues will begin to burn Republicans.

That’s when even backburner social issues will begin to burn Republicans.

This is the undoing of the GOP and it's extreme voters. When they start dictating on social issues, they become no better than the Democrats. Republicans (and conservatives) are supposed to be the party of personal responsibility and freedom of choice. If they follow down the Santorum road, they become liberals in the fact that they're dictating on how I should live.

The more this campaign unfolds, the more I believe that we're in for another 4 years of misery from Obama. The GOP and it's voters just can't seem to get this shit thru their heads and learn from the past.

The GOP has a death wish, they are just asking to get creamed in this election. It's frustrating to see how this is unfolding, I have to choose between Santorum and Romney? Didn't expect it to come down to those two, hopefully Newt comes back. It's scary to see Obama's approval ratings are this high especially with the economy being this bad, I guess people think 8.3 unemployment is good enough, "Hey, it's gone down a little, let's re-elect him".