USA TODAY International Edition
Some in Congress question Santorum’s staying power,
Some doubt he has wide appeal
When Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine endorsed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Friday, he joined the club of onetime congressional colleagues of the former Pennsylvania senator to back his campaign.
The drive and tenacity that helped Santorum rise from an also- ran for the GOP nomination to the front- runner in recent national polls has another side, his former colleagues in Congress say. Some worry that Santorum could not appeal to a wider audience.
Only three current members of Congress have endorsed Santorum. None of them — Pennsylvania Reps. Glenn Thompson, Tom Marino and Lou Barletta — served with Santorum during his 16 years in Congress.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, Rtenn., who has not endorsed a presidential candidate but said he would vote for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, said it remains to be seen whether Santorum has staying power. “I think he’s had the advantage of a narrowed field of candidates and throughout the last six months it’s been Mitt Romney and somebody else. He’s gotten his moment in the sun as somebody else,” he said. “The question is will he be able to last longer than the others.”
Phil English recruited Santorum to join the College Republicans at Penn State in 1977 and served with him in Congress for 12 years. The former House member from Pennsylvania calls Santorum “extremely hardworking,” but English has endorsed Romney.
English said Santorum may have trouble winning Pennsylvania because voters who ousted him in 2006 “are skeptical of him.” Asked about Santorum’s appeal to independents, English said, “That’s a real challenge.”
Many factors contributed to Santorum’s 17- percentagepoint loss to Democrat Bob Casey in 2006, including the unpopularity of then- president George W. Bush and Santorum’s support of him, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
Madonna said the loss could also be attributed in part to Santorum’s hard- right turn in the Senate when his concerns became predominantly about morality issues, such as gay marriage and abortion. Those concerns, as well as his 2005 book,
It Takes a Family, containing language about the role of women in the workplace, caused “liberalminded” suburban Republicans to pull their support.
Santorum’s former GOP colleagues took pains not to criticize him, but former Democratic colleagues weren’t as kind. Several suggested his appeal to anyone but the far right was nil.
A 2006 Santorum campaign ad described his ability to work with Democrats, despite their differences. One Democrat named in the ad, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, said bipartisanship was fleeting while working with Santorum. An “open space” measure in the 1996 farm bill and a plan to strengthen sanctions against Syria in 2003 were the only issues out of the “thousands and thousands of issues that came up” on which they could find agreement, Boxer said. “He was so extreme, that was about all I could find to compromise on.”
Barletta, who served as mayor of Hazleton, Pa., when Santorum was in the Senate, warned against writing Santorum off in a general election. “It seems like every time you count him out, he finds a way to come back.”