Rick Santorum can't seem to win for losing, no matter what he does.

The U.S. senator from Pennsylvania could save AIDS babies in Africa, end genocide in Darfur and put welfare mothers to work in his own office -- and he'd still be despised by a sizable number of those who hope Democrat Robert Casey Jr. will defeat him come November.

Come to think of it, Santorum has tried all those things mentioned above, with some success, but often at great political cost. He has worked for global AIDS relief with Bono, the U2 rock star and one of Santorum's more unlikely fans. For his AIDS efforts, Santorum earned the contempt (and veiled threats) of some in the abstinence-only, family-values crowd.

Santorum has been a leader in trying to stop genocide in Sudan, which he views as a front in the war against ideological Islam -- and has sponsored every major piece of legislation created toward that end.

At home in Pennsylvania, he put five welfare mothers to work in his own offices while leading the movement that resulted in the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton.

Santorum, in other words, is one of those rare politicians who puts his money where his mouth is -- even though his usual supporters turn on him as a result. And yet his staunch Roman Catholicism has earned him a reputation in some quarters as a weirdo. If Santorum is ``too Catholic,'' he has company in his opponent, who is also a Catholic and a near-mirror image of Santorum on most of the hot-button issues.

Both men are pro-life and both oppose same-sex marriage, though Casey allows some slight variations. Casey says marriage is between a man and women, but he opposes state and federal amendments protecting traditional marriage. He also supports civil unions, gay adoption and benefits for partners in non-traditional unions.

Like Santorum, Casey opposes public funding for abortion; both support state funding of contraception; both make abortion exceptions for rape and incest, though this is a recent compromise position for Santorum. Finally, both support the legal protection for human life from conception, and both want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Continued...