It is not every day that a politician chooses to use the closing days of a hotly contested, and exceedingly high-stakes, election to give voters bad news. Yet, in Pennsylvania, the incumbent Senator, Rick Santorum, is courageously doing just that.
Specifically, Sen. Santorum is stumping across his state telling constituents about the most important issue with which the man they elect next week will have to contend: a world in which America's people and vital interests are in grievous danger. With pages literally ripped from Winston Churchill's memoir about the run-up to World War II, the Senator is providing an unvarnished assessment of the "Gathering Storm" that threatens our generation – and those of our children and grandchildren – unless addressed in creative and effective ways.
I had a chance to witness first-hand the clarion call Rick Santorum is giving to the people of his state and the rest of this country as I introduced him to audiences in Pittsburgh, Johnstown and Erie last week. He spoke with passion and authority about the combination of enemies who are currently joining forces – despite differences of ideology no less dramatic than those of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy when they were allies during World War II – to advance a common goal of destroying America and other freedom-loving nations.
Notably, Sen. Santorum addressed squarely the danger posed by "Islamic fascists," a term he does not shrink from using. He understands that it does not defame peaceable, tolerant Muslims. Rather, it distinguishes the latter from those who make up the virulent and violent totalitarian political movement that seeks to conquer and repress the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds, alike.
The Senator is no Johnny-come-lately to this subject. For years, he has been discussing how this ideology of hatred is translating – thanks to state-sponsors such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan and Venezuela – into a mortal peril, not just to Israel and our forces and friends in the Mideast, but to Europe, Latin America and even our own homeland. With an indefatigability and clarity reminiscent of Britain's wartime prime minister, he stresses that the conflict we are in is, as a result, about more than Iraq and not a "war on terror." It is, instead, a war for the Free World. Voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere need to understand that next week as they entrust their lives for years to come to one representative or another.