Santorum and Social Issues

Ramesh Ponnuru, a dedicated social conservative, has penned a thoughtful piecearguing that, ironically, it is "social conservatives, above all, who have the most to fear from [Rick Santorum's] campaign, because it has done serious, if inadvertent, damage to their, and his, causes."

In greater detail, and with great fluency, Ponnuru makes the same argument that I did here on February 22.

One additional issue Ponnuru raises: Part of the problem with Santorum and social issues is that his inartful deployment of them has raised the impression that his preoccupations are not the same as those of the American voting public. In this sense, he suffers from a similar problem as President Obama does; the president's obsession with passing a big government health care bill has cost him permanently with many voters who believe his primary focus in his early months (and years) in office should have been on the struggling economy.