Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
As Mollie reported earlier today, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is now officially in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, having announced his candidacy this morning at an event in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
Santorum is unlikely to be a serious contender for the presidency for a number of reasons, the most salient of which may be the fact that he is self-consciously jockeying for the pole position amongst social conservatives. In and of itself this is not an objectionable strategy -- after all, social conservatives are an important and irreplaceable part of the conservative coalition (and tend to be among the most devoted at the grassroots level).
The problem for Santorum is that it's also the toughest position from which to pivot to general election footing. Social issues tend to be the most divisive set of policies at the national level, and it requires a special kind of finesse to appeal to the conservative base with them during the primaries and still be palatable to the broader electorate come the general election.
Mike Huckabee, who managed to be a staunch social conservative without engendering a spirit of alienation among those who disagreed with him was a textbook example of how to bridge the gap. But whereas Huckabee had perfected the posture of a happy warrior, Santorum's rhetoric tends to emphasize the vinegar and go very light on the honey (often abstaining from it entirely). As a result, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, and perhaps even Michele Bachmann all seem to have a better chance of replicating the Huckabee effect than Santorum.
That's a bit unfortunate, because Santorum at his best can be a very articulate champion of conservative causes, a trait that I'm sure will serve him well throughout the campaign. His announcement speech this morning was quite sharp in places, but there was one tick that couldn't help but arouse my vestigial speechwriting instincts.
Santorum has an unfortunate penchant for the political cliche "average Americans." It's an almost universal trope and one that originated long before his political career, so Santorum doesn't bear the blame for the phrase's inception. It's limitations, however, are brought into sharp relief when it's used in a sentence like the one below, a reference to today's D-Day anniversary from this morning's speech:
Almost 60,000 average Americans had the courage to go out and charge those beaches on Normandy, to drop out of airplanes who knows where, and take on the battle for freedom.
Even a language as sophisticated as ours doesn't have enough adjectives to discharge our admiration for the men of June 6, 1944. "Average", however, is not a word that belongs on that list. No matter how ingrained into a nation's civic culture, the ability to look death squarely in the eye and not blink belongs firmly in the canon of the heroic virtues.
What Santorum intends to say, I believe, is "everyday Americans". That is, citizens who find glory on the frontiers of faith, family, and freedom rather than in corporate boardrooms, film studios, or the commanding heights of government. For his sake -- and theirs -- that's what he should say in the future.
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Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
Lovely analysis. And you're right, of course, about word choice. Replacing "average" with "everyday" was one of the first speechwriting lessons I learned.
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
It seems like this is the wrong year for Santorum. This is the year everyone's focus is off social issues while we hope to form a fiscal coalition.
Oct '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
"The problem for Santorum is that [the social conservative position is] also the toughest position from which to pivot to general election footing. Social issues tend to be the most divisive set of policies at the national level, and it requires a special kind of finesse to appeal to the conservative base with them during the primaries and still be palatable to the broader electorate come the general election."
This sounds plausible, but is there actually any evidence for this - when has a social conservative candidate failed at a general election because of their social conservative positions?
Dec '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
genferei: "The problem for Santorum is that [the social conservative position is] also the toughest position from which to pivot to general election footing. Social issues tend to be the most divisive set of policies at the national level, and it requires a special kind of finesse to appeal to the conservative base with them during the primaries and still be palatable to the broader electorate come the general election."
This sounds plausible, but is there actually any evidence for this - when has a social conservative candidate failed at a general election because of their social conservative positions? · Jun 7 at 12:27am
Good question. What about it, Ricochet?
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
Western Chauvinist
genferei: "The problem for Santorum is that [the social conservative position is] also the toughest position from which to pivot to general election footing. Social issues tend to be the most divisive set of policies at the national level, and it requires a special kind of finesse to appeal to the conservative base with them during the primaries and still be palatable to the broader electorate come the general election."
This sounds plausible, but is there actually any evidence for this - when has a social conservative candidate failed at a general election because of their social conservative positions? · Jun 7 at 12:27am
Good question. What about it, Ricochet? · Jun 7 at 8:52am
How about Alan Keyes?
There are also some who have run for the GOP nomination who probably had no chance in the general: Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, etc.
It's really hard to gauge, since so few people ever run for President and it's impossible to know exactly why they won or lost.
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
Great question.
Mark gets at it well in his response. Data points are few because there are so few general election candidates -- and because social conservatism in its present form didn't become an animating factor in presidential politics until about 30 years ago.
Thus, we have to reason by induction. Candidates who define themselves exclusively by a hard-line appeal on social issues (Pat Robertson, Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer) generally perform pretty weakly in Republican primaries. None has ever captured the nomination. Since the crossover appeal to Democrats on these issues is extremely limited (except for some in the South, but they're increasingly becoming Republicans) and the political center is distinctly wishy-washy on them, it becomes an impossible sell for a general.
That's not to say that social conservatives can't win the White House. Reagan and Bush 43 did it and Huckabee (alas) could have had a chance. But they also had the amiable style that Santorum lacks.
Sep '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
Republicans want a nominee who looks like he/she can not only score the touchdown but know how they're supposed to look and act once they've scored it. The Gipper had that one down in spades, and he earned it.
Style is not a garnish on top of your substance in politics and Reagan knew it. If you can't feel it, you can't fake it.
Oct '10
Re: Rick Santorum and "Average Americans"
If we look at Republican candidates in presidential elections in the last 30 years (as Troy suggests) we have Reagan, Reagan, Bush I, Bush I, Dole, Bush II, Bush II, McCain. I'm no expert, and I'm more than happy to be corrected, but these few data points seem to me to provide absolutely no evidence for the proposition that 'the social conservative position is the toughest position from which to pivot to general election footing'.
If we want to extract a conclusion more useful than 'in order to win an election you need more votes than the other candidate' perhaps it is 'Candidates who define themselves exclusively by a hard-line appeal on social issues generally perform pretty weakly in Republican primaries.' The interesting question then becomes: how much of this is because Republican primary voters believe that 'the crossover appeal to Democrats on these issues is extremely limited ... and the political center is distinctly wishy-washy on them, [therefore] it [is] an impossible sell for a general', and how much is because there aren't sufficient Republican primary voters that prioritize social conservative issues (whether over fiscal or 'style' issues)?