COMMENTARY | You've heard it all before. Rick Santorum is too religiously conservative to win the 2012 GOP Nomination. He couldn't even win his last senate race, losing his job six years ago. Yet Santorum is about to defy the expectations. In a lot of ways, he reminds one of another 2011 religiously conservative longshot: Denver Broncos QB Tim Tebow.
Tebow was told the same thing. His style and delivery may have succeeded in college football for the Florida Gators, but wouldn't work in the pros. He lost the SEC Championship game to the Alabama Crimson Tide. And he was knocked for wanting to air a pro-life commercial during the Super Bowl, his bible verse eye-black, and kneeling in prayer so often it spawned a craze bearing his name. Yet in spite of a low completion percentage on a team so awful they canned their coach last year, Tebow helped his team win the division and host a playoff game.
A few weeks ago, someone asked me who I thought would win the Iowa Caucus. "Tim Tebow," I joked. Rick Perry even declared himself the "Tim Tebow" candidate according to CBS News. Yahoo's Rachel Rose Hartman tried to link Tebow to Michele Bachmann as well as Perry. But it's really Rick Santorum for the following reasons.
First, Rick Perry came into the race as a successful Texas Governor, and built an early lead. Michele Bachmann gave a prime-time TEA Party response to President Obama's address, and won an early straw poll vote. Santorum in 2011 was more like Tebow in his first few years in the NFL, languishing in obscurity until he got his big chance.
Second, Santorum has always led with his religiously conservative beliefs. All Republicans claim to be right-of-center on Christian issues, of course. But while Perry focused on states' rights and Bachmann dabbled in light bulb revolutions, Santorum always stuck to the social conservative script. Among all of his voting records in Congress, the highest one comes from the National Right to Life Committee (100%) according to Sean Hannity's Forum.
While the other candidates wooed Iowa Governor Terry Branstad without success, Santorum sought out Branstad's conservative rival: Bob Vander Plaats, who has run several times for statewide office without success. In a way, Vander Plaats is a lot like Santorum and Tebow, overcoming numerous failures and plugging away.
Santorum was smart to court Vander Plaats, earning a December 20 endorsement. It's amazing how pundits forgot how the head of the Iowa's The Family Leader helped deliver the state to another social conservative longshot four years ago: former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. If anyone can be counted on to drudge through sub-freezing temperatures to vote, it's evangelicals.
Of course Santorum's chances for winning the nomination are lean, to put it kindly. But so were Tebow's chances of leading the hapless Broncos to the playoffs, right?
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