ABC The Drum
In 2011, Rick Santorum donned his infamous sweater vest and campaigned for the Republican nomination. He's back for round two, but will most likely look as dated and out of style as his clothing, writes
Rick Santorum, a 57-year-old former Senator from Pennsylvania is running for the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States.
Statistically his chances of becoming president are only slightly improved by the fact that he is actually running — the odds remain extremely long.
When he last sought America's highest political office in 2011 and 2012, Santorum was at similarly long odds. A social conservative senator who had been unceremoniously turfed out by electors in his home state in 2006, he mounted an under-the-radar grassroots campaign in the crucial mid-western state of Iowa in the summer of 2011 in chinos and shirtsleeves, donning what would soon become an iconic sweater vest as the autumn chill set in.
By November he was still an afterthought as a game of musical chairs developed between frontrunner Mitt Romney and a parade of potential rivals: Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich all had their time in the tepid sun of conservative support. But on Iowa's caucus election night the music stopped and it was ... Mitt Romney after all — with Santorum a close second.
Santorum, the conservative Catholic has-been was now the great hope of Republican supporters who just couldn't be convinced by the robotic pragmatist Romney. Those hopes soared even higher when a recount found Santorum had actually defeated Romney in Iowa by a few dozen votes.
Santorum went on to win the most votes in 11 primaries and caucuses across the nation, and was Romney's most serious rival — which is to say, not very serious at all but it kept us interested in early 2012.
But instead of turning that upstart insurgency into a strong bid for the nomination in 2016, Santorum has once again faded back below 5 per cent in most polls — right where he was in the summer of 2011.
That reversal suggests, to an extent, that Santorum's support wasn't really about him — it was an anti-Romney protest from social conservatives who, unlike 2012, are faced with a far wider choice of pro-life, anti-abortion firebrands: Mike Huckabee (who won a similar upset over Romney in Iowa in 2008) and the likes of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.
But with his chinos neatly ironed and his unfashionable sweater vest packed in anticipation, Santorum is off and running again. If 2016's Republican nomination contest becomes another game of musical chairs as conservatives test-drive alternatives to presumed frontrunner Jeb Bush, it's possible Santorum could rekindle the flame that once burnt for him in the hearts of Iowa's evangelical Christian voters. But more likely he will look as dated and out of style as that old sweater vest: a dad-dancing throwback to more conservative times, best left in the closet — sorry, I mean the cupboard.
The fact is, while abortion remains a divisive issue in America and a rallying call for conservatives, Santorum's other cause celebre — gay marriage, which he opposes — is now received with majority support. Respected Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who is working for Rubio this election, says the GOP would do well to accept the reality of marriage equality and move on.
Santorum's campaign will provide a clue as to whether conservatives are ready to cede that ground or not.
This article was originally published at ABC The Drum