Sanctorum

Yes, you read the title correctly. I initially thought that GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum made for an attractive candidate, which I made a note of a few weeks ago when I wrote here "Rick Santorum for President?" That was after his speech in Iowa where he spoke about his working class upbringing and his immigrant coalminer grandfather's large hands as he lay in his casket (Santorum often says those hands "dug freedom for me"). By now, I know a lot more about the candidate, so the title to this blog is not a mistake. He has shown himself to be a sanctimonious theocrat who would like to control women's lives and counsel the great American public that to aspire to go to university is a snobbish aspiration. He has openly said that a university education is not to be desired. What happened to upward mobility and the American dream, the GI bill that sent countless American servicemen to college?

Yes "Sanctorum" is a pun and being British I love puns. In fact it has been something that Santorum has done with his video attacking Republican front runner Mitt Romney as "Rombo" for Romney's super-PAC commercials that have tried to fire mud at the former Pennsylvania senator. Check it out. When I was in school back in Liverpool I and my dirty little school friends used to get a titter in European history when the master would talk about the Pope passing a "Bull" or the convening of "The Diet of Worms" in Germany. But that's education for you.

Santorum has increasingly shown himself to be an intolerant man, against gay and women's rights, including opposing both abortion and contraception, actively stating that birth control leads to immorality. Recently he even mocked President John F. Kennedy's speech to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1963 when Kennedy vowed that he would hone to the accepted American convention of maintaining the separation of church and state and that the Vatican would not dictate his policies.

If only Santorum had kept his views to himself and not tried to foist them on the American people. Due to his various statements, he may have made himself to be unelectable should be become the Republican nominee. On the other hand, his views are going to appeal to many in the U.S. Heartland, as his delegate haul in midwestern states already indicate, and he might well crow that although Romney won the Michigan primary by a few percentage point, he himself picked up an equal number of delegates -- 15 delegates compared to the former Massachusetts governor's 15 delegates. (Update: The Michigan GOP has since determined that Romney should be alotted 16 delegates to Santorum's 14.)

It's certain, I believe, that this thing is going down to the wire and maybe all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa. Nonetheless, Santorum remains as I indicated in my earlier blog posting in many ways a more appealing candidate than the rather stiff Romney. He is more personable and less prone to gaffs -- erm, except ones of his own unwise making.