Rick Santorum was the surprise of Iowa, but rarely has the surprise in the Iowa Caucuses won the nomination. It is usually by South Carolina that the serious front runner is learned. But, even if Santorum win the GOP nomination, what are his chances at winning?
First of all, and someone is bound to bring this up, so I will as well: Rick Santorum ran for a 3rd term as a Senator from Pennsylvania in 2006 and lost in a landslide to current Senator Bob Casey. The tally was 58.7% for Casey and 41.3% for Santorum. In that election, the democrats gained 5 seats in the senate. This could be seen as a backlash against President Bush for unpopular wars and the poor handling of natural disasters, but no other incumbent performed as poorly as Santorum did in 2006. All vulnerable republicans lost in that race, but Santorum's 41% of the vote was the poorest performance of any of his senate colleagues up for re-election in 2006. Casey is a pro-life democrat who was able to show to voters that Santorum's views on many social issues were too extreme for Pennsylvania voters and Bush's record did not factor much into the campaign.
But what are the chances that a former or current senator can defeat an incumbent president? It can happen, but it has not happened in the US since 1888 when Senator Benjamin Harrison of Ohio defeated President Grover Cleveland. But Cleveland would be back in 1982 and be the one to send Harrison out of the White House.
Since then, the US has elected 3 Senators who had not served in the Vice Presidency prior to elected to the White House. Those men were Warren Harding, John F. Kennedy and Barrack Obama. Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were senators who became the President, these men served as the Vice President between their time in the Senate and in the White House. None of the six former senators who served in the White House in the 20th century defeated a sitting president. Truman and Johnson ascended to the presidency because of the death of their predecessor in office.
Senator has been the most common title of the men who have won their party's nomination to take on a sitting president. In fact, recent history suggests that if your party does not have a serious shot at defeating the current president, you nominate a senator. If you think your chances are good, you nominate a governor.
Here is the history of a senator taking on a sitting president
2004...President George W. Bush defeated Senator John Kerry
1996...President Bill Clinton defeated Senator Bob Dole
1972...President Richard Nixon defeated Senator George McGovern
1964...President Lyndon Johnson defeated Senator Barry Goldwater
1888...Senator Benjamin Harrison defeated President Grover Cleveland
1840...Senator William Henry Harrison defeated President Martin van Buren
1828...Senator Andrew Jackson defeated President John Quincy Adams
1816...President James Monroe defeated Senator Rufus King
As you can see, it has happened before. A Senator has defeated a sitting president, but not for a while. It may not be history that dooms Santorum, it may be that he is unapologetic-ally too extreme. That excites many conservatives, but not enough moderates to put Santorum over the top in November unless things really go to Hades in a hand basket over the summer.
Some of Santorum's extreme views are:
-Putting homosexuality on the same plane as bestiality.
-He is against all abortion including those deemed medically necessary to protect the life of the mother.
-He has argued that the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution in arguing that a 1965 case that overturned a ban on 'the pill' was unconstitutional. (Even though the words "right to privacy" do not exist in the Constitution, the 4th Amendment does have the protection against unreasonable search and seizure, which is the right to privacy.)
-He tried to add an amendment to NCLB to allow for the instruction on Intelligent Design.
-He argued that liberalism and moral relativism were among the causes of sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church.
I know that some conservatives are saying, "well done, good job." But the question is not whether extreme conservatives view these stands as mainstream, but if enough voters view them as mainstream to win the election in 2012. In 2006 in Pennsylvania, nearly 3/5 of voters...a state that the GOP must have to win in 2012...thought that these views were too extreme.
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