Santorum In, Sanity Out?

Anti-everything politician Rick Santorum joins the 2012 GOP street fight because it wasn't colourful enough yet.

The race for the Republican party's presidential nomination got a lot more socially conservative today with former senator Rick Santorum throwing his name into the ring. Santorum was turfed unceremoniously by Pennsylvania voters in the 2006 mid-terms, and Peter Grier of The Christian Science Monitor concludes he probably won't fare too well this time around either. “His ardent crusades against abortion and same-sex marriage would be unlikely to win him a majority against President Obama in the general election, and are not what tea party activists are looking for at the moment,” says Grier. Plus, he's lacking name recognition, Rep. Michelle Bachman is polling better while sharing many of the same views, and, well, just Google his last name (but be warned – it's pretty graphic).

How Santorum's bid works out for Mitt Romney, the front-runner by default, is uncertain, according to E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post, as he's increasingly looking like a lone voice of reason in a race full of competitors bent on out-crazying one another. “Romney’s travails are about more than the man himself,” summarizes Dionne. “They speak to the condition of a party that won’t let him embrace his actual record and constantly requires him – and all other Republicans – to say outlandish things.” The bipartisan medicare program Romney passed in Massachusetts should be his chief selling point, yet in today's GOP, “working with those horrid Democrats to pass any sort of forward-looking government program is now forbidden.”

And what of the front-runner who's yet to decide if she's actually running? Sarah Palin's whirlwind trip through the northeast had all signs pointing to her announcing her bid, but RealClearPolitics' Scott Conroy figures she just hasn't made up her mind yet – and delaying it could help her chances. “Palin can continue to make visits to early voting states, enjoy unparalleled media attention, and take jabs at her prospective opponents, all while gauging whether it would be worth it to launch the uphill battle that every potential GOP candidate faces in fighting to be the last one standing on the road to the White House,” says Conroy. Letting the other candidates cannibalize each other while she tests the waters would be the shrewdest political move Palin has made since 2008. Not that that's too much of a feat.