I like Rick Santorum. As a Fox News contributor and as a former Senator of a state in which I have never lived, Rick Santorum\u00a0was someone who\u00a0I enjoyed listening to. Whether in the United States Senate or as a frequent guest on Greta Van Susteren, you never had to guess where Mr. Santorum stood on the issues.<\/p>\n
That’s certainly a nice change from the man who\u00a0Sen. Santorum is trying to replace. However, I think it’s fair to say that where\u00a0President Obama\u00a0would stand on the issues — once elected —\u00a0was obvious for all to see prior to November 2008. After all, a man who would fight tooth and nail against protecting infants born alive <\/a>most likely would do all in his power to see that any encroachment on “reproductive freedom”<\/em> would be met with fierce resistance. For most people, “reproductive freedom” or “reproductive rights” is nothing more than a code word for abortion rights. Despite the furor (rightfully so) over the government’s “contraception mandate,”<\/em> which would force religious institutions to violate their consciences and beliefs by paying for insurance which covers contraception, no one really is talking about outlawing non-abortion contraception in its entirety.<\/p>\n Well, strike that. Rick Santorum already did. In challenging the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court Ruling, Griswold\u00a0v. Connecticut<\/a><\/em>, which found a “marital right to privacy”<\/em>\u00a0which included the right of married couples to purchase contracptives, Santorum\u00a0wants to allow states to decide if married couples really do have a right to privacy. As much as many of us do not believe that\u00a0Roe v.\u00a0Wade (<\/em>the 1973 ruling\u00a0which relied heavily on\u00a0Griswold\u00a0(and the penumbra\u00a0of rights)\u00a0as a basis to legalize abortion-on-demand) was correctly decided, Santorum’s “state’s rights”<\/em> view on the constraception issue will only be embraced by a tiny minority of voters in this country.<\/p>\n I would daresay that the majority of\u00a0Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists — the two largest religious bodies in America\u00a0— would disagree with Santorum’s\u00a0view on contraception and the ability of the individual states to regulate or ban the use of contraception all together. Santorum,\u00a0in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper<\/a>, said this about banning contraception:<\/p>\n \u201cThe state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that,” he said. “It is not a constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have. That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court–they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In 2012, I think most married couples question whether the state has the right to ban contraceptives.\u00a0 And people wonder why conservatives are losing the battle on the contraception mandate. It’s because liberals are having a field day with outlandish statements like Santorum made and negative personal attacks like\u00a0Rush Limbaugh made <\/a>which divert the attention from the substance of the debate. And, yes, there is a double-standard when it comes to how conservatives are portrayed in the media. We can keep whining about it or we can learn to operate within the system that is in place.<\/p>\n But, if the goal is to elect a conservative President in November 2012, we must adhere to the Buckley rule, named for William F. Buckely, founder of National Review and one of conservatism’s stalwart defenders. Said Buckley about voting for candidates for high office:<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNominate the most conservative candidate who is electable.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Who might that be? Ron Paul? No.\u00a0While he may have some great ideas, the country (and most\u00a0conservatives)\u00a0view him as some sort\u00a0of wackadoodle. Were Paul to be the nominee of the Republican Party, President Obama would win\u00a0re-election in a landslide. Same goes for Newt Gingrich. Why conservatives — especially Christians of\u00a0the Southern Baptist variety — are enamored with a twice-divorced, thrice-married narcissistic Republican version of Bill Clinton <\/a>is beyond me. We say we believe in “family values.”<\/em> To continue to support Newt Gingrich for the highest office in the land\u00a0reveals the hypocrisy of so many on the religious right who\u00a0once\u00a0said that\u00a0“character counted”<\/em> when it came to a Democrat in the White House.<\/p>\n That leaves Santorum\u00a0and\u00a0Mitt\u00a0Romney. As much as I would like to vote for Santorum, I cannot. I simply do not believe that he is electable, particularly against an incumbent President who has over\u00a0$1 billion in his campaign warchest. Although I personally find most of President Obama’s policies —\u00a0economic, social, and\u00a0international — to be disastrous for the future of our country, I believe that he would be able to easily defeat Rick Santorum\u00a0at the ballot box in November. Why? Because, in addition\u00a0to his previous support of allowing states to\u00a0ban all contraception,\u00a0Mr. Santorum has expressed his opinion that teleprompters should likewise be banned from the campaign trail<\/a>:<\/p>\n “See, I always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter,” Santorum said at a Gulfport restaurant. “Because all you’re doing is reading someone else’s words to people.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Perhaps Mr.\u00a0Santorum was being tongue-in-cheek. Given his somewhat I never thought that I would cast a vote for Governor Romney in the\u00a0Presidential Primary. But, if the battle still rages on June\u00a05, the date that New Mexicans vote for the nominee, then I am inclined to\u00a0vote for the most\u00a0conservative candidate\u00a0who is electable in November. As mush as it pains me to say it, that appears to be Mitt Romney. Despite my personal issues with Mr. Romney’s background, I would much prefer a President\u00a0Romney than\u00a0another four years of the current President. Contraception might still be legal, but\u00a0maybe fewer babies would be aborted.\u00a0There’s nothing weird or wacky about that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like Rick Santorum. As a Fox News contributor and as a former Senator of a state in which I have never lived, Rick Santorum\u00a0was someone who\u00a0I enjoyed listening to. Whether in the United States Senate or as a frequent guest on Greta Van Susteren, you never had to guess where Mr. Santorum stood on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,30,34,35],"tags":[3365,151,1732,1731,1791,301,377,1789,1793,667,721,800,3392,1787,1788,1546,829,830,1640,1336,1792,844,1790,851,852,920,1016],"class_list":["post-3294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-law","category-politics","category-religion","tag-abortion","tag-bill-clinton","tag-contraception","tag-contraception-mandate","tag-contraceptives","tag-democrat","tag-family-values","tag-griswold-v-connecticut","tag-infants-born-alive-act","tag-mitt-romney","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-president-barack-obama","tag-religion","tag-reproductive-freedom","tag-reproductive-rights","tag-republican-nomination","tag-republican-party","tag-republican-presidential-candidates","tag-republican-presidential-primary","tag-rick-santorum","tag-right-to-marital-privacy","tag-right-to-privacy","tag-roe-v-wade","tag-roman-catholic","tag-ron-paul","tag-southern-baptists","tag-u-s-supreme-court"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-R8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3300,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions\/3300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}bizarre<\/del>\u00a0interesting quotes\u00a0during this campaign season, I tend to think that the former Pennsylvania Senator is serious.\u00a0I know it’s fashionable to take shots at President Obama for his use of teleprompters. But, are there no more pressing matters to talk about? I want a\u00a0candidate that has a legitimate chance of defeating President Obama in the Fall. Rick Santorum, for all his positive qualities, simply is\u00a0not that candidate.\u00a0 Which leaves just one — Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n