Missing Santorum

I watched a few minutes of Sean Hannity's interview with Mitt Romney last night. Both men made me uncomfortable: Hannity because of his irritating answer within a question interview style and Romney because of his same answer no matter what the question attitude. Hannity's practiced transparency and the candidate's polished obscurity were in dazzling display. Winston Churchill's comment about Russia sounds eerily like the Republican presumed nominee: "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

Santorum was not at all like that. You knew what you had with Rick. You felt comfortable calling him Rick, even though you didn't know him. He wore his positions like a sweater vest, right there for all to see, in style or not. He sometimes stumbled or gaffed because he said what he meant and meant what he said. He really didn't care about the unemployment number, for example. He knew, as does anyone who cares to look closely, that the unemployment numbers are not a true measure of our economic condition. Beyond that, he knew that unemployment is a symptom of a deeper problem anyway.

Unfortunately, all that depth, that nuance as some like to call it, does not play well as a sound bite. Precious little in life is simple enough to play in ten or even thirty seconds. Bumper stickers and political slogans are catchy, but they often hide more than they reveal. Remember hope and change? How's that working out for us, really? In truth, this election, perhaps more than most, does boil down to the question of change, and I don't mean a simple change in the resident of the White House.

Barak Obama and those Democrats who follow him (not all do, by the way) want a fundamental change in the way America works. They want a society where the government assures equal outcomes for all citizens. Politically speaking, this has always been called socialism. It is not politically correct to call the President or his policies socialist, but that is what they are. The move to national health care is only the most obvious example of this policy. Banking, energy production and manufacturing all have felt the heavy hand of socialistic change dragging them away from the free market model of economics.

Rick Santorum's popularity was greatest among people who know what it means to make their own way. He understood that the only thing most people need to get ahead is for government to get out of the way. Romney talks like that most of the time, but then you look at his record, especially MassCare. He once openly called MassCare a model for a national health care system. Now he has walked back from that to appease the majority of Republicans who disdain the very thought of nationalizing any facet of the American economy, least of all health care.

America was founded to be a place where equal opportunity was provided for all, not equal outcomes. All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the right to pursue, not the right to obtain, says the Bible and accordingly says the Declaration of Independence. So little does our current President respect those documents that he can't even cite the correct one when he does give a nod. This is no surprise since he also appears clueless about the check and balance system intended by the three branch government in which he participates. November will be interesting: two slick talkers with far different visions for America, but not a sweater vest on either one. I miss Rick already.