Former Sen. Rick Santorum affirmed speculation on an RNC conference call that he's considering a run for president in 2012, Ben Smith reports, because, he said, the Obama presidency is "injurious to America."
Santorum is basically the Gavin Newsom of the right. His speech comparing sodomy to bestiality is exactly the sort of statement that drove younger and more tolerant voters away from the GOP in droves, much like Newsom's condescending talk about how people with problems with gay marriage galvanized equality opponents. Santorum can't win his home state of Pennsylvania, he's still addicted to Bush-era slogans and ideology, he's basically a walking punchline, a retread, a has-been, a loser.
In other words, he's the Republican Party's perfect poster boy. And I think the widely-known story about bringing home his dead son from the hospital and introducing him to the kids makes this venture a non-starter, much like Bobby Jindal's exorcism makes him an unlikely standard-bearer. Weird stories like that can kill candidacies. And they're both Catholic--someone like Huckabee is sure to make an issue of this fact if they're competitive, which might or might not have an impact.
