"Rick Santorum said something in a speech in Michigan that is the essence of liberty and free market capitalism..." ~ Mark Levin
Levin helped pick apart a New York Times piece on Friday's program to illustrate the integrity and willingness of Santorum to confront some key issues that will not only affect this coming election, but this nation's future.
In his speech, Mr. Santorum laid most of the blame for the bailouts not with Mr. Obama but with George W. Bush, a rare departure from the Republican candidates’ nonstop assault on Mr. Obama’s policies.
“President Obama was just following suit,” he said. “President Bush set the precedent, and it was the wrong precedent.”
Levin pointed out in Friday's program that "he's exactly right," as the conservative commentator has explained in both of his latest publications. But Mark points to something else Santorum said "that's really driving the libs nuts, and some of the Repubicans who don't get it, because they don't understand liberty, and they don't understand free market capitalism."
Mr. Santorum also said that he favored income inequality because some people contribute more to society than others. While also emphasizing that he favors “equality of opportunity,” he added: “There is income inequality in America. There always has been and hopefully, and I do say that, there always will be. Why? Because people rise to different levels of success based on what they contribute to society and to the marketplace, and that’s as it should be.”
As Levin emphasized, "So there you have Rick Santorum stating one of the basic truisms in essence of the Declaration of Independence, in a free society, and all of you know it, and the media are running around liking chickens without...many heads, and yet it's obvious that he's right. You see, what he's doing, and what is so superb about it, he's running right into the teeth of the utopian statist propaganda, and he's saying 'Nope, nope, nope, that's not how our country is supposed to work.'" Mark added on his website, "Democrats want everyone on the same level so that they will have more control over them. They believe that liberty is immoral unless it brings about equality, not realizing that there always has and always will be income inequality. The conservative wants to create rights and individuality using a vibrant and vigorous economy that creates more opportunity." So I don't have to point out that this is the complete opposite of Barack Obama's Marxist philosophy, but I would note that this is a truism that you haven't heard Romney so boldly risk to utter.
In similar fashion, Santorum ran 'right into the teeth of the utopian statist' media wing on Saturday, with comments he made concerning Obama's secularist (as well as eco-statist) attacks, and again, to paraphrase Levin, it drove the libs nuts, as well as some Repubics who don't get it. Here's just a little bit of what he told the media hordes afterwards:
“The president has reached a new low in this country’s history of oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before. If he doesn’t want to call his imposition of his values a theology that’s fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a church who has very clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is forcing on them.”
“I’ve been pretty clear that the left in America has their own moral code in which they want to impose on this country. You can call it a theology. You can call it a moral code. You can call it a world view, but they have their own moral code that they want to impose on everybody else. While they insist and complain that somehow or another that people of Judeo-Christian faith are intolerant of their new moral code that they want to create here. I’m just saying they're the ones who are intolerant in imposing their will on, in this case, the Catholic church.”
Rinse, repeat on what I shouldn't have to point out again. (Note: check out Weasel Zippers one line comment about this...priceless!) And while the media, and undoubtedly some among the punditry, will label his remarks off color and certainly worse, it's pretty difficult to ignore, again, the truism of what Santorum's stating when a priest is arrested outside the White House for praying.
But whether the topic is economic liberty or religious freedom, it's Santorum's frank honesty and conviction, as well as his likable demeanor, that's connecting with voters; and I think that helps explain moments like what we saw on Friday with a key Romney endorsement/delegate in Ohio deciding to switch his support to Rick Santorum.
ADDENDUM: Rick Santorum introduced the liberal Bob Schieffer to our native language of conservatism yesterday on Face the Nation. Schieffer's clueless stares are priceless...
