If Republican poohbahs were hoping that Super Tuesday's 10 contests would settle the Republican primary contest, they woke up Wednesday disappointed. While Mitt Romney had a good night and stretched his lead among delegates, Rick Santorum did well enough to more than justify staying in the race.
Mr. Santorum is also scoring on the stump with his warnings about the threat to freedom posed by ObamaCare. Especially if the economy improves, this will be a crucial issue for Republicans in November because it reflects the great American fault line over the role of government. Yet the issue has bedeviled Mr. Romney because of his refusal to distance himself from RomneyCare in Massachusetts and to say more than his cursory line that he'll "repeal ObamaCare."
Mr. Santorum hit health care hard in his remarks on Tuesday night, claiming Mr. Romney favored an individual mandate imposed from Washington even as recently as the 2009-2010 ObamaCare debate. We've long thought RomneyCare was the former Governor's great vulnerability, and he would be wise to come up with a better explanation for how his views differ from Mr. Obama's. Voters want to hear him do what Mr. Santorum does and take ObamaCare apart as policy and philosophy.
Republican elites are aching to declare this race over and take aim at Mr. Obama. The fear is that the intraparty debate is hurting the GOP brand and the image of the candidates. Some of that is inevitable in any primary campaign, but November is a long way off and the American public hasn't concluded that Mr. Obama deserves another term.
The hand-wringing is fruitless in any case. The voters are in charge and their split decision shows that Republicans still haven't settled on a standard-bearer.
Daniel Henninger expanded on the idea of Santorum's focus (Freedom vs ObamaCare) with a WSJ column of his own that takes note of Santorum's strengths and offers some great advice for the conservative presidential candidate: "Santorum has surfaced a concern about Obama's economic policies and the issue of personal freedom."
What Mr. Santorum has discovered in this campaign is that for a large number of voters, a connection has surfaced between Barack Obama's economic policies and the issue of personal freedom. The potency of the latter is what's new, and a vulnerability for this presidency.
Freedom, or liberty, is a staple of conservative politics. ...it wells up from something more akin to the "Don't tread on me" motto and coiled rattlesnake sewn into the famous yellow Gadsden flag created before the American Revolution. The Gadsden flag was a staple at tea party rallies two years ago.
Rick Santorum has linked these concerns about the status of personal freedom directly to ObamaCare and beyond that to the broader policy legacy of the Obama administration.
"[ObamaCare] is usurping your rights. It is creating a culture of dependency. Every single American will be dependent on government, thanks to ObamaCare. There is no more important issue in this race. It magnifies all that is wrong with what this president is trying to do. ...This race is coming down to the economy, the deficit and control of your life, which is ObamaCare." (There was no mention of contraception, gays or the role of women.)
Rick Santorum should stay in the race, repeating from now till summer the perverse link between the ObamaCare mandate and the American idea of freedom. It looks like the best argument the GOP nominee will have for a win in November.
ADDENDUM: Santorum continued to effectively explain how Romney is 'not telling the truth' (he doesn't want to say lie, because he's trying to heed his wife's advice of staying nice) regarding Mitt's support for a federal individual mandate. The overall interview with Piers Morgan turned out to be really good and discussed a wide array of topics...definitely worth checking out!
