Bob Dylan famously said that “the times they are a-changin’”. He spoke then of broad societal shifts, as I do today. He talked of how the country was coming to its senses and realizing the failures of its past- perhaps growing beyond some of its past failures.
Dylan spoke of a very different time than today, but one also much similar. When he worried about segregation based on race, today sexuality faces similar challenges. Rick Santorum, it seems, hasn’t kept with the way the times are changing, and perhaps neither has his party.
While I’m not old enough to be a member of either party, the ideals on which the Republican party were founded stand more alongside mine than any other. Fiscal conservatism- not spending more than we take in, and deciding economic and public policy based on results, not ideas seem pretty reasonable to me. And generally speaking, I’m against huge social programs and extensive military action. Barry Goldwater, 1964 republican presidential candidate and five term Arizona senator, embodies what I speak of. While he was literally called “Mr. Conservative” by both critics and supporters, he was pro gay rights, pro choice, and anti-corruption (including crony capitalism).
Why, then, is he the candidate of the 60’s and Rick Santorum is a serious contender in 2012? I’m not sure, but I think it says something about the Republican Party as a whole. They’re not keeping up with the times, and they’re fractured. The radical right has the Tea Party- started with perhaps good intentions but now a religious coalition against any form of progress, and the center still seems increasingly absorbed with religion. As conservatism shrinks, rather than coming to the center, coming to the table, the right seems to move further away. Rick Santorum is trailing Obama in popularity polls by a huge margin- yet he’s fighting Mitt Romney tooth and nail in every state for the primary.
As demographics in the US have shifted, so have parties- the Democrats almost unilaterally: supporting the same issues and moving as a whole slightly left, along with the mood of the nation. The Republicans, on the other hand, are split. We have our Rick Santorums, our Mitt Romneys, and our Ron Pauls. The nation, according to polls, stands somewhere between Mr. Romney, Mr. Paul and the incumbent president of the United States; they don’t want to end up defaulting like Greece but they don’t want to go back to the gold standard.
I guess the simple fact of the matter is that Rick Santorum could be a death knell for the entire republican establishment. If the GOP puts him before the nation in August and runs him against Barrack Obama, polls say he’ll be slaughtered. So will any legitimacy for the GOP. They threw out fiscal conservatives who line up with the nation as a whole like Huntsman, ignored the only candidate reaching out to the youth in Paul, and are quickly moving as the nation does- just in the opposite direction.
