SO MANY TYPES OF SANTORUM. But Scott, the Santorum strategy isn't merely to deny that he's a conservative, it's also to affirm that he's a conservative! And a libertarian! And a progressive! Given the breadth of the coalition such a uniter could theoretically muster, Bob Casey must be one helluva candidate to remain so far out ahead. In the final analysis, I think this multiplicity of personas doomed Santorum. He had elements of a new, Christian Democrat progressivism, but he was too much of a pro-business conservative to embrace its economic imperatives, and too much of a social conservative to gain centrist credibility from it. Unlike, say, Sam Brownback, Santorum was traditionally ambitious, and rose to the leadership of the Senate Republicans, requiring him to be a Senate Republican, not a peculiar ideology unto himself. So anything new he brought to the table had to be palatable to the old guard already arrayed around it. But you can't simultaneously blaze a new trail and follow the road most taken. And so, in trying to be all things to all people, Santorum wasn't enough to anyone in particular. Save Kathryn Jean Lopez, I guess.
--Ezra Klein
