Is Rick Santorum About to Become the GOP Flavor of the Week? (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Former Sen. Rick Santorum, the Tim Tebow of American politics, seems poised today to become the latest champion of the Not-Mitt Romney Republican crowd. David Brooks, the sensibly conservative New York Times columnist, says so, and so does Jeremy Roebuck, a Philadelphia Inquirer writer.

Brooks emphasizes the fact Santorum appeals to the new GOP base: white "working class" folks, those with high school diplomas and perhaps a few college credits who find our societal fabric badly torn but perhaps, not irreparably so. Roebuck cites Santorum's toughness, consistency and as per Ed Rendell, a Democrat if there was one, his pragmatism.

With a "good" showing in tonight's Iowa caucus, does Santorum become "someone to be reckoned with?" A consensus about that seems to be forming. Brooks even sees him doing well after Iowa.

Could this be true? Is there a large enough GOP crowd to make Santorum viable in the party and even against President Barack Obama this fall? Surely there are some people out there who don't care that he has come within a gnat's eyelash of comparing gays to those who engage in beastiality. (See ThinkProgress.org or any of a number of other sources.)

And there are surely some people who don't care that Santorum once declared, "Marriage is an institution that's a bridge too far for too many African-American women and is not desirable among African-American males."

Let's dream for a moment: Let's say Santorum takes Iowa, igniting a tea party-like surge for him. Let's give him the Republican nomination, and assume no subsequent missteps. On election eve he and President Obama are in a dead heat. Now, as per TheRoot.com, blacks make up 12.3 percent of the population; at best Santorum gets 1 percent of those people who vote.

Gays comprise, according to Gallup, 10 percent to 20 percent, the former figure "expert" opinion, the latter the "guess" of other Americans. Santorum gets none of those votes, and they would vote.

You do the math. Brooks figures he'll ultimately be buried under negative ads.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120103/pl_ac/10786311_is_rick_santorum_about_to_become_the_gop_flavor_of_the_week

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