Rick Santorum in 2012 = Barry Goldwater in 1964

Yesterday I received the following e-mail from a good friend.

Myra,

I love Santorum. He may be able to beat Romney. He clearly could beat Obama in my mind. What do you think?
I think this campaign will not be won by money, but by ideas and programs. This will be the year of the bargain candidate becoming the most sought after product.

My response was this:

Dear Name Withheld,

Santorum = Barry Goldwater

He lost by 18 points when he ran for his Senate re-election in 2006 in PA. He is going nowhere but Iowa. Do not fool yourself into thinking he can win a national election just because he thinks like you. The objective is to defeat Obama. ONLY Romney can do that. He does not scare independents.

The only reason I am sharing this personal e-mail exchange is because base conservatives, like my friend, are grasping at the last conservative standing and that happens to be Rick Santorum.

My equation of Santorum = Goldwater is based on the fact that Rick Santorum got trounced 41% to 59% against Democrat Bob Casey when he ran for his third term in the Senate. Sure 2006 was a bad year for Republicans, but 18 points was a little excessive.

What really gets me is that when I heard Santorum speak on the presidential campaign trail twice in the last few months he NEVER mentioned his Senate loss.

He speaks like he is still a sitting U.S. senator. I found this very disingenuous.

Here is another reason why I am not a fan of Rick Santorum. I saw his true character in a casual conversation we had in January of 2008 at a small Heritage Foundation event in Washington DC.

This conversation was later chronicled on August 12, 2009, when Republican strategist Mark McKinnon was writing about Santorum’s 2012 presidential prospects in The Daily Beast.

Keep in mind, McKinnon, back in January of 2008, was a key advisor to Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign and he remembered how disturbed he was about the email I had sent him describing my exchange with Santorum. He wrote:

Early in 2008, Santorum claimed a John McCain presidency would be “very, very dangerous for Republicans.” OK, he was entitled to support the candidate of his choice, but launching vicious frontal attacks on McCain that continued well after he received the nomination did nothing but hurt the GOP and its chances.

But that’s not the worst of it.

A friend of mine ran into Santorum at a conservative think tank event in Washington, DC, in January 2008 and asked him why he had been bashing McCain on Sean Hannity’s show. He replied he thought McCain would be a terrible president and that he would rather have Hillary Clinton as commander in chief.

Wait, there’s more.

Recalling that Santorum had once featured McCain at one of his fundraisers, my friend asked him how he squared his conscience if he thought McCain was so dangerous. His response?

“Because I wanted to win.”

For Santorum to throw John McCain under the bus in 2008 after McCain tried to help Santorum raise money for his 2006 re-elect tells me all I need to know about Rick Santorum. Who, by the way, endorsed Mitt Romney in 2008, and now says it was because he did not like John McCain.

After Tuesday’s Iowa “victory” it’s a new ball game for Rick Santorum and he can expect much greater scrutiny than what I am offering here.

It’s also payback time for Senator John McCain, the surprise winner of the 2008 New Hampshire primary, because yesterday McCain endorsed Mitt Romney and not the surprise “almost winner” of Iowa, Rick Santorum, who, by the way, in the latest Real Clear Politics average loses to Obama by 10 points.

As I e-mailed my friend that Santorum = Goldwater I prayed that other base conservatives will wake up fast and realize that Romney is the GOP’s only chance of defeating the most dangerous president in my lifetime, Barack Obama.

And if Romney is not “conservative enough” for the Santorum conservatives they should be reminded of the words of President Ronald Reagan:

I have always figured that a half a loaf is better than none, and I know that in the democratic process you’re not going to always get everything you want.

Base conservatives now need to think of Romney as the GOP “half loaf,” and we had better serve him up on our plates soon because we need to store up as much sustenance as possible, for the real Battle of the Bulge is only 10 months away.