For those that can’t immediately tell what the title of this article refers to, let me recap. First, Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign was all but over as little as two weeks ago. The dude had absolutely no chance of beating Romney, and was even behind Newt Gingrich. At around the time he was becoming a political afterthought, his youngest daughter got a potentially fatal form of childhood pneumonia. It was looking pretty dire for his daughter—-or so we were told—-but she pulled through to make a “miraculous” recovery according to Santorum. The same was soon said about his campaign as he roared back from the dead to win three states less than a week later.
Now Santorum is giving the beleaguered “frontrunner” Romney a real run for his money and has soundly surpassed Gingrich as the social conservative choice to beat Romney. So maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong to call it a miracle, but the fact that he made one in both his personal and professional life strikes me as a little dubiously coincidental.
Just to be clear, I do realize that the sickness his daughter Bella had is a very fatal condition that kills 90 percent of children who come down with it. And I am sincerely glad that she’s now okay (no really, despite what I think of her father I would never bring his kids into it). It’s just that this is a prime example of when a political campaign exploits personal “tragedy” for its own benefit, especially when it’s running on fumes and has gone nowhere but up since. Santorum was near bankrupt before all this and very near to being forced out of the race but has since raised a ton of money and become a minor star at this year’s C-PAC convention. [If Santorum’s campaign flags again, will his eldest die in a car crash?]
Also, it really bothers me that Santorum has once again played the religious card to shreds by calling this a “miracle” without acknowledging that his “miracle” was bought and paid for (hey, I guess he really is a Catholic). Santorum is a millionaire who is able to provide the best possible healthcare for his family and can easily afford better care and doctors than anyone who would seriously consider voting him. Failing to mention this as he goes on the offensive against Universal Health Care really smacks of hypocrisy at best and a frightening lack of empathy at worst.
Of course, a frightening lack of empathy has become the hallmark of Santorum’s campaign. Whether he’s railing against illegal immigration or gay marriage or Muslims or gay military men or single mothers or gay teachers or poor children or gays in general (man that guy has a problem with gays), it’s pretty clear the guy has a really hard time relating to anyone who’s not a white, straight social conservative. And that’s why I have to express reservations about a campaign asking us to sympathize with it as it denies that same sympathy to everyone else.