There is a 'Ronald Reagan' Candidate in the Republican Primary, Rick Santorum

There are growing indications that the people of Iowa are beginning to finally pay attention to Rick Santorum and his campaign

There is a "Ronald Reagan" candidate in the Republican primary.He "squares the circle". He is morally consistent and politically courageous. His name is Rick Santorum. He is exactly what many people - just like me - have been hoping for.

P>AMES, IA (Catholic Online) - Wherever you turn these last few days, you find them. They are the pundits and prognosticators of the political chattering class. They make a living predicting the outcome of not only the Iowa caucuses but the entire Republican primary process.

Whether they are establishment Republicans or just hopeful Obama Democrats, they are now singing the same tune, Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. I refuse to accept this orchestrated prediction. I will do everything I can to ensure a different outcome. I am tired of having the Republican nominee chosen by the establishment elite. There is too much at stake. 

I write as a private citizen, not with my clerical title. So, I in no way purport to speak for the Catholic Church which I love and for which I was ordained. I am not expressing any official position of Catholic Online. We have not endorsed a candidate in this campaign - yet.

However, as I have reminded readers in the past, we reserve the right to do so. We certainly will not endorse the reelection of a President who is against the fundamental human right to life, refuses to defend marriage and the family and society founded upon it, and fails to protect the fundamental right to religious freedom.

We are organized as a for profit company for many reasons. One was to avoid the limitations placed upon not for profits in the current climate. I spent much of my career arguing against a jurisprudence which refuses to recognize the protections of the First amendment to the US Constitution.

Finally, I am what I have long called a "reluctant Republican". I grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts in a working class family and neighborhood. I was once a Democrat. I actually thought that political Party cared more about the poor and those who had no voice. However, the last Democratic candidate for President I supported was the deceased Governor Bob Casey.

The late Governor wrote a marvelous book entitled "Fighting for Life". Sadly, the Democratic Party now fails to recognize the right to life of our youngest neighbors in the womb whom Blessed Teresa of Calcutta rightly called the "poorest of the poor". They sold their soul and lost their moral compass a long time ago. 

Governor Casey once wrote of legalized abortion: "It's hard to think of anything more foreign to the principles of the Democratic Party or the whole American experience. Far from being "inclusive", it excludes an entire class of fellow human beings from our care and protection. It's the only "constitutional right" we're ashamed of, avoiding the word abortion with contorted euphemisms like "reproductive rights" and "termination" and "evacuation".

"Far from liberating women, abortion has become a lucrative industry, exploiting young women beyond anything ever imagined. When pregnancy comes at a difficult time, which is the worthier response of society: To surround mother and child alike with protection and love, or to hold out the cold comfort of an abortion clinic? Where is America's true character to be seen- in an adoptive home or at the abortion clinic? In which role is a woman more empowered - giving life or taking it?

"These are questions that rest uneasily on the conscience of today's Democratic Party. We have traded our principles for power - the fleeting power offered by loud and well financed factions like NARAL and Planned Parenthood.. "We can choose to extend once again the mantle of protection to all members of the human family, including the unborn. We can choose to provide effective care of mothers and children.""

The censoring of Governor Bob Casey at the 1992 Democratic convention, precisely because of his support of the rights of all people including our first neighbors in the womb, caused me to leave the once great Party of the working poor, middle class and disenfranchised with which I used to be affiliated.

However, I began to consider voting for Republicans when Ronald Reagan ran for the Presidency. It was Ronald Reagan in "Abortion and the Conscience of America" who wrote: "Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves."

"Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."    
   
I do not consider myself a "conservative". I am certainly not a "liberal" or "progressive", within the current meaning of those terms. I am a Catholic. I affirm the classical Christian assertion that there is a law written on every human heart which can be known by the exercise of reason and should inform our positive or civil law. It is the foundation upon which a truly free society must be built. This is what has long been called the Natural Law.

The Natural Law is a participation in God's Law. At its foundation is the recognition of the Right to Life which affirms the dignity of every human person from conception though the entire continuum of life and until natural death. All men and women are created in the Image of God and have an inherent dignity which must be recognized, respected and received.

The recognition of this Natural Law Right to Life is not about a single political issue. Nor is it only a "religious" position, though it is expounded upon within the Jewish and Christian tradition. Rather it is a framework through which I view every issue. Human rights are goods of the human person and not just concepts floating around somewhere. They are endowed upon us by a Creator in whose Image we have been fashioned. 

Any Nation which allows the intentional killing of its young in the first home of the womb and calls that intrinsically evil action a "right" has lost its soul and jeopardizes its future. Medical science confirms what our conscience has long confirmed, the child in the womb is one of us, our neighbor, and it is always wrong to kill our neighbor.

The specious arguments used to defend the indefensible, that it can ever be a proper choice to take innocent human life, are now eroded on every front. We operate on children in the womb. We prosecute those who kill them in the course of the commission of a felony. We all know the truth; abortion is the intentional killing of a human person. 

The Natural Law also reveals - and the cross cultural history of civilization affirms - that marriage is between a man and a woman, open to children and intended for life. Further, marriage is the foundation for the family which is the privileged place for the formation of virtue and character in children who are our future citizens.

The family is the first society, first economy, first school, first civilizing and mediating institution and first government. All other government grows out of - and must support and not usurp - the primacy of this first government.

Further, I support the principle of subsidiarity. Its application insists that the family should be helped by other governing units and not replaced or usurped by them. I affirm small or "limited" government not because I think government is "evil" but because I value self government and insist that the family is the first government.

Good governance beyond the family must be closest to those being governed and defer to an objective morality which helps to ensure it remains good. I affirm another existential and objective truth; human persons are by nature social. We cannot be truly happy, pursue happiness, or even be fully free without one another. We were made for relationships. 

In the economic arena, I insist that economics is not in the first instance, about capital, it is about human persons. A truly free economic system recognizes that freedom is a good of the person. Only human persons can be free because we are capable of making free choices.

It should further recognize the primacy of moral values, support the family, foster ingenuity, provide incentive, promote and reward creativity and innovation, expand participation, provide for private ownership, and foster human flourishing and advancement.

That is why I extol the potential in the market economy and the free market system; it promotes human flourishing and opens the door to human advancement.

Finally, I affirm that we are our brother and sisters keeper. We have an obligation to one another. That is what is meant by solidarity. How that truth works its way into public policy requires the recognition of what was discussed earlier. It also leaves room for the application of prudential judgment in many areas of application.

This vision of the human person and the family, as well as the lessons of history, have affirmed  that big government is not very good at charity. Charity begins in the home and works its way out through local communities, churches and other mediating institutions. It is bottom up and not top down. Thus, I support what is called "limited government".

All of what I have written is not about my being a "conservative". It is not based on conservative philosophy. It is based on Catholic Social thought. It is an example of my efforts as a Catholic Christian to be a faithful citizen and engage in political participation according to first principles.

 In the midst of the political fodder on National television in the last few days,  I stumbled across Chris Matthews December 27th edition of his program called "Hardball". Howard Finemen was one of the talking heads. He attempted to explain why "conservatives" in the Republican party cannot overcome the establishment.

Here is the portion of the transcript: "The problem that the others have here is that, to put it simply, there`s no Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan... was able to do -- to square the circle or unite those three forces that you talked about. He could be the small government guy.

"He could be the guy who questioned modernity, as you put it. He was the hawk. He used anti-communism, he used his own history, he used his own personality, his own organization to bundle all those things together. All those pieces have fallen apart, and there`s one candidate or more for each."

I disagree with Howard Fineman. There is a "Ronald Reagan" candidate in the Republican primary.He "squares the circle". He is morally consistent and politically courageous. His name is Rick Santorum. I have written extensively about his positions. I know him, his wife and their family, personally.

I have followed Rick Santorum throughout this campaign. He is exactly what many people - just like me - have been hoping for. He is the "Reagan candidate" for the 2012 campaign - and much more. This man is the real deal, in every way. He is from a blue collar family and has won elections in a heavily Democratic area of the country. That is because his positions reflect the real America and will ensure her continued future in a world which needs her leadership and example .  

There are growing indications that the people of Iowa are beginning to finally pay attention to Rick Santorum and his campaign.They are finally hearing his positions and focusing on his multiple gifts and proven record. In the most important election of my lifetime, I hope those indications are accurate.Check out his positions and read about his family and campaign at his website.

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