Brenham Ranch Surprise: Rick Santorum Endorsed by 150 Evangelical Leaders

Will the Brenham Ranch, owned by former Judge Paul Pressler, be looked back upon as the place where the plans for a Republican coronation were upset? Will it mark the beginning of a surge of support for the candidacy of former Senator Rick Santorum for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination? It was at that ranch that 150 evangelical Protestant Christian leaders met to choose a candidate whom they could all unite behind. They chose Rick Santorum.

P>AUSTIN,TX (Catholic Online) - Will the Brenham Ranch, owned by former Judge Paul Pressler, be looked back upon as the place where the plans for a Republican coronation were upset? Will it mark the beginning of a surge of support for the candidacy of former Senator Rick Santorum for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination?

It was at that ranch that 150 evangelical Protestant Christian leaders met to choose a candidate whom they could all unite behind. Speculation over the meeting, who attended it, and who would receive the nod of support from among former Governor Rick Perry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, has filled the blogosphere. It has also provided fodder for the mainstream media.

On Saturday afternoon, January 14, 2012, the speculation ended. Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council and a spokesman for the group emerged to report the results. With a strong showing of over 2/3 of the vote, the leaders chose to endorse - and place their formidable resources behind - former Senator Rick Santorum as the Republican nominee.

This vital endorsement of these major evangelical leaders came on the heels of the endorsement of a group of Catholics called "Catholic Vote" just last week. Santorum's strong support among Catholics is well known. It is also growing.

Rick Santorum has defended the fundamental human right to life from conception to natural death for years - without compromise. He has defended authentic marriage between one man and one woman - and the family and society founded upon it. His economic populism reflects his blue collar background and his plan to revitalize manufacturing is solid and gaining support.

He is a morally coherent candidate. He forthrightly proclaims that economic issues have a moral component. He insists that there is a moral basis to a truly free society. He asserts that America is a moral enterprise.

In a Republican Presidential primary campaign where the Republic establishment expected that they would pick the nominee in a form of "coronation", an increasing number of concerned Americans are now raising their voices now and saying, "not this year"!

I am a "Reluctant Republican" having left the Democratic Party when the opponents of the fundamental human right to life took control. That party which purported to represent the blue collar everyday American became the party of the cultural revolutionaries on the left. People like us were won over by the courage and plain spoken down to earth style of Ronald Reagan.

His was the kind of "conservatism" which made sense to people who never thought we were "conservatives". It was human, real, honest and quintessentially American. We were not then - and are not now - comfortable with the "Nelson Rockefeller" blue blood image of the old Republican Party.

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Rick Santorum has the capacity to attract those "Reagan Democrats" and to reach out to Americans from both parties as well as Independents in a General election. He has proven it in elections in Blue Collar Pennsylvania. He is the grandson of a coalminer who still embodies those bedrock values.   

Many who have wanted someone other than the establishment Republican candidate are from blue collar backgrounds. Our ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower. We care about the poor and cringe when any candidate seems to lack a heart of concern for them. However, we have learned that big government does a horrible job of providing proper care for them. We know that collectivism - be it of the right or the left - is not the solution.

However, we want a candidate who can open up economic participation in the American dream to as many as possible. One who recognizes that the market was made for man - and not man for the market. Rick Santorum knows that it takes free people to make markets free. His economic plan will expand participation in the market based economyand  is a breath of fresh air. He recognizes that human capital is our greatest National asset and has fueled our economic growth in the past.

Though we are not fans of overly federalized and bloated centralized government, the old "States Rights" mantra scares us. Bull Connor's evil was not that long ago.  It deeply disturbs us when candidates assert that if some States decide that an entire class of human persons has no fundamental human right to life it is "O.K."

It is NOT "O.K." for States to decide that our youngest neighbors in the womb can be treated as property. That was what happened in the old slavery, when people of color were denied their personhood. It will happen in the new slavery effected by abortion on demand where another class of persons, our youngest neighbors, are written off as not worthy of those unalienable rights.

We support the tenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution but we want a United States of America. We insist that there are such things as fundamental human rights - and the American founders got it right. They insisted we were endowed by God with those rights and they are not conferred by government. Nor can they be taken away by government.

That idea was rooted in the classical understanding that there is a "Natural Law" which can be known by reason and should inform our life together in any truly just society. That is if we desire to be truly free and advance the real "common good", not some fraudulent re-definition of the term proffered by cultural revolutionaries.

We want a candidate who respects the primacy of parents in rearing, raising and educating their own children. We believe that parents should be able to choose where to send their children to school, no matter what their economic means, from among a full array of options from home school, to competitive public, charter, private and religious schools. Rick Santorum supports parental choice in education.

We want a candidate who recognizes the dangers to freedom represented by the growing specter of militant jihadist movements. A president who is unashamed of the American experiment in ordered liberty and is willing to proclaim that freedom is the beating heart of every human person.Rick Santorum's record and experience on National Defense is strong. 

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The endorsement of the 150 evangelical Protestant leaders at Brenham Ranch has shaken up one of the most volatile primary campaigns in US history. This primary election campaign for the Republican nomination is far from over.

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