Rick Santorum is Right, It Takes a Family. Now, It Will Take a President

I have followed the 2012 Presidential primary campaign closely because I believe the 2012 election is the most important Presidential election in my lifetime

The American dream is threatened - not because the American people have lost that dream, but because we have the wrong leaders in political office. The 2012 presidential election will help determine whether that dream is resuscitated and secured - or usurped and replaced by something not worthy of the American experiment in ordered liberty. 

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Like many Americans I am deeply concerned about our Nation. The dream called American is threatened. I share the growing sense that it is not because the American people have lost that dream, but, at least partially, because we have the wrong leaders in political office. 

Finally, I share a deep sense that the 2012 presidential election will help determine whether that dream is resuscitated and secured - or usurped and replaced by something not worthy of the American experiment in ordered liberty. 

I am disturbed to once again hear and read the mantra of the main stream media that the 2012 Presidential campaign is over. You know the drill; that Mitt Romney is the nominee to face President Obama and anyone who feels differently should stop their efforts and sing the song of the establishment.

The lyrics have gone through revisions. He has been the presumptive nominee, the inevitable nominee, the probable nominee and now the nominee by default based on "the Math". It is the same old song and I am tired of it.

On the eve of the Wisconsin primary, I have to speak out. I am a "reluctant Republican". I was raised in Massachusetts in a blue collar family who believed the Republican Party had a silver spoon in its mouth and had no concern for people like us. However, I left the Party calling itself "Democratic" when it was taken over by the strange coalition currently leading it.

That coalition purports to care about the poor while they fail to hear the cries of the poorest of the poor, our first neighbors in the womb. They contend to be concerned for blue collar workers while they foment class warfare and push Statist economic and political policies which are a grave threat to true liberty.

That coalition pays lip service to marriage and family while it promotes a cultural and social counterfeit masquerading under the same name. They do not respect the first freedom of religious freedom and are treating my Church with complete disregard for its proper and important role in promoting the common good.

However, the Republican Party is threatened by its own caricature. The effort to control that Party by the old guard "establishment" smacks of a return to the days of corporatism and an economism. It also fails to assert the primacy of the person, marriage and the family and society founded upon it. Finally, it does not seem to understand that the true source of our liberties, including economic liberty, is found in our shared moral values. 

While many are looking for a "consistent conservative", I want a candidate who has moral coherence; and recognizes the necessary moral foundations of a free and just society. There is a political dualism in establishment Republican circles - the idea that there are "social" and "economic" issues and they must be kept separate. They cannot be kept separate. Only free people with moral values can ensure a truly free market. Freedom is a good of the human person.

I find such a moral coherence in Rick Santorum. He does not separate social and economic issues. He knows that the reason we care about expanding economic opportunity is because we respect the dignity of every human person. His economic policy seeks to expand participation in the market economy while respecting fairness in competition. He affirms the dignity of all work because of the dignity of the human worker. He insists that economic policy respect human initiative, promote mediating structures and be built from the bottom up.

His advocacy of smaller government is cut from the same cloth. He calls for the proper application of the ordering principle of subsidiarity. That entails respecting the primacy of the family as the first society, the first government, the first church, first school, first economy and first mediating institution. That principle insists that government begin with the smallest unit, the individual and the family, and that all other government then exists to provide them the help and assistance they need.

He rejects the notion there is a "right" to an abortion even if the positive law currently protects the wrongful act. Every procured abortion is the taking of innocent human life and the denial of the true Right, written in the Natural Law, the fundamental and inalienable Right to Life.  He would place respect for the dignity of every human person front and center, using it as the lens through which every other issue would be approached.

What I find in Rick Santorum is the whole package. That is rare in American Politics and I cannot let the moment pass. To my dismay, the efforts to caricature and marginalize his candidacy have come from both sides of the aisle. That is because he is not an "establishment" candidate. He threatens establishment leaders in both major political parties.

Ironically, that is one of the greatest assets Rick Santorum would bring to the general election campaign in 2012. We do not need "same old/same old". He has the potential to do for this election what Ronald Reagan did in the elections of my past; draw voters from across the party lines and help to forge a new governing coalition which can resuscitate the American dream and set us on a course to brighter future.   

I will never forget sitting in the Senate chambers in 1996 with other pro-life leaders during a debate on what is called "partial birth abortion". The term refers to the forced pulling of a child down the birth canal, ripped from the sanctuary of first home of the whole human race, her mothers' womb - just far enough- to the point where her brains could be suctioned so as to collapse her skull and kill her.

That day I experienced the leadership of Senator Rick Santorum. I had just finished listening to the sophistry of a woman senator who had tried to justify this horror by playing to emotions and alluding to women who would somehow suffer if this evil act was outlawed. She said that she heard their cries. I was troubled by her abuse of her elected office to protect this barbarism.

Then, Senator Rick Santorum spoke these words, calmly yet passionately, with the authority that comes from the truth and needs no emotional manipulation to persuade those who are listening: "The senator said she hears the cries of women outside this chamber. We would be deafened by the cries of the children who are not here to cry because of this procedure".

He then turned to his colleague on the Senate floor and cried out with a prophetic urgency: "Where do we draw the line? Some people have likened this procedure to an appendectomy. That's not an appendix!" He pointed to a diagram he was using to make his appeal which showed a child being partially delivered. "That is not a blob of tissue. It is a baby. It's a baby!" At that moment - a baby cried. That cry filled the chamber and changed the environment.

At least one Senator had the courage to give a voice to all those children. It was as if that cry was the song of solidarity and Senator Santorum became the champion of those who had no one to speak for them. He also became a champion to me.

Over the years my admiration for this man has grown. Throughout my own career, I have hung a picture of St. Thomas More, the patron of all politicians and public servants, in my office. As a human rights and constitutional lawyer, Thomas more has been my patron, an example of a faithful Catholic who always lived a unity of life and never compromised the truth.

When I first visited the Senators office, I was not surprised to see the same painting on his wall. I have long believed that he is a contemporary Thomas More; a man who exemplifies exactly what we so desperately need in public service these days.

When I read his book, "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good" I hoped it would not disappoint. It did not. He understands the relationship between solidarity, (the truth that we are indeed our brothers keeper and that we have an obligation to the needy), and the application of the principle of subsidiarity, an ordering principle which encourages good governance. Properly applied it recognizes the vital role of the family and the mediating associations in governance. It insists that the role of all other government is to provide assistance.

He did not succumb to the tendency in some "conservative" circles to reject the right role of government. He rejected the tendency in some "liberal" circles to exalt its federalized version and move from the top down in its application. Rather, he presented what I would call a vision of "good governance", good in its moral foundation, efficient and good in its practical application.

He wrote of religious freedom as a fundamental human right and articulated a clear and compelling understanding of the First Amendment, with both its establishment and free exercise clauses. He took on the horrid abuse of judicial power, analyzing the problems arising out of the threats to the separation of powers.

He acknowledged the shortcomings of some "conservatives" in failing to reach out to the poor and presented an honest and compelling vision for how to change that. The book was written in 2005. I am sure the Senator, now candidate for president, has experienced just how distinct his brand of "conservatism" is from some others who bear the name as a political moniker.

He offered a governing vision rooted in a recognition of different types of "capital"; social, economic, moral, cultural and intellectual and how together they can serve the common good. In fact, the subtitle of the book affirms that this entire vision for a free and virtuous society is tied to his affirmation of the classical vision of the common good.

He took on the foundational issue of the hour, the struggle over the nature and definition of freedom. In an age that has mistaken the right to do what one wants as 'freedom", the Senator defended a freedom to do what is right, good and true, with responsibility to the other and at the service of the common good.

By far, the strongest part of this book was its clear affirmation of the role of the family as the foundation of a truly free and virtuous society. We are experiencing an erosion of the moral foundation of our social order as we fail to protect the place of marriage and the family as the first vital cell of society.

Rick Santorum's discussion of a family friendly public policy which promotes fidelity and encourages motherhood, fatherhood and intact families was compelling. As I read the book, I thought it contained a framework which could be developed into an entire public policy agenda. It was written in 2005. The policy proposals within it have only improved as this good man, and his ideas, have matured. They now inform his campaign. 

There are many voices pointing out the failures of government but few voices articulating a vision for good governance. We desperately need true leaders, intelligent men and women of conviction and courage, who will impart such a vision and help us all to resuscitate the dream called America.

Santorum does not separate social and economic issues. He is morally coherent. He has the communications skills needed to contend in the general election with President Barack Obama. His blue collar identification and background will eviscerate the Obama reelection campaign's 1% strategy of class warfare. The President would be forced to run on ideas and record. 

I have followed the 2012 Presidential primary campaign closely because I believe the 2012 election is the most important Presidential election in my lifetime. Rick Santorum was right, it takes a Family. Now, it Will Take a President Who Can Lead our National Recovery.

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