The rational political consultant would advise Santorum to write the book and release it the day after he defeats Bob Casey for re-election. But Santorum is going to do it his way and that involves laying out all his cards before that Tuesday in November. Just ask the veterans of Arlen Specter's primary campaign against Stephen Freind several elections ago. Freind wrote a book before that campaign, and the Specter staff lifted enough lines to doom whatever chance there was of an upset.
I think Rick Santorum is fully prepared to lose to Bob Casey and he wants to do it before a national audience carrying the torch of the brand of conservatism that will nominate the next GOP candidate for president. By publishing this book he has sent a strong signal his campaign will be waged without ideological compromise. He will be a leader in the fight for President Bush's Supreme Court choice(s) and, between campaign appearances, rushing back to Washington to advance the administration's agenda.
The book is great news for the faithful around the nation, but very unsettling to many in Pennsylvania's GOP establishment and other Santorum supporters. One prominent southeastern businessman told me that when his wife read Santorum's comments about working women, she told him that a proposed Santorum fund-raiser at their home would not happen.
I haven't read the book, but his candid observations will be used against him, in and out of context. Those pages will make an already difficult sale even tougher with moderate GOP voters.
So this book is a win-win or a no-lose, however you want to position it. If he wins, it's a triumph of his beliefs and would put Pennsylvania in play for the GOP in '08. If he loses, he will become a martyr to the most important constituency in the GOP selection process, which values principle over pragmatism.
Abe Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas and went on to deal with the blue and the gray. My bet is that when the Santorums were teaching their students the Lincoln lesson, they inserted Casey for Douglas and changed the color scheme to red and blue. Lesson learned and class dismissed. *
Larry Ceisler is a local political consultant.
