Karen Heller: Santorum puts Penna. in spotlight dubiously

Was it only a few weeks ago that we weren't taking Rick Santorum seriously?

As our former senator, once a footnote in the race for the White House, surges in the polls after a primary hat trick, let us pause to remember James Buchanan, the sole Pennsylvanian elected president.

Buchanan, a Democrat who served from 1857 to 1861, is noted primarily for these distinctions:

1) Being the only bachelor in the White House, though not for Ralph Nader's lack of trying.

2) Preceding a great president, Abraham Lincoln.

3) Being a terrible president, ranking among our worst leaders for failing to stop the spread of slavery or the storm of secession, mucking with the Supreme Court and the Dred Scott Decision, exhibiting irritation at abolitionists, and vetoing a congressional bill to establish more colleges by arguing there were "already too many educated people."

Santorum would like to rob Old Buck of his singular distinction and double the state's presidential record.

Then again, Santorum's view on public education is dicey. He's sort of against it.

"The idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic," Santorum said recently, though the federal government doesn't run schools. He compared public schools to "factories" and praised home-schooling, which he hopes his wife, Karen, will continue in the White House.

However, as senator, Santorum had no problem taking $100,000 from his Pittsburgh-area school district to home-school his children.

Mind you, they were being educated not in Pennsylvania, but in Northern Virginia.

This is the same Rick Santorum who first ran for Congress in 1990 by criticizing his opponent for being out touch with Pennsylvania because he moved his family to the D.C. area.

Since losing his 2006 U.S. Senate race by 17.4 points, Santorum has spent little time in the state. He's a recovering Pennsylvanian.

On the campaign trail, he frequently mentions his coal-miner immigrant grandfather - and less of his clinical psychologist father and nurse mother, who were employed by the federal government in the Veterans Administration.

He bills himself as a Washington outsider while growing wealthy as a Beltway insider from lobbying, media, and consulting contracts.

Indeed, he has been a steady beneficiary of the government while being one of its most ardent critics.