By Janice Shaw Crouse
In the view of many pundits, the GOP primary has boiled down to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich versus former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But the consensus among numerous commentators is that former Senator Rick Santorum won the last two debates, and he has pushed ahead of Gingrich in some polls pitting various GOP candidates against President Obama.
Certainly, Santorum's performance in the Tampa debate earned him recognition as a contender. In one of the most prescient moments of the Republican primary, Santorum gave an impassioned explanation of why RomneyCare's role as the model for ObamaCare is the central issue for 2012. After Romney gave a tepid defense of his Massachusetts health care legislation, Santorum heatedly and powerfully attacked individual mandates and pointed out the similarities between Romney's and Obama's health care reform. Santorum bluntly declared that Romney's record on health care reform made him the wrong GOP candidate to put up against President Obama. It boiled down to, according to Senator Santorum, essentially surrendering the issue of our fundamental freedoms -- which is not likely to be acceptable to Tea Party activists, who are credited with enabling the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Mr. Romney blew off the former senator's concerns: "It's not worth getting angry about."
In the view of many pundits, the GOP primary has boiled down to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich versus former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But the consensus among numerous commentators is that former Senator Rick Santorum won the last two debates, and he has pushed ahead of Gingrich in some polls pitting various GOP candidates against President Obama.
Certainly, Santorum's performance in the Tampa debate earned him recognition as a contender. In one of the most prescient moments of the Republican primary, Santorum gave an impassioned explanation of why RomneyCare's role as the model for ObamaCare is the central issue for 2012. After Romney gave a tepid defense of his Massachusetts health care legislation, Santorum heatedly and powerfully attacked individual mandates and pointed out the similarities between Romney's and Obama's health care reform. Santorum bluntly declared that Romney's record on health care reform made him the wrong GOP candidate to put up against President Obama. It boiled down to, according to Senator Santorum, essentially surrendering the issue of our fundamental freedoms -- which is not likely to be acceptable to Tea Party activists, who are credited with enabling the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Mr. Romney blew off the former senator's concerns: "It's not worth getting angry about."
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