A moment of thanks for Rick Santorum

In the same way Christine O’Donnell demolished the Delaware GOP by forcing it to own the religious lunacy and small mindedness that fueled its base for so long, Rick Santorum has exposed the national GOP’s fetid soul to a shocked nation.

Whereas in the past, Republicans were able to use a system of codes to identify themselves to each other as misogynist, homophobic authoritarian, racists, and religious fanatics – Santorum made the heretofore unspoken word become flesh. To his credit he essentially told America, “If you vote for a Republican, you should know that you are voting for a crazy person.”

Charles M. Blow catalogues some of Santorum’s “accomplishments”:

-Instead of small government and fiscal conservatism, Santorum overwhelmingly promoted the GOP’s obsession with sex and religion.

-He argued that allowing women to use contraception to control when they got pregnant was morally wrong.

-Santorum opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest, saying that women should be forced to carry those pregnancies to term and just accept the “horribly created … gift” and “make the best of a bad situation.”

-Santorum not only adamantly opposed same-sex marriage, saying that he would support a constitutional amendment banning it, he went so far as to say that gay people who had legally married under the laws of their states would have their marriages rendered “invalid.”

– He slammed the president’s promotion of self-improvement through higher education as snobbery although he himself has bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.

– He suggested that women might be too emotional to serve on combat missions.

-He said that the rich really do deserve an exalted status, out of reach of the rule of law or any requirement to help pay for our democracy.

I could go on, but it’s all just too exhausting and depressing.

At the same time, Santorum continuously chipped away at Romney as a dishonest man and a weak conservative, as well as the worst candidate to run against President Obama.

The shift in the debate, which Santorum helped create, and his withering attacks on the front-runner forced Romney to move further right than was politically prudent.

As a result, Romney is now weaker than any post-primary party nominee in recent political history. According to an analysis of CNN polling data stretching back to 1996, complied by Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed, Romney is the only presidential nominee to emerge from the primaries with a net negative favorability rating.

For all of this – thank you Rick Santorum.