-——I can’t for one moment believe that Santorum scares the left. It’s illogical. If Santorum wins the election, his brand of social conservatism will not play well to the masses. Obama would crush Santorum, especially among independents.——
Believe what you want, but the nation is conservative by a good margin, socially as well as fiscally. The cities and coasts are libertine, but Republicans will never get those votes.
Say Santorum gets the nomination. Okay, great. Social conservatives can be proud. But then Obama goes on the attack, and the big front, of course, will be the Culture Wars. When that happens, anything the media is throwing at Santorum today will sound complimentary in comparison. You Google Santorum yet? That's just a warm-up.
Santorum will get slaughtered among independents. You remark that the cities and coasts are libertine; perhaps, but even among independents on the cities and coasts, there will be more than enough independents demographically to overwhelm whatever social conservative-leaning independents might reside in the rest of the country . . . and come out for Santorum.
The math just isn't there.