I have much in common with Newt. If we voted for someone that resembled ourselves, I would choose Newt over everyone else. Newt strikes me of someone who is an idea man who can come up with great principles.
We need someone like Washington. Washington - wasn’t known for his ability to covey ideas, but to maintain a consistant footing in times of great trial. I’m willing to sacrifice ideas for consistancy, someone that I can trust at the end of the day.
I guess I see it like this. I wish I could be as good a man as Santorum is for his family, and I admire how he has raised them and conducted himself.
So that is why I supported Santorum over Newt. Now, I think it’s more pragmatism, Newt didn’t get it done when he needed to. It’s hard enough for Santorum to catch Romney - let alone Newt. We don’t have the luxury of time (as we once had), to sit and decide.
All due respect to Newt - I believe that Santorum has the best chance of defeating both Romney and Obama.
I explained it this way to someone, who later came to understand Santorum differently, and not through idealized lenses. And that this country needed an experienced statesman a la Churchill, not a Pope. Maybe it will help you understand why so many Christians can't bring themselves to support Santorum... somethings are more important than political stands..
"On Santorum: No, I’ve never met him. I’ve read about him, some of the corruption he is associated with, I’ve watched him, I’ve listened when he was disrespectful to his mentor for political expediency’s sake. I study his voting record. I know a charity of his gathered millions of dollars, and only spent 32% of their funds on the poor, for whose benefit the charity was formed; and that the normative ethical ratio is for most charities to spend 82% of their funds on their targeted constituency - while most of Santorum’s donations went to give his political friends cushy “charity” jobs. Good Neighbor, I think it was called. I listened as this so-called “good” Christian man stood on a stage and said his character was the quality of character that Americans needed in the White House, unlike the character of others who had personal baggage in their past, without once mentioning the forgiving saving transforming power of Jesus Christ, who is the center of the faith Sanctimonium so piously professes to live by... and sets his principles upon...
If you are not a Christian, you can’t really appreciate what is so appalling and galling about the man, in light of true christians, who don’t abrogate the work of Christ with attempts at self righteousness attained by their outside of the cup persona and behaviors..
What you are doing, and why so many sincere Christians have great problems with Santorum, is he, as well as you, overlook how the transformative power an encounter with the True Christ impacts a man’s entire soul and being; he becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things pass away, all things are made new.
Newt has confessed his sins, said he did things he is ashamed of, has sought to make reconciliation with the members of his family, and others he has hurt. He has blamed no one else but himself. He has come to a new and apparently cleansing faith in Christ Jesus and, most importantly, there is no evidence of any of the same behavioral sins in his life since this long journey of his repentance, rebirth, and renewal began.
And, yet, people cannot let the man leave his past behind. After 20 years - think of it - 20 years - there are still a majority of people in the press, politics - Santorum, and a lot of his supporters - who consider Newt the same man he was 20 years ago, and dare he try to take one step away from his past, to step into the new, as his faith promises him he can, they are there loudly, hypocritically, self-righteously to pull him right back. They won’t let him step away from his sinful past, though no apparent evidence of that sinful past exists any longer, or any evidence that he is the same man he was 20 years ago. He is being judged as the man he was - while that man no longer exists. He is, I repeat, a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Finally, Christians, who truly fully embrace and receive the saving work of Christ, who are transformed deeply, understand that Newt could have done all those things back then, even worse, and still today be a new creature in Christ Jesus - but no one, not Santorum, nor his minions, will allow for that, or accept that might ever be true.
So, the final finally: it says more about the people who can’t let Newt be this new creature many believing Christians trust he is, if only because they are likewise sinners, great sinners, saved and transformed by the same power that Newt claims has saved and transformed him. It is religious bigotry, hard hearts, and people like Santorum, who behaviorally have hit many of the right notes in their outward lives, though it is hard to believe that is extensively true - I am sure we will find out - whose self-righteousness - whose pride in their outward manifestations of sinlessness, and acceptable conduct, that causes believing Christians to distance themselves from him, to see him as a hypocrite, saved more by his self-perceived good works than the miraculous, healing work of a Perfect Savior, by his love and tender mercy, towards those who are fully unworthy.
Santorum is about none of that, he is about a gospel of works and self denial, of earned salvation. Newt is simply a sinner being saved by by the gift of grace, he could never earn or be worthy of... through no goodness of his own... the same as most of those Christians who can’t support Santorum’s apostasy."