After several weeks of chatter about the growing potential for a contested convention and Romney’s weakness as a frontrunner, Romney’s win in Illinois has cast further doubts on Santorum’s viability. Mr. Santorum’s poor showing in Illinois can be connected to the rough couple of news cycles that he has had to deal with. Essentially, the same thing we saw with the other “non-Romney’s” has occurred. The media has focused in on Santorum, and relentlessly examined what they feel makes him a “radical” conservative. However, Santorum is less like Cain, Bachmann and Perry, and more like Gingrich in that he actually has a significant well of knowledge to draw from, but is often combative in his defense of his worldview. Although, to be fair, those interviewing Santorum often take the attitude of “explain yourself” in their lines of questioning. Nonetheless, this combativeness has only intensified as a result of “slut-gate,” and media’s general inability to appreciate complexity and nuance.
The media did this again when Santorum got in trouble for saying that he did not care about the unemployment numbers. This was a poor choice of words, similar to the “I dont care about the very poor” statement made by Mitt Romney. But, in reality, it reamins a story with no substance behind it. Santorum was making a relatively innocuous statement that his priorities lay in the realm of increasing overall freedom and that moving particular indicators such as monthly unemployment numbers is relatively unimportant in comparison. Similarly, Romney was saying that his priority was the development of the middle class, not the very poor. Maybe consultants will create a new rule where the phrase “I don’t care” is forbidden (I’ve noticed that Mitt Romney has refrained from naming Santorum when he refers to him).
What is lost in scandalization is a critical evaluation of what Santorum has been doing right. If I can say anything positive about Santorum, it is that he is a strong and credible embodiment of a vocal and powerful intellectual wing of republicanism. Moreover, in many ways he is actually unapologetically principaled. For instance, Santorum has been the only candidate that is actively rejecting the all but universally accepted narrative that this presidential election is about jobs. Time and time again he has asserted that the president has an extremely limited ability to create jobs and control the economy, and any suggestion otherwise is contradictory to fundamental conservative assumptions about how the economy operates.
Consultant wisdom is that talking about jobs and economy is REALLY important. See "it's the economy, stupid." In truth, economic prosperity can often be one of the most important influencers of job approval numbers, but not always.
Not only is this an impressive display of disregard for populist rhetoric in favor for anti-Keneysian ideological coherence, it is also true. While virtually everyone else in American politics is touting their ability to create jobs, Santorum is the only one (other than Ron Paul) who rejects the rhetoric and says what everyone knows to be true. Presidents have almost no ability to create jobs.
Ezra Klein’s piece on this issue outlines how both liberal and conservative economists alike agree. One could reasonably argue that the president’s overall stewardship over the country and his ability to create an “environment” that conducive to business can impact the economy and jobs. However, the positive results from this would only be seen long after their term in office. Not to mention, if you’re really really conservative, you probably don’t even have confidence in stimulus as a tool to boost aggregate demand! The idea that presidents can have massive short-to-medium term impacts on the economy is the bogus-claim cousin to the claim that Obama’s policies have increased gas prices. It is just less obvious.
“Jobs” based rhetoric is almost always empty. It can tacked on to virtually any piece of spending as an ancillary benefit. Its usage is essentially synonymous with “I think this is a good idea,” which we knew already. I’m perpetually disappointed by virtually everyone’s willingness to let claims about jobs fly. Unfortunately, it is a claim easily backed up with casual logic and debunked by only relatively complex economic logic foreign to nearly everyone.
No matter which economic philosophy citizens subscribe to, they should all be disturbed by the fact that leaders are all purporting a philosophy that does not really exist. Apparently, except for Santorum. Most of the time.