Santorum: Mr. Excitement!

"We always talk about how are we gonna get the moderates," Rick Santorum told C-PAC today. In his view, you draw moderates with extremism. Here's how it works: "Why would an undecided voter vote for the candidate that the party's not excited about? We need conservatives to rally for a conservative, to pull with that excitement moderate voters, and to defeat Barack Obama in the fall."

Santorum's theory is that moderates respond to "excitement." This supports his premise that he is the most exciting Republican candidate. He supports the theory by citing the 2010 midterms. In his account, the GOP reclaimed the House because the Tea Party movement excited moderates. It's my impression, however, that turnout in 2010 was down dramatically from 2008, and it was the moderates, or swing voters, who stayed home. In any event, Santorum seems to misunderstand moderates. Almost by definition, a moderate isn't swayed by excitement. If anything, ideological excitement of the kind Santorum peddles is likely to "excite" swing voters into voting Democratic. Mitt Romney remains the most viable challenger to Obama because he's the Republican most likely to be perceived as "safe," rather than exciting, should swing voters prove dissatisfied with the incumbent.

At least Santorum has an awareness of a need to reach out to voters who don't necessarily think already as he does. Too many right-wingers talk as if there is a secret majority of pious entrepreneurial reactionaries out there who, like Santorum's moderates, will respond only to the "excitement" of hard-core ideology and rage against liberals. That's the reasoning that blames Senator McCain for his loss to Obama four years ago; he was insufficiently rabid to excite the secret majority who otherwise would surely have rejected the Democrat. That's also the reasoning behind the otherwise inexplicable sentiment that Romney is the weakest possible challenger to Obama. Santorum would no doubt agree with that premise, but not, apparently, because he believes in the secret majority. A Republican victory still depends on right-wing excitement in his scenario, but the excitement itself, if not the ideas that fuel it, will "pull" moderates who'll presumably conclude that pious entrepreneurial reaction is the next cool thing, like a viral video of someone riding a bike off a roof. The Republican base thus becomes the vanguard of excitement, like hucksters handing out free samples at a street fair -- though Santorum himself might concede that excitement in excess may not be a good thing. Otherwise, why not nominate Gingrich? Indeed, the argument for excitement threatens to rule out Santorum himself when you consider his appearance, his manner of speaking, and his past record of exciting voters in his home state when he enjoyed the advantage of incumbency. It may be, too, that the Pennsylvanian misunderstands his own constituents as well as moderates. They are reactionaries, after all, and most likely to be excited into anger rather than enthusiasm. On some level, I suspect that they'd rather rage at Romney or Obama; that way they can still use politicians as scapegoats for their personal failures in business. The idea that some force or simply someone else is to blame for their troubles is what excites them the most. Santorum won't get far by promising to take that away.