WASHINGTON — Sen. Rick Santorum, the politician whom the Democrats most want to defeat next year, has long been a lightning rod, owing to his habit of saying exactly what's on his mind. Lately, though, the bolts have been dancing at the Pennsylvania Republican's feet.
After losing the fight this year to prevent the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who doctors said was in a persistent vegetative state, Santorum concluded that she had been "executed" when she died March 31. A tireless defender of marriage, he equated same-sex relationships and bestiality in a 2003 newspaper interview. More recently, he apologized for comparing Democrats who opposed changing Senate rules to block the filibuster for judicial nominees to Adolf Hitler.
And last week, sparks were flying on Capitol Hill after Santorum, the third-ranking member of the GOP leadership, refused to recant a July 2002 column he wrote for the website Catholic Online that blamed Boston "liberalism" for the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal. That prompted a roar from Massachusetts Democrats, one of whom called Pennsylvania's junior senator "a jerk."
Now, Santorum has compiled his views into a newly released book that his opponents are embracing as 449 pages of ammunition for the battle over his Senate seat in 2006.
In "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good," Santorum finds fault with two-income families, cohabitation before marriage and working women, who have chosen not to stay home with their children, he contends, "because of the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders." He also compares abortion to slavery.
"Judging from the blog traffic, women of nearly all ideological stripes are less than happy about what he's written about women working instead of staying home with their children," said Jennifer Duffy, an independent analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "He appears to ignore that some women work because they have to."
The father of six, a devout Catholic who offers catechism classes to GOP colleagues in his Capitol office, Santorum makes no apologies for his candor and dismisses criticism as "attacks by the liberal left," said Dan Ronayne, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, where Santorum's office referred questions last week.
