GOP Senator in Democrats’ Cross Hairs

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.

“A liberal columnist in Boston attacked Sen. Santorum for something he said three years ago, and the Democratic attack machine has been up and running ever since,” Ronayne said, referring to a column in the Boston Globe last Tuesday.

Santorum is a favorite among evangelical voters and conservatives who cheer his outspokenness, even while some confide that they wouldn’t dare go as far.

“Conservative activists tell me they agree with him on pretty much everything, but would never say it themselves,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington political analyst. “He may have to take a position on a Supreme Court justice or Bush’s Social Security plan, but he does not have to take a position on whether women should be working outside the home. He seems almost eager to evoke some outcry.”

Santorum’s candor has served him well. A youthful-looking 47, he was elected to the House in 1992 with a wave of other rambunctious, Newt Gingrich-style conservatives. He captured his Senate seat at age 36 and zoomed up the leadership ladder, and is considered a possible contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.

But the storms of attention Santorum regularly stirs could be affecting his bid for a third term in his home state, where a recent poll showed him trailing his likely opponent by 11 percentage points.

On his own merits, Robert P. Casey Jr., a Democrat who favors restrictions on abortion rights, is a formidable foe. The son of a popular two-term governor, Casey has won statewide election three times and currently is state treasurer.

But he has garnered a lead mostly by letting Santorum do the talking.

“He is congenitally unable to stop that,” G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said of Santorum’s blunt take on controversial cultural issues. “He does something that looks like it will help him with moderate voters in the state, then he can’t go a week without getting back into a maelstrom.”

Tensions flared last week when the Boston Globe asked Santorum if he stood by remarks in 2002 saying the city’s “sexual license” nurtured an environment for sexual abuse by priests.

“The basic liberal attitude in that area ... has an impact on people’s behavior,” Santorum told a Globe reporter, affirming his comments of three years ago.

That provoked outrage from Massachusetts Democrats: “Irresponsible, insensitive and inexcusable,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy thundered.

The families of Massachusetts soldiers who have died in Iraq “know more about the mainstream American values of Massachusetts than Rick Santorum ever will,” Sen. John F. Kerry said.

“He’s a jerk,” Rep. Barney Frank said.

The prickliness spilled into the Senate hallway where New York Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, author of “It Takes a Village,” passed Santorum, author of “It Takes a Family,” and had this to say, according to Associated Press:

“ ‘It takes a village, Rick, don’t forget that,’ Clinton called out.

“ ‘It takes a family,’ Santorum countered.

“ ‘Of course, a family is part of a village,’ Clinton replied. The two continued on in opposite directions.”

Whether all of this works to his favor or detriment in 16 months depends on its reception by voters in Pennsylvania, a politically unpredictable state: Republicans control the two Senate seats, 12 of the 19 congressional seats and both houses of the state Legislature, but Democrats have an overall registration edge and hold most of the executive branch offices, including the governorship.

And tangling with some of the Senate’s most prominent liberals could buttress his image as a conservative hero, providing Santorum, who has a reputation as an effective campaigner, with ammunition of his own.

“I am pretty sure that his strategists are gleefully collecting all the things that Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Barney Frank are saying about him,” said Duffy of the Cook Political Report. “I suspect they will use them in direct mail sooner or later.”