{"id":2947,"date":"2005-09-02T00:45:55","date_gmt":"2005-09-02T00:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html"},"modified":"2005-09-02T00:45:55","modified_gmt":"2005-09-02T00:45:55","slug":"the-pa-provocateur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html","title":{"rendered":"The PA Provocateur"},"content":{"rendered":"

An NCR profile of Sen. Rick Santorum<\/a><\/p>\n

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Following George W. Bush\u2019s 2004 victory, there was considerable talk in conservative circles of a Santorum 2008 presidential bid. Today, Santorum downplays the speculation, saying that familial and senatorial obligations preclude him from spending the time in Iowa and New Hampshire that would be necessary to launch a serious bid. (He doesn\u2019t, however, rule out some unforeseen circumstances that might lead him to alter his calculation.)<\/p>\n

Like Ted Kennedy (traditional liberalism), Hillary Clinton (restoration), and John McCain (Teddy Roosevelt-style Republicanism), Santorum represents more than the state that sent him to the Senate. He\u2019s a senator from an idea, a leader with a national constituency.<\/p>\n

In mid-August, It Takes a Family<\/em> reached number 13 on The New York Times<\/em> bestseller list.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo us, he\u2019s the preeminent Catholic politician in America,\u201d says Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation, a Washington-based pro-life group. The \u201cus\u201d Ruse refers to are conservative Catholics, loyal to the magisterium, to this pope and his predecessor. \u201cHe\u2019s a living, breathing, daily communicant who\u2019s in the Senate leadership so all of us know that the things that we care about are discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. government,\u201d says Ruse.<\/p>\n

Some see that as a political liability in the Keystone State.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has got to stop being the senator from the cultural right and be the senator from Pennsylvania,\u201d Franklin and Marshall College political scientist Terry Madonna recently told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps.<\/p>\n

But Neri and others point out that in 15 years in public life, in three congressional races and two bruising senatorial contests, Santorum has never lost an election. \u201cSantorum\u2019s supporters will tell you that one of Rick\u2019s strengths is that he always speaks his mind,\u201d says Neri.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From another venue – Ignatius Insight – a June 2005 interview with Santorum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An NCR profile of Sen. Rick Santorum Following George W. Bush\u2019s 2004 victory, there was considerable talk in conservative circles of a Santorum 2008 presidential bid. Today, Santorum downplays the speculation, saying that familial and senatorial obligations preclude him from spending the time in Iowa and New Hampshire that would be necessary to launch a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe PA Provocateur - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The PA Provocateur - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An NCR profile of Sen. Rick Santorum Following George W. Bush\u2019s 2004 victory, there was considerable talk in conservative circles of a Santorum 2008 presidential bid. Today, Santorum downplays the speculation, saying that familial and senatorial obligations preclude him from spending the time in Iowa and New Hampshire that would be necessary to launch a…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-09-02T00:45:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The PA Provocateur - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The PA Provocateur - Via Media","og_description":"An NCR profile of Sen. Rick Santorum Following George W. Bush\u2019s 2004 victory, there was considerable talk in conservative circles of a Santorum 2008 presidential bid. Today, Santorum downplays the speculation, saying that familial and senatorial obligations preclude him from spending the time in Iowa and New Hampshire that would be necessary to launch a…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-09-02T00:45:55+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html","name":"The PA Provocateur - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-09-02T00:45:55+00:00","dateModified":"2005-09-02T00:45:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-pa-provocateur.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The PA Provocateur"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}