Everyone seems to be waxing poetic on the demise of Rick Santorum’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Many pundits, who have been dead wrong in their analysis of Santorum’s campaign, are now predicting that he’s set for a future run, and let’s not let LGBT pundits off the hook here. They have been like Chicken Little, calling, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”
Let’s address the famed political pundits that you see on TV or read on Politico or Huffington. Santorum got out of the race for one reason and one reason only: He could not win his home state of Pennsylvania. Starting a week ago Tuesday, Santorum was advised from almost all state Republican leaders that if he stayed in the race, he would surely lose. Heck, he even got that message from his own county of Allegheny. Having lost his home state by 18 points four years ago, this would have been a political disaster that he could not crawl back from. So now that he has done the party a favor and saved himself from embarrassment, what about his future? Not bright at all.
Four months ago, this column made the point that there was no way that Santorum would get the nomination. Now, I can easily predict that he won’t be on the ticket. So LGBT pundits can take a rest, but they are correct in noting that Ricky is the most rabid of homophobes, and we like that. Why? It ends his elected political career.
My earlier predictions were based on a demographic change in the American population and the emerging of a new voting class. That voting class is made up of young people who have grown up knowing LGBT people. The people who are falling off the voting rolls are those who didn’t have the pleasure of really knowing us — instead, they knew the characterization from the right-wing or religious types.
The Republicans have to moderate, like their counterparts in Great Britain, if they are to win future elections. The best example is what I wrote two months ago:
“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie moved to diversify the state’s all-white Supreme Court on Monday by proposing two firsts: the nominations of an openly gay black man [Bruce Harris] and a Korean-born law enforcer to fill two vacancies.
“Christie is not considered a moderate. He’s a national rising star of right-wing Republicans but he’s smart and ahead of his fellow party members in understanding that LGBT issues no longer matter to the general population — including Republicans. In other words, you can’t scare the public with the gay issue anymore since they no longer are afraid to have us as neighbors. In fact, most Americans want us as their neighbors and pollsters have discovered that 47 percent of strong conservative Republicans would vote for an LGBT person running for office.”
All one has to do is watch the Republican primaries and see this working itself into the Republican fabric. As I stated before, enjoy this Republican race and watch Rick Santorum. In this race, Santorum is like George Wallace, the last proud racist to run for president. Santorum will be the last proud homophobe to run for president. And like Wallace, he’ll become an outcast in his own party. Wallace eventually apologized, but Santorum is too arrogant to apologize for the hate he has spun.
Ricky, I hope you enjoyed your time in the sun. Sunset is now upon you.
And as for the general election and that Etch A Sketch candidate, just take a look at the Republican New Hampshire debate to see what his LGBT positions will be. It might surprise you.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].