Pennsylvania Politics -- The Santorum People Don't Know

Kathleen Parker writes:

The U.S. senator from Pennsylvania could save AIDS babies in Africa, end genocide in Darfur and put welfare mothers to work in his own office -- and he'd still be despised by a sizable number of those who hope Democrat Robert Casey Jr. will defeat him come November.

Come to think of it, Santorum has tried all those things mentioned above, with some success, but often at great political cost. He has worked for global AIDS relief with Bono, the U2 rock star and one of Santorum's more unlikely fans. For his AIDS efforts, Santorum earned the contempt (and veiled threats) of some in the abstinence-only, family-values crowd.

Santorum has been a leader in trying to stop genocide in Sudan, which he views as a front in the war against ideological Islam -- and has sponsored every major piece of legislation created toward that end.

At home in Pennsylvania, he put five welfare mothers to work in his own offices while leading the movement that resulted in the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton.

Santorum, in other words, is one of those rare politicians who puts his money where his mouth is -- even though his usual supporters turn on him as a result. And yet his staunch Roman Catholicism has earned him a reputation in some quarters as a weirdo.

....
Love him or hate him, for the past decade, Santorum has been the conservatives' point man for the world's disenfranchised -- the poor, the sick and the meek. If he loses, the face of compassionate conservatism will be gone.

Read it here.

This is the Rick Santorum few people see through the fog of partisan politics. For twelve years now he's been one of the most effective and compassionate statesmen in the Senate. I like Bob Casey, and don't think his election would be a disaster, but it would be a shame to lose someone like Rick Santorum. He's a good man and a superb Senator. That's why I plan to vote for him this fall.