Why Can I Understand Retail Politics From My Computer Screen Better Than Anybody Else (& Why Can't Others)?

A new documentary finds exactly what and who I said was happening during the primary:

The not-so-secret hero of “Caucus” is former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who plugs his way across Iowa in his Dodge pickup and an endless wardrobe of endearingly dreadful sweater vests, talking to anyone and everyone who will listen. He’s almost a Frank Capra character, a plainspoken man of principle who believes in old-fashioned politics and refuses to tell lies just to get elected. “Caucus” is in many ways the story of Santorum’s triumph, short-lived as it turned out to be: Despite polling in the low single digits in the fall of 2011, Santorum outlasts Bachmann, Gingrich, Cain and Perry and winds up in a dead heat with Mitt Romney, candidate of the GOP establishment.

Let’s be clear: I wouldn’t vote for Rick Santorum for dog-keeper if the other candidate were a dog. He’s a committed Christian conservative – actually, a Catholic conservative, a subtle but important distinction – who is forcefully opposed to abortion rights and marriage equality, and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. I do not lament the fact that he didn’t get elected to national office (and never will). But amid all the overheated anti-Obama rhetoric and wild, unfulfillable promises of the Iowa campaign, Santorum comes off as the only candidate who isn’t telling people exactly what they want to hear, and who isn’t fueling hatred for its own sake.

So, once again, the Republican Party - in it's so-called wisdom - wasted the best candidate it had going,...