Political Damnation

Political life is perhaps the ultimate example of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Any elected official who's accomplished enough to run for higher office probably had to make compromises to get to that point. On the other end of the spectrum, those who haven't accomplished much run the risk of being defined by others because they've done so little to define themselves. You don't have to look any further than the two current GOP presidential front-runners to see this principle in action.

Though certain portions of his resume are causing him political grief, there's no doubt that Mitt Romney has accomplished a lot in his public life. How one feels about those accomplishments will almost certainly reflect their political leanings. This is demonstrated most obviously by the ongoing debate about how much the health-care law Romney signed into law as the governor of Massachusetts resembles the national law signed by President Obama.

Within conservative circles (i.e. the so-called base of the Republican party), the Massachusetts law and its mandate that nearly all citizens maintain a certain level of health insurance coverage is a mammoth affront to conservative principles that no amount of equivocating by the former governor will address. Consequently, Romney is being forced to run away from one of the key things that shows his worthiness for the presidency and in the process, displaying a lack of conviction that marks him as decidedly unworthy of the office.

Rick Santorum, on the other hand, is as stark a contrast to Mitt Romney as you'll find for another candidate nominally in the same political party. Though the former US Senator's record may be light on concrete accomplishments, no one could plausibly suggest that he lacks conviction or the initiative to speak his mind. This is never more true than when it comes to expressing the most alarming of social views. While other GOP candidates, especially Romney, have faced criticism for shifting views on various social and moral issues, you always know where Santorum stands. This combination of a relatively thin resume and views that felt outdated decades ago, let alone today, has made him something of an easy target for anyone to his political left (i.e. anyone more moderate than Mike Huckabee).

At the most extreme, in terms of both political leaning and poor taste, is the infamous "Google problem". It's telling that, despite the large-scale mainstream coverage of his campaign, Santorum still can't disassociate himself from the scatological use of his name that his insensitive comments about homosexuality provoked. Even putting the "Google problem" aside, there are currently as many top search results about him cursing at a New York Times reporter as there are about his policies and achievements. You don't have to go too much further down the list to read about his time in congress and connection to the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere".

What's left is a candidate who brings to mind the story of how Oliver Wendell Holmes characterized one of the Roosevelts (sources differ on whether it was TR or FDR) having a second-class intellect but a first-rate temperament. Even his fiercest supporters would be hard-pressed to claim that he rise above (or even reaches) second-class in either field. In short, he's Rick Perry with better debate skills and is perhaps the first plausible presidential candidate in the nuclear era who you could believe would press the red button to fulfill a prophecy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.