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Why Are There So Few Santorum Endorsements?

Jonathan Bernstein explains why Santorum’s lack of many high-profile endorsements matters: But endorsements are also bets that a particular candidate will do well (it’s rare for there to be any incentive to back a likely loser), and they’re bets made by people with inside information. Senators, governors and members of the House either know each […]

Jonathan Bernstein explains why Santorum’s lack of many high-profile endorsements matters:

But endorsements are also bets that a particular candidate will do well (it’s rare for there to be any incentive to back a likely loser), and they’re bets made by people with inside information. Senators, governors and members of the House either know each of the serious presidential candidates personally or, at most, are at just one remove from them. The governors of Michigan and Arizona probably have someone they trust who has worked with Rick Santorum and has strong opinions about him. And what they’re hearing, apparently, isn’t anything good for Santorum. And it’s not just them: The key indicator here is that even those who are publicly complaining about the lack of a solidly conservative candidate just haven’t shown much interest in supporting Santorum.

Santorum’s collapse has been similar to Gingrich’s, and the two have similar causes. Gingrich is a more extreme example of a politician whose former colleagues have nothing good to say about him, but Santorum also acquired an unflattering reputation with his colleagues as an abrasive, grating personality. The verdict of many Republican leaders in Pennsylvania is probably the most damning because they are most familiar with him:

The common critique, however, is of Santorum’s hair-trigger volatility, cruel political maneuverings, dismissiveness and notoriously massive ego.

“He doesn’t have the character, the temperament or the policies to lead,” said Ryan Shafik, a former Santorum intern who now runs Rockwood Strategies political consulting firm in New Cumberland. “He treats people really badly with arrogance and contempt. Yeah, he’s pro-life. Yeah, he’s Mr. Social Conservative. But he is, in my mind, unfit to be president.”

Santorum’s loss in 2006 has added to the list of reasons why there has been so little support for his presidential campaign from elected officials, but the loss in 2006 was in part a product of Santorum’s flaws as a candidate that are now becoming more widely known.

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