Santorum. Really?

Santorum

Why bother talking about Santorum at all?

He is deep into a campaign death spiral and if he is so deluded to think he can get the nomination then he is too crazy to serve.    The people behind me in the sparse room, apparently associated with the sponsoring organization, were quietly making phone calls to friends there on the Citadel College campus in the minutes before the start time asking them please, please to show up, that the room needs some people, please.

There may have been an audience of 20, not counting staff, but including people cajoled into showing up.

But Santorum did have something to say I think needs being repeated here.

He said the political focus is on the immigrants and what it means to them.  The focus should be on Americans, and the effect it has on them, and its effect is to lower wages.   He is a populist, open in saying he is targeting the forgotten working men and women of America.m Globalization has put American workers into competition with any foreign worker whose product can be put onto a container ship or whose data can be put onto the internet.  We need to protect American workers from imported competition, he says.   "Supply and demand still work."

Santorum audience

He said that the 6 million people who have overstayed their visa stays should be given 3 months to leave. If they leave in 3 months, they retain the general good graces of the USA. "No harm no foul."  If they don't leave in 3 months we deport them and never let them back in.   He said he expected most to leave, disappointed but not criminalized.

The other 6 million people--those who sneaked in--must leave as well, and they will be people who will bring knowledge of democracy and American practices and perhaps speaking English and they will be a good influence on their countries of birth.  These people are not villains; they are ambassadors of Americanism, good for the countries they return to.

What is curious about this proposal was that the argument is economic rather than civilizational.   He didn't stigmatize undocumented people as "other" or frightening or unworthy.  Rather they were competition to the people who must be American policymakers' first concern: Americans.

This policy would have the same effect as what Trump is saying and what stirs up Republican crowds, but it says it with the same tone as Hillary or Bernie might use, an odd respect for the people he is deporting.   And we are deporting them not because they are bad or lazy but because they are hardworking and good competition for Americans.   And indeed his policy would likely tend to raise the employability of young and low skilled American workers.  It would likely raise the effective minimum wage, something Democrats support.

He said not a single word about whether it is practical to deport 6 million people or about its effects on families of mixed citizenship, which I suspect would be total chaos.  Nor did he address the effect of this shift in the labor markets on employers.   So it is an incomplete proposal, addressing the goal, not the difficulty of implementation, just like the other candidates.

Is anyone in the Republican electorate listening?   Apparently no.  Santorum is making an economic argument without stigmatizing the excluded, and it isn't resonating