Santorum Gains, but Bush Remains Albatross

I probably could have stretched that metaphor, but I'll just stick to the facts:

AP
HARRISBURG -- U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's support of President Bush hurts his chances for re-election next year, Pennsylvania voters said by a 2-1 margin in a poll released today.

More than one-third of all Republicans surveyed in the Quinnipiac University poll also said Mr. Santorum's re-election prospects aren't helped by his support of the president.

The poll showed Democratic state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. leading the two-term Republican incumbent by 50 percent to 38 percent in the 2006 Senate race, compared to a 52-to-34 percent lead in Quinnipiac's October poll. Voters also said they disapprove of Mr. Bush's job performance, 59 percent to 38 percent.

Now, as I've said elsewhere, Santorum has always been too wacky-conservative for PA (running stealth campaigns), and his leading role in the Schiavo mess indelibly demonstrated that to most Pennsylvanians. Even if Bush recovers by 2006, I think Santorum's toast. He simply can't pretend to be just a nice Catholic boy anymore.

BUT:

"President Bush is clearly hurting Santorum in Pennsylvania, and he's still further behind than an incumbent should be entering the campaign year," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Hamden, Conn., university's polling institute. "Santorum's best hope is for a third-party abortion-rights candidate to emerge and pull Democratic votes from Casey."

I don't want this to seem like a "keep quiet, ladies, we're trying to win here" post. I wish to hell that Casey were pro-choice. But he's not. And the reason that he's the front-runner is much more than his abortion position. But the bottom line is that Casey (Sen-PA) is miles better for abortion rights than Santorum. This isn't a case of putting principles aside for power. It's a case of not letting the perfect (a broadly-popular, pro-choice candidate - who doesn't exist in PA right now) be the enemy of the good.