Is There Life After Politics?
BARNES, FRED
Is There Life After Politics? Yes—more politics. by Fred Barnes Defeated politicians usually slip quietly into obscurity. But Republicans Rick San-torum, the former Pennsylvania senator, and Bob...
...As a result, we will be hearing from them, probably loudly and no doubt clearly...
...He says Bush gave effective speeches on national security early last fall that buttressed his campaign, but "then he stopped...
...After winning elections in a strongly Democratic state—for the legislature, Congress, and governor's office—Ehrlich wants to popularize his strategy for winning as a Republican in states normally unreceptive to Republican candidates...
...That drove Democrats crazy," he says...
...We just thought we could survive...
...Nor have they become lobbyists or signed up for a work-free perch at some Washington institution...
...In the waning weeks of his reelection campaign, Santorum emphasized a different issue...
...Santorum never had a chance...
...To his surprise, Ehrlich was endorsed for reelection by the Washington Post...
...But Republicans Rick San-torum, the former Pennsylvania senator, and Bob Ehrlich, the ex-governor of Maryland, won't be among them...
...and made Maryland a two-party state—for four years anyway...
...War, he said, "is at our doorstep, and it is fueled, figuratively and literally, by Islamic fascism, nurtured and bred in Iran...
...In recent years, Ehrlich and his lieutenant governor, Michael Steele, were the only Republicans to win statewide office in Maryland...
...Ehrlich, 49, who left office last week, may also connect with a law firm...
...It was little help...
...He calls this "right of center but reasonable...
...Santorum may also affiliate with a law firm (he has six children to provide for), but his chief focus is his EPPC effort to create awareness of "America's enemies," which include not only Islamists but also dictators like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Kim Jong Il of North Korea...
...In fact, his defeat deprives the Senate of its most skillful and knowledgeable foe of abortion...
...He is tough and ambitious and less ideological than Santorum...
...He lost despite an approval rating in the 50s...
...Ehrlich's future should be different...
...He lost 59 to 41 percent...
...The threat, he says, "is not obvious to the American people right now...
...He brought several of his Senate staffers with him...
...He's likely to run again or, if Giuliani is elected president, serve in his administration...
...His plans include: giving speeches to nonpartisan and Republican groups, writing a book of political advice, doing radio and TV commentary, helping a Republican presidential candidate (probably Rudy Giuliani, the ex-New York mayor), and trying to strengthen the pathetically weak Republican party of Maryland...
...What happened...
...It consists, in part, of being moderate on social issues and libertarian on economic matters...
...He figures he'd even have lost to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, whom he defeated in 2002...
...He won authorization of a controversial freeway through Washington's northern suburbs, between 1-95 and 1-270...
...They aim to be seen (on TV), heard (radio and speeches), and read (when they finish books...
...As a Republican governor facing lopsided Democratic majorities in the legislature, he and his aides "awakened every morning knowing it was going to be full contact every day, all day," he says...
...Instead of returning to the Baltimore suburbs, he has bought a house in Annapolis, the Maryland capital, and intends to keep some of his top aides with him...
...bill banning partial-birth abortion through the Senate in 2003, a measure now before the Supreme Court...
...He has no plans to return to Pennsylvania and run for public office again...
...We established a marketplace of competing ideas and open debate," he wrote in the Baltimore Sun on January 14...
...But his political activity is likely to overshadow any legal work...
...He is more closely identified with conservative social issues, especially the crusade to curb or ban abortion...
...My greatest wish is that this debate continues despite the return to single-party rule...
...turned a state deficit into a surplus...
...gained approval for charter schools...
...It was Santorum who guided the Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard...
...He delivered several speeches warning about what he called, in a deliberate echo of Churchill, "the gathering storm...
...For now, Ehrlich and Santorum are pursuing a new path and it's not the most lucrative or least rigorous one...
...He came close, losing 53 to 46 percent...
...The speeches attracted attention and drew praise from conservatives, but had little impact on the race...
...George Bush happened," Ehrlich says...
...He relished the fight and recalls his victories fondly, notably the refusal to allow a general tax increase...
...Santorum, 48, has adopted a relatively new cause: the global threat of Islamic extremism...
...Santorum's future is likely to be as a nonelected spokesman for conservative causes...
...The party lacks popular leaders and its state legislators are a tiny minority...
...These two are setting up shop now—Santorum in Washington, Ehrlich in Annapo-lis—to pursue the political causes that marked their time in office...
...Now, rather than return to Pennsylvania, Santorum has joined the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank that specializes in religious and moral issues...
...He stopped engaging the issue and went into political mode...
...And they aren't going into political hibernation in expectation of emerging later to run for office...
...They refuse to take a hiatus from politics...
...Both Ehrlich and Santorum blame President Bush for Republican losses last year...
...The issue "probably hurt me more than it helped," Santorum told me...
...This is a new model for politicians...
...For that reason alone, Ehrlich says, "we have a duty to the party" to stay and fight...
...At that point, [my campaign] was a lost cause...
...Ehrlich was a successful and popular governor...
...They have decided to stay in politics and fight, almost as if they'd won last November...
...Ehrlich concluded that there was no way in a Democratic year for him to win in a solidly Democratic state...
...Some join law firms or become lobbyists and are rarely heard from again...
...He was never ahead in polls and rarely even close to Democrat Bob Casey Jr...
...Our base is small...
Vol. 12 • January 2007 • No. 19
