I don’t dislike Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich and if either of them were the GOP nominee I would happily vote for him against Barack Obama.  And there’s no question that either of them argue splendidly for so many of the mainstream conservative positions on a wide range of issues we care about.

I’m voting for Rick Santorum for President here in Pennsylvania on April 24 because he best articulates our issues and isn’t afraid to speak to the forgotten values voters of the GOP who have been the so often forgotten group yet who vote, work for and donate for every candidate we put up against leftists for the past generation.

I’m for Rick Santorum because above any other issue or quality people in America vote by wide margins for the people they think are good men and women, who live by the principles they espouse, and who are guided by their faith and who, however they stumble and sin, always return to the course set by their moral compass.

I’m for Rick Santorum, not because he merely speaks to the issues but has lived his life in accordance with those principles.

I’m for Santorum not because he has the best voting or track record but because on the issues we conservatives have cared about the most while he was a U.S. Senator, everyone active in our cause knew he was the “go to” guy who could be counted on not just to vote right but to do the behind the scenes work that helps you win.

I’m not “against” Romney or Gingrich.  I am sick and tired of hearing those candidates or their supporters get excessively zealous in extolling the negatives of their competitors.

Yes I already know that Obama can claim some of his ObamaCare ideas – particularly the idea of a “mandate” – came from Romneycare.  And I don’t like it.   I know that Romney has done very little to make the leadership of the conservative cause – national security and economics conservatives but most especially the values voters who he feels don’t trust him – feel comfortable with him.  I know he hasn’t reached out as he should have.

Yes I already know about Newt Gingrich’s indiscretions in his life – what he and Catholics call sin – and also that this is his past, not his present.  More important, I already know that Newt as House Speaker actually cut down some conservative movement initiatives and had the mentality that we could fund activities from the federal government that would get our majority reelected.

I know Gingrich made many of our most important conservative leaders very angry and frustrated to the point that when he stumbled, they deserted him and forced him to resign.

And yes, I already know that Rick Santorum’s labor record wasn’t perfect – even though big labor in Pennsylvania always vigorously opposed him in every election.   And I know that you should never speak about your faith or your belief in Jesus Christ, or refer to the “centrality of faith in your life.”

I know that every one of our three mainstream conservative candidates has issues that conservatives can argue disqualify them.  I don’t buy it.  Any of them would be much better watching on TV, and reading their words in the newspapers, and listening to them on the radio, and seeing and hearing about them every time I connect my computer to the internet for the next four years, than the current occupant of our White House.

It seems every time we hear Barack Obama speak it is some new attack on the free enterprise capitalist system, a new attack on our Constitution, a fresh assault on our institutions, a new justification for socialism.  Or all of the above.

I don’t want to see an entire generation growing up with that kind of influence in their lives so I’m voting for Rick Santorum and whether he wins or loses on April 24 here in Pennsylvania, I’m voting against Barack Obama and for the Republican nominee for President in 2012.

I’m not going to listen to brand new Tea Party activists to tell me who to vote for, to tell me who they think stinks, when they admit they slumbered through the election of Barack Obama and did nothing to stop Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from winning such enormous majorities in the House and Senate and helping Obama begin his work to “transform” America.

I respect the newcomers but so many of them – often the loudest of them – are ignorant of history, need to spend a little more time reading the constitution and learning about the Christian faith of the founding fathers, learn about the giants of the conservative cause upon whose shoulders they are standing and above all, they should stop sounding so danged bitter and angry, smile a little more, and offer constructive alternatives and make a better effort to play nicely with the other kids who were already in the sandbox they are claiming leadership of.  If they make that effort they’ll find they are very welcome, their meetings will stop shrinking and they will have much more influence in America in the future.

And I most certainly am not going to listen to people whose websites and facebook pages constantly remind their followers that we are not conservatives, who constantly  proclaim their hatred of  the establishment, the bankers, the corporations, Wall Street, the Jews, the Zionists, the Republicans, the neocons, the military. They sound like Occupy Wall Street, like the anti-war, pro-drug, hateful leftists of the 1970′s who always complained about “the establishment” and who wanted to “tear it all down.”

They come into our  midst for the sole purpose of proclaiming their hatred of so much that we conservatives believe, and when they do not get their way in the party which is most hospitable to us, they storm out of “our room” and vote for another candidate.  I trust them only when they say they are not of our cause and hate us.

No, I’m not speaking of lower case “L” libertarians who I very much like and listen to carefully – they are people who I do listen to even if I don’t always agree with them.

Whether it is their concerns about the Patriot Act and its setting aside of the 4th amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, or their concerns about setting up a national “E-Verify” system to stop illegal immigration.

They raise valid points worthy of consideration by all of us who love freedom.

And for all the arguments in favor of E-Verify I surely am concerned about any proposal to require the federal government’s “permission” before an employer is allowed to hire me, and worried about allowing police officers to stop people without probable cause, if they are suspicious abut whether or not you have proper insurance (yes that was in legislation in one state).

I do not know how a free people could be willing to tolerate “sobriety checkpoints” to allow police officers to ignore the fourth amendment because nowhere do the Bill of Rights give government the right to exempt themselves from the restraints on their authority to steal our freedoms.

On these and many other issues I’m very much open to considering ideas from “lower case L” libertarians and to working with them on those issues where we agree.

But people who proclaim their hatred of conservatism and conservatives, should not have any influence on you and me, except to note that they hate Rick Santorum more than anyone else running for President including Barack Obama and their reverse endorsement alone should be sufficient argument for us all to vote for Santorum.

I’m not impressed with those who argue that voting for someone other than their Third Party Champion temporarily GOP candidate for President is a sellout to liberal Republicans.

Those who shout at us that we are selling out to liberal Republicans like that are the same people who never walk the precincts for conservative challengers, make the phone calls, write out the donation checks and in between elections stand shoulder to shoulder using the full range of tools available to each and every one of us to influence public policy as American citizens.

They are on the scene for the sole purpose of trying to confuse us, divide us and defeat Republicans – and so they are the ally of liberal Democrats whose hatred of and smears against conservatives they often emulate.

I’m for Rick Santorum because even what so many consider his weakness, is to me, his defining strength, his willingness to defy liberal-left orthodoxy by whatever name it calls itself, and clearly say that the centrality of faith is foremost on his mind and in his heart when he stands up in the public policy process to articulate his views.

I respect the conservative leaders who counsel us to vote for Romney or Gingrich, and I pray that we will all keep in mind that our minor divisions during this primary – which will soon end – are as nothing compared to the urgent need to remove Barack Obama as President and bring to an end his domination of the Congress and the courts.

I will proudly vote for Rick Santorum just like the Reaganites of old who worked their hearts out for him in 1976 and again in 1980.

They didn’t care so much whether Reagan won or not – it wasn’t what influenced them to make their stand with him.

Those old Reaganites knew that when their children and their children’s children asked, if God forbid today is the high water mark of freedom in the United States, what did you do Grandpa, to stop this from happening, you’ll have an answer to give them that enables you to hold your head up high and not be embarrassed.

If years from now it is but a distant memory what the Constitution actually meant and what freedom actually was, and my kids and grandkids ask me, I’ll tell them there was a fellow who, however imperfect, represented the last best hope for our cause, spoke most clearly to our vision of freedom and right, and your grandpa donated money to him, voted for him in Pennsylvania and took every chance he could find to write to influence others, to join me now in standing with Rick Santorum.

I hope I’ll never have that conversation with my kids or grandkids but instead can tell them, there once was a threat so bad, a darkness so close to extinguishing the light, that it is hard for you kids to imagine it.

And I pray that God willing I will be there to tell them, that we overcame so many arrayed against us.  I pray we will turn back those who demanded that we who know right from wrong, who unashamedly articulate our belief in God, who have true courage, must be driven out of public office, discredited, defeated and destroyed.  I pray we all of us will have the opportunity, God willing, to tell our grandkids that this year 2012, Americans looked at our champion, and listened to we who rally to his banner of faith and right.  I pray to my Lord and Savior that He will see fit to summon men and women of courage, to make this stand today, and that together we will be able to tell the next generation, our fellow Americans listened, and saved this, the last best hope for mankind and for freedom on earth.

I do not know whether I’ll be telling my kids and my grandkids, if God allows me to be here, that this today is the high water mark of freedom and that after 2012 we are in fact transformed as Obama says he will do, or will this be the turnaround that saves the American system that has worked so well these past two centuries.

But the issue is in doubt today, so my vote is for Rick Santorum now that it is my turn to vote here in Pennsylvania.

And when this is over and done, whether Rick Santorum is our champion as the GOP nominee or not, I will cheerfully and gladly keep in mind where our enemy is – there on the left – far far to the left – stands the one who with his allies aims to finish the job he has started, with a wrecking ball to the work of the American founding fathers – and our standing together united and facing towards him, may be what decides the issue.

HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do.  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

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