---- — It’s not often in this world that one gets to say “I told you so,” but, at the risk of looking like a fool by the end of the month, I’m going to say here and now: I told you so.

On Oct. 19, 2011, I made the following prediction, via Facebook post:

“Rick Santorum will be the Republican presidential nominee. Here’s why: Current front runner Herman Cain won’t stay in that position for long as it becomes clear that his simple-minded tax plan will raise taxes on everyone and that he’s black. Mitt Romney’s flip flopping and cult membership make him unacceptable to tea partiers and the Christian Right. Rick Perry, the party’s safety candidate, is too soft on illegals and too dim-witted for even the Republican base. Newt Gingrich is too Newt Gingrichy. Ron Paul is starting to sound like a ... hippie and Michele Bachmann isn’t even worth factoring into the race. Who’s left? Santorum.”

I was joking of course.

At the time Santorum was polling in single digits and it didn’t look like he would be anything but a footnote in the race. You can almost forgive the national media for ignoring Santorum. He lost his last campaign by 18 points against the dullest of opponents and had become an object of ridicule through an elaborate and mean-spirited Internet prank that made his last name synonymous with a substance that shall not be named in a family newspaper.

Santorum looked like a relic of the good/bad-old days of the last Republican revolution. A little Gingrich whose time had come and gone in the last century, now relegated to right-wing think tankery, pro-life pontificating, Fox News punditry and cashing in the chits he collected carrying water in Congress for the 1 percent.

I was pumping him up on social media for a laugh and because, as I detailed in a previous column, I can’t stand the guy so much that I can’t stop thinking about him. As much as I enjoy the fact that his sudden ascent to the top tier of candidates pokes more holes in the already tattered cloak of conventional political wisdom, I’m depressed that a guy like Santorum -- a rigid, intolerant, ignorant, jingoistic, hypocritical ideologue -- is being taken seriously by voters anywhere.

Santorum’s new status, and the boom and bust cycle for all the “Not Romneys” leading up to the Iowa caucuses, demonstrates the weakness of the Republican field. Years, of self-delusion by the party establishment created the mindset that anyone could beat President Obama. While there’s no doubt that the president is a weak sister who spent the first three years of his administration displaying a lack of leadership, backbone and inspiration, kow-towing to his Wall Street and beltway supporters, and demonstrating that a Democrat can shred the Constitution and wage pointless war in the Middle East just as well as the last Republican did, the GOP failed to realize that to upset an incumbent it needs a candidate who actually appeals to people.

No Republican fits that bill. Santorum and Gingrich impress the party’s base, but their appeal outside that closed circle is limited and their baggage is likely too much for the so-called independent voters that we’re told decide elections. That leaves Mitt Romney.

I’ve tried to understand why some really smart people think Romney is the man to beat Obama. He looks presidential and seems self-assured. His resume conveys competence and experience and his political record indicates he’s a pragmatic leader who values results over ideology. But there’s something missing.

A recent Parade magazine profile of Romney left me thinking: He seems like Ward Cleaver without the interesting stuff. There’s no “time in the service” when you know he was getting drunk and making time with island girls in the Pacific, no Depression-era upbringing or Mad Men-esque desperation at the office that underpinned Ward’s wry humor or the hint of darkness that his gray flannel suit and perfect haircut masked but couldn’t completely hide.

That lack of charisma, for lack of a better term, is part of why Republican voters are so reluctant to fall in love with, or even like, the man who is likely to be their standard bearer in November. It’s also part of why Santorum nearly beat Romney in Iowa and stands a good chance of doing the same elsewhere when the race moves to the South.

I can’t say enough bad about Santorum, but he’s got something that all of Romney’s money can’t buy and no avalanche of negative ads or endorsements from the establishment can effectively counter. Call it fire in the belly, a chip on his shoulder, the Holy Spirit or just plain old gumption, but don’t deny its importance in presidential politics.

There are a lot of other factors out there impacting this race - the economy, the Occupy movement's rise and the failure of tea party Republicans to achieve much more than gridlock - but when it comes to choosing a president, voters want to feel something for the candidates they vote for or against.

For all his faults, Santorum has the capacity to excite and enrage voters. So does Obama. The same can’t be said for Romney.



Nick Hildebrand is The Herald’s News Editor/Weekends. Contact him at nhildebrand@sharonherald.com