On Monday afternoon, Rick Santorum will visit a 159-year-old schoolhouse regarded as the historical birthplace of the Republican Party, a building with the history of the antebellum struggle with slavery in American ingrained in its walls.
[See a collection of political cartoons on Rick Santorum.]
The story of the Little White School House in Ripon, Wis. and the foundation of the Republican Party goes back to 1854, when Alvan Bovay—an attorney from New York who had recently settled in the young town—held a meeting to express outrage over the recent passage of Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was widely seen as a victory for the pro-slavery movement. At the meeting, the Whigs and Free Soil Party members in the area dissolved their allegiances and formed a new party to be called the "Republican" Party, with the aim of championing abolition.
Throughout his campaign, Santorum has frequently looked back at history in hopes of making some of his own. He carries a copy of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with him everywhere he goes, a fact he is not shy to mention. He spent the night of the Illinois primary—a contest he lost to Mitt Romney—in Gettysburg, Pa. talking about how the current election is the most important one since before the Civil War. He set off controversies when he talked about wanting to "throw up" after reading John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on the separation of church and state and when he said Americans are hopeful Obama will get better as time goes on just as the world thought Hitler might not be such a bad guy. He regularly paints himself in the small government, social conservative image of his hero, Ronald Reagan.
[Read Republicans Coalescing Around Romney, Finally.]
Santorum and his GOP rivals have repeatedly talked about "the soul of the Republican Party" during the campaign, and his visit to the Little White School House will provide the platform for a last-ditch effort to frame the upcoming election—and Mitt Romney's nomination—as a historical crisis for the conservative cause within the party. He will need all of the help he can get, as the latest numbers out of Public Policy Polling show Romney with ahead in Wisconsin by seven points.
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Alex of WI 4:30PM April 02, 2012