A Sweater Vest and a Blue Collar

With secularization, he argues, comes regulation—which can only lead to corporatization. “What’s happened in Western Europe,” he says, “is the corporatization of the economy. Why? Because Big likes Big. Big Government likes Big Business likes Big Labor.”

In New Hampshire, the exit polls suggested that Santorum’s blue-collar appeal failed to take hold. His numbers among middle-income voters, non-college-educated voters, and voters in small towns—the people at the center of his pitch—were indistinguishable from his total. The only groups with whom Santorum showed real strength were voters who identified themselves as strong conservatives or said that social issues were important—the voters he’d already connected with in Iowa.

If Santorum is going to break out of this box and become a serious alter-native to Romney, he has a lot of work to do.

Jonathan V. Last is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.