Rick "centrality of faith" Santorum's challenge of "certain" winner Mitt Romney (2012's Tom Dewey?): I was state (VP Mondale's MN) campaign manager for President Carter's 1980 re-election. Many Democrats were rooting for Gov. Reagan to become the 1980 GOP nominee, believing Reagan to be an unelectable right wing radical (1964 Goldwater champion), "B" (Bedtime for Bonzo)-grade actor candidate who ...had failed in his 1968 & 1976 nomination bids. The 2012 spotlight moves to Illinois on March 20 and returns south to Louisiana on March 24. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, poverty-stricken Louisiana was a hotbed of radicalism (called populist by some and facist by others), embodied by their Democratic governor, then U.S. Sen., Huey P. Long. Teamed with popular radio preacher Father Charles Coughlin, Long was seen as a threat to President Roosevelt's 1936 reelection before Long was assassinated in 1935. Long's masterful stump and broadcast presence had contributed to a charisma that transcended his public rhetoric and stands on issues. Q: Taking a look at the recent GOP exit-poll internals of married women, workers & younger voters--does Sen. Santorum have Huey Long-like, Ronald Reagan-like electoral potential? If so, (we) supporters of President Obama might want to be careful what we wish for where Sen. Santorum is concerned. 02.23.1934, U.S. Sen. Huey P. Long, national radio speech, Every Man a King, details his philosophy (biblical Christianity, anti-elites, pro-economic equity) and platform (redistribution of wealth), excerpts: Is that the right of life, my friends, when young children of this country are being reared into a sphere which is owned more by 12 men than it is by 120,000,000?
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hueyplongking.htm
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If you want to make the argument that the anti-banking, anti-Semitism and racism of Father Coughlin would marry well with the leftist populism of Huey P. Long under the great mantel of Rick Santorum then I think you should try and show the structural underpinnings of how this construct would work. I don't think that leftist populism in the 1930s ever married with ultra-conservative and anti-Wall Street sentiments to elect anyone or influence the selection of a President in either party. It did not produce a third-party movement and each segment remained a miniscule dot on the edge of the political mainstream. I think ill-informed and not very specific historical pundits like the idea of spinning them all together as one anti-establishment movement in opposition to FDR but they were never united as one anything.
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