All things considered, that’s a remarkably friendly profile of Rick Santorum on the pre-campaign trail in the Washington Post today. It includes this:
His had been an against-the-odds success story. The first true conservative whom Pennsylvania had sent to the Senate since 1952, he even landed a spot in the Senate GOP leadership. But his luck and his political skills ran out in 2006, a bad year to be a Republican and an especially bad one to be challenged by the moderate son of a popular former governor.
…
Then there’s the fact that the Republican establishment may not be in the driver’s seat this time. And the other fact that Santorum was a tea party kind of guy before there was a tea party.
And since they brought it up, he was right.