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Go Home A College Paper by Rick Santorum—And What It Says About...

POLITICS FEBRUARY 28, 2012

A College Paper by Rick Santorum—And What It Says About His Political Evolution

BY MOLLY REDDEN

This past weekend, Rick Santorum briefly elevated his college years to a focal point of his campaign. “I went through it at Penn State,” he said Sunday. “You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed.” He added that he “went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views.”

As it turned out, I had spent much of the past week talking to people from Santorum’s past, including several of his college friends and professors. One of the professors I had been speaking to—political scientist Bob O’Connor, who taught Santorum in four different classes—thought his allegation was absurd. “He really has a rich fantasy life,” O’Connor told me yesterday via email. “PSU in the 1970s was not exactly Berkeley. I resent this sort of accusation [that] I and my colleagues graded students on the basis of their political attitudes. Ridiculous.”

But whether or not Santorum received lower grades because of his conservatism, there remains the broader question of what his college years were really like. Recently, O’Connor gave me a piece of evidence that bears on this question: a 17-page term paper Santorum wrote during his senior year, which O’Connor oversaw as part of an independent study. (You can read the whole thing here.)

The paper was about the rising influence of political action committees (PACs) in Pennsylvania politics. Santorum and his co-author interviewed dozens of Congressmen, staffers, and political operatives to produce a survey of PACs’ goals, operations, and impact. Their findings included: “The money, potential manpower, and, in some cases, political expertise that PACs provide can decide who wins an election. This is a high trump that the lobbyist for the parent organization can and will play to enhance his position with a legislator.” The effect of PACs on legislation was currently minimal, Santorum and his partner concluded, but the potential impact was huge: “It is our belief that with the advent of the independent candidate and voter, and the resulting decline of the party system, this state seems destined to be increasingly influenced by special interests.” Their conclusion seems to warn that this will not be a good development for democracy: “Efforts of groups like Common Cause attack only the symtoms of the real problem at hand, the survival of the political system as we know it,” they argued. “It will take a change in the attitudes of Pennsylvanians to reverse this movement. The day of interest group pluralism is dawning in Pennsylvania.”

The tone of the paper is mostly restrained and methodical, though in a few cases what sounds like it could be a hint of Santorum’s overly dramatic rhetorical style—today his political signature—seems to come through. (“A PAC must neither be a political whore, selling itself to winning candidates, nor, a political martyr, dying on the cross of ideological purity,” reads one passage.)

But more significantly, the paper, with its detailed discussion of the process of politics, is arguably the latest confirmation of something that the media has lately begun to discover, or rather rediscover, about Santorum: The man who is arguably America’s foremost culture warrior was—for much of his early career, including his four years at Penn State—less an ideologue than a political tactician.

This was one of the themes of a 1995 Philadelphia magazine piece, which abounded with evidence that Santorum came late to the hyper-conservative wing of the GOP. That piece was recently given new life by The Huffington Post, which reminded readers of the article’s rather shocking quote from Santorum: “I was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress.” It was also one of the themes of a Philadelphia City Paper article from 2005, in which a friend from college, Phil English (later a congressman from Pennsylvania), said, “He was outspoken and aggressive but had a populist approach—less about issues and more about getting people involved.” The article quoted Tom Feeney, also a college friend (and later a congressman from Florida), to similar effect. “He had Republican values,” Feeney said. “But it’s not like he was running around leading conservative jihads or anything.” And Santorum himself admitted as much to NPR this past May, saying that his early interest in politics wasn’t mainly a matter of ideology. “I was generally conservative, I was generally Republican,” he said. “But I was more of a political operative than I was someone who had strong convictions about issues.” 

My own conversations with people who knew Santorum in college support this view. Bob O’Connor—who in 1994 told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I have never had a student so blindly ambitious”—told me, “He was a very memorable student because he was an unusual one.” Even in policy-oriented classes, like American Local Government and Administration, “he didn’t ask a whole lot of questions, or talk, about policy and policy positions and what would work best. He did ask an unusual amount about what policies would be more popular, rather than engage in debate about trade-offs, and what would be more effective, and why.”

Santorum had ended up leading the Penn State College Republicans, thanks in part to a freshman year class (Intro to American Politics) with James Eisenstein. As Santorum tells the story, a requirement of the course was that students either had to work for a political campaign, or buy and read a newspaper every day and critique its political coverage. Santorum jokes that because he was too cheap to purchase a paper daily, he opted to work for a campaign, and picked the Senate bid of “the only guy I’d heard of,” Republican John Heinz.

Eisenstein remembers things slightly differently. “I listed a whole bunch of campaigns, Republican campaigns, Democrat campaigns, candidates at all levels of government, voter registration drives—there were a whole lot of choices,” he told me. “But one day, a student, this is Rick, comes up to me after class and says, ‘I want to work on Heinz’s Senate campaign on campus, but there isn’t a campaign on campus.’ He was clearly frustrated.” Eisenstein encouraged Santorum to start one, and Santorum did: He called the Heinz campaign in Harrisburg, presented his mission, and within weeks was blanketing the campus with Heinz campaign posters.

His energy caught the eye of the national College Republican organization. Sometime after the Heinz campaign, the College Republicans dispatched English—their Pennsylvania chairman—to Penn State to convince Santorum to set up a permanent campus arm (it had been defunct for some time). English found out where Santorum lived, knocked on the door of his dormitory, and made his pitch. “He was immediately interested,” English recalls. The two had a 45-minute conversation, in which English remembers Santorum asking a lot of questions about how Republicans could better target students who weren’t interested in the GOP. Ultimately, Santorum committed to reinvigorating the Penn State chapter of the College Republicans. “I don’t think he put a premium on social issues the way he [later] did,” English recalls today. “I think in broad strokes he was conservative, but he was not strongly ideological.”

Tom Feeney notes that Santorum became the go-to guy at Penn State for state-level Republican candidates looking for college canvassers and phone bank volunteers; but he says his interest was more in political maneuvering than in policy. “Rick remained more of a strategist, consultant, and operative than necessarily passionate about issues,” Feeney told me. “I was more of a philosophical conservative, a free market advocate … whereas Rick was more interested in microtargeting, how to speak to specific voters on specific issues. For a young guy, he was very focused on politics. He wasn’t leading any cutting-edge far-right conservative movement. He was a strategist and tactician.”

When I spoke to O’Connor, he elaborated on a story NPR had mentioned back in May. Once, he said, “Rick asked me, would he do better as a Republican or a Democrat? I said Republican, given that back then, your ambitious and bright students were not Republicans.” O’Connor added that he does not believe Santorum would be a liberal Democrat today if he had responded differently; it was already clear that he at least leaned right. When I asked why he thought Santorum had bothered to ask the question in that case, O’Connor said he didn’t know. “I guess you’d have to ask him,” he replied. (The Santorum campaign did not respond when I contacted them about this article.)

The side of Santorum that came through most clearly at Penn State—the side that cared more about politics than about ideology—would eventually go into eclipse as he became something of a national spokesman for the Christian right; but that side of him continued to be visible for years after he left college. Charlie Kelly, who worked as an attorney at the same law firm as Santorum, told me, “I’ve always been, as his life has gone on, much more engaged by Santorum the campaigner than Santorum the politician.” Kelly remembers clearly the night Santorum told him he was running for Congress—a race that he won in 1990. “He had this big grin on his face,” he says. “He was so happy, contemplating the campaign he was going to run. Over the years, I’ve never seen him so happy as when he’s on a campaign.” 

Molly Redden is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.

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27 comments

Santorum is telling the conservative martyrdom myth that resonates so well with right wing and fundamentalist audiences who live to think about themselves as the put-upon victims of liberal society taking one for the faith. I am about the same age as Santorum and went through my renegade conservative period as well during the liberal 1970s when I was the token conservative columnist on my college paper. And I was so despised by the other liberals that I got punished for my apostasy by getting named the paper's editor.

- TedFrier

February 28, 2012 at 6:50am

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This is an excellent post. Along with providing their financial information, every Presidential candidate should be required to provide examples of their college papers. When I was in graduate school in the 1970s at the University of Washington as an English major (before I switched fields of study), I made extra cash by working as a “reader,” grading papers for a professor (who had been once persecuted because of his left-wing views). (The professor, a nice guy, was in his last year of teaching, and failing a bit in mental and physical health. He was very glad to let me handle the grading, and handle dealing with students unhappy with their grades.) One paper I graded was borderline between A- and B+. I agonized over it. Although it was on literature, it included quite a bit of right wing rhetoric. (The topic was a political-themed novel; I forget which one.) I thought it a little over the top and a little obsessed with conservatism, though it was prettya pretty good term paper. So I plopped for a B+. The student asked to see me a few weeks later. He brought a copy of another paper by another student, a paper I had given a grade of A- to. He said something to the effect of, “This [second paper] is no better than mine. You gave it an A-. You gave my paper a B+. I think you downgraded my paper because my political views. I think you are prejudiced against me because I am a conservative.” What do you think I did as a response? [I forget the student's name, but I am pretty sure he is not a GOP Presidential candidate today.] Anyway, if you had been in my position, what would you have done?

- skahn

February 28, 2012 at 9:12am

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Skahn, I know I don't need to tell you this, but conservatives demand to be judged according to liberal standards of open-mindedness and even-handedness which their own right wing conformist ideology will not permit them to extend to others outside their "tribe." Criticism of Christian right bigotry against gays always gets translated as persecution of Christians for upholding Judeo-Christian values. Or liberals are called hypocrites for not being more tolerant of intolerance. Just the other day on Fox, Bill O'Reilly tried to do damage control for Rick Santorum's stunningly stupid remarks on birth control -- not by attacking Santorum for his views -- but by saying Santorum should never express those view in public because "he will never get a fair shake in the liberal media." That is how Fox News seamlessly does damage control by refocusing its audience's attention away from GOP idiocy and towards the more convenient media target that the Fox audience already knows can never be trusted. Conservatives, being ideologues, will not believe there are any impartial standards by which they or their ideas can be judged by outsiders. Strange for conservatives, but they have obliterated the whole idea of "standards" or "principles" other than ideological commitments when it comes to politics. You are either for them, or against them. This extends even to conservative intellectuals like George Will and Charles Kruathammer. A year or so ago the two of them wrote columns within a week of each other basicaly saying that liberals were condescending elitist snobs who refuse to give respect to dissenting conservative points of view. Both went through the long list of examples where liberals had in fact treated conservative ideas with contempt -- Richard Hofstadter calling conservatism "paranoid" for example. But what both columns shared in common was that neither provided a specific example of a conservative idea that liberals had dismissed out of hand so that readers might judge for themselves whether contempt was the proper response. In Will's case it went to hilarious extremes as he, as a conservative aristocrat, tried to shoot down Sarah Palin and her brand of provincial populism as not ready for prime time. But since he also had to curry favor with the right wing Post readership Will also took a few pot shots at those liberal elitists at Harvard who look down their nose at Palin. Thus Will produced an argument in which George Will thinks Sarah Palin is a dunce who belongs nowhere near political power -- and any liberal who agrees with him is just a condesending snob! I would have stuck to my guns and given the guy a B+

- TedFrier

February 28, 2012 at 9:59am

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skahn, It's not political, but my father told the story of how he lost his perfect grade average at Tulane by turning in a paper on the Achafalaya vs Mississippi rivers and how dredging was endangering lower Louisiana (this was circa 1940). The professor told him the paper was well written, but still gave him a B because is was so 'boring' (ha ha on him, but he must have been long gone by 2005, but so, alas, was my father). I was more fortunate: I took philosophy classes for fun, and wrote about cats because I wanted to do that too. I think I got graded up. My point is the 'appeal' of a paper is part of a paper. If the student was bludgeoning and not persuading you with his views, that is a point off. I do think he was quite justified in making his paper more interesting (if it was more interesting) by going beyond the scope of what was required.

- polijunky

February 28, 2012 at 10:34am

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Santorum says: "“You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed.” I would amend that to read "You talk to most people with a gigantic chip on their shoulder, who are constantly looking for evidence that others look down on them, and you will find that they believe that they are persecuted and ridiculed. Self-pity feeds on itself, the more you look for evidence of persecution, the more you'll find. Why, if you try hard enough, you can even come to believe that you're being persecuted for being a Christian, in the most religious, predominately Christian nation on earth."

- GeoffG

February 28, 2012 at 11:40am

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Skahn -- for me, it would depend on the extent to which the political rhetoric was relevant. If the student got distracted by it to the detriment of actually analyzing the assigned text, I'd have to grade down. Of course, I'd like to think I'd do that no matter what the brand of political content. As it happens, I'm writing from a fairly conservative-friendly Catholic school, where I often need to gently remind students not to substitute religious beliefs for evidence-based argument. It's tricky.

- frippo

February 28, 2012 at 12:12pm

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How can someone possible be insulted by a liberal? They are inept, inane, parasitic creates who do less, create less, make less and are less than private sector conservatives (within the context of US society) They believe in a large active Government because it is in their self-interest as a public sector parasite. They contribute the least to society across a wide range of areas --- least in net taxes, front-line soldiers, small business owners, married couples, donations to charity (secular), ....... Most suffer from chronic cognitive dissonance with an elevated sense of self-worth in the face of their failings.

- mr_rationale

February 28, 2012 at 12:38pm

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I find it worth noting that anti-Obama ideologues have complained at length about the unwillingness of Obama and/or Columbia/Harvard to release his transcripts and/or college work (I am, admittedly, not sure of the details surrounding this, but the complaints are, I think, generally known.) In the case of this article, a Penn State professor hands an example of a politician's past academic work to a journalist who then publicizes it. Now, on the face of it, that seems like a discrepancy. Are there mitigating factors? When is a professor authorized to hand out the work of former student? Frankly, I don't much like the idea.

- ccarrick@vzavenue.net-old

February 28, 2012 at 12:47pm

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I read the first few paragraphs os S's paper. I used to as a T.A. Teach first year college English. Different subject here, I know but this paper seemed pretty good and well written for an undergraduate.

- basman

February 28, 2012 at 12:51pm

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Skahn, I would have left the mark as a B+ and explained it was the overheated political rhetoric, unnecessary to the argument of the paper, that affected the mark, and that would've been the same had the rhetoric come from the left.

- basman

February 28, 2012 at 12:55pm

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Xenophon's question is a legitimate one, but I think there is a difference between papers, which are fairly obviously not confidential, and grades, which are. In my school you would (I think) get into trouble for showing someone a paper that had a grade on it, which (especially if it were class grade for the semester) would be the same as revealing an academic transcript. With respect to the conservative student, if the political matter emerged out of a discussion of the text and/or topic under examination, then it seems reasonable to consider it appropriate commentary and not as a problem that impacts the paper grade. I have taught David Hare's Stuff Happens a couple of times and students who admitted to being supporters of the Iraq invasion were often surprised to discover I didn't mark them down for their opinions if they did their bit and read the play without prejudice.

- ironyroad

February 28, 2012 at 2:12pm

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"They are inept, inane, parasitic creates who do less, create less, make less and are less than private sector conservatives (within the context of US society)" Rat, do you honestly believe that all private sector employees are conservative? What kind of a moron are you?

- NR409654

February 28, 2012 at 2:28pm

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Irony, you're my last best hope: "impact" as a transitive verb? No, say it isn't so!

- basman

February 28, 2012 at 2:33pm

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I appreciate all the responses to my comment and my question about grading. I have a preliminary answer, then the real answer, then another irrelevant answer. This is the preliminary answer (which you are welcome to skip). First of all, during all the time I was a high school student, college student (and later, for a while, high school teacher) I was bemused by the nuttiness of the “credit” system and the “grading” system. [I fear I was a incipient “ethical nihilist” even in those days.] In math and science classes I took, grades seemed fairly “objective,” but in humanities classes they seemed frighteningly subjective. In at least one English class I took as a college student, a nasty professor, a spiteful dolt with a doctorate, tossed out a five second throwaway crack about how every English major should read the Bible and that we should all be familiar with Ecclesiastes (“A time for everything”). Nobody paid any attention. I had read the Bible as a child, but by no means did I have the passage handy in my memory bank in any "exam ready" form. Naturally, as part of the “gotcha” games this prof played, she made an essay about Ecclisastes 1/3 of the grade of a mid-term “blue book” exam. I knew how she graded, however; less was more in her mind, and every error was a demerit. So everyone tried to fake it with pages of bullshit. I wrote about the shortest answer, but I made sure that nothing I said was demonstrably false. Just about everyone in the class got a flunking grade. I got an A. In fact she read my test answer to the class as an example of a student who had not tried to fake. As she did not (fortunately) say my name to the class, I kept a straight face, and tried not to throw up. No one ever knew that I got an A by being the best faker.

- skahn

February 28, 2012 at 2:48pm

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OK, here is what I did in regard to the grade for the student who had written a pretty good paper but had larded it with a slight excess of right wing political rhetoric and who had found a very comparable paper which got an A-. I read both papers carefully. I invited him to lunch at the “Hub.”(I did not buy him lunch.) In my mind, I thought This is not the hill I want to die on.. I said, “I admire your ingenuity and effort in finding a comparable paper to make your case that your grade is too low. I appreciate that you approached me on this politely and reasonably. As I am grading the papers for the class, the line between a D and a C and a B and an A seem pretty clear, but when it gets to making a decision between a B+ and an A- the line becomes very difficult to find. In general, your paper was pertinent and well written, but the political editorializing took your paper a bit away from the nature of the class. Frankly, however, the “appeal court” [which happen to be me], rules in your favor. I am changing your grade to A-. However, I suggest that if grades are that important to you, that you tone down the extraneous editorializing a bit, or take more classes in political science and fewer in literature, if that is your main interest in life.” We then had a pleasant and agreeable lunch and chatted amiably about our favorite science fiction writers. (We both liked Jack Vance quite a bit.) His name was not Rick Santorum, I am sure.

- skahn

February 28, 2012 at 2:53pm

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A third story about the nuttiness of college and grading. You are also welcome to skip it also. As I've mentioned, the professor was old and somewhat failing. [Something that applies to none of us here, of course]. His lectures were not awful, but he was running on fumes a bit. I graded one paper (obviously from someone having a “freshman crisis”) that did not even address the assignment but rambled on in a stream of consciousness fashion about taking a class from a senile professor and being bored to death. As far as the class went, the paper should have been an F. If the professor read it, his feelings would have been badly hurt. If I had given it an F, the student might have demanded the professor read it. Trying to be Solomanic about the issue, I tracked down the student's phone number in the dorm, and called him. “Hey,” I said “This paper you wrote just won't do. I can't give you a passing grade on it. If it goes to the professor, it will be very hurtful to him for no good reason. How about you rewrite it so it's a little more on the actual assignment. I will give you a little more time to get it in. I know you are finding the class boring and tiresome, but it's not that bad. If you are really having trouble with college, perhaps you should call the counselling office.”

- skahn

February 28, 2012 at 2:56pm

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"Irony, you're my last best hope: 'impact' as a transitive verb? No, say it isn't so!" basman, I squirm in shame. Squirm! I am at this moment the very picture of abject humiliation. I got into bad company, what can I say?

- ironyroad

February 28, 2012 at 2:57pm

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Okay. But this can never happen again! Any recurrence will mark the end of civilization as we know it.

- basman

February 28, 2012 at 3:11pm

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skahn: Thanks very much for sharing your bits of insight here. I'm all the more struck by it for having just come from the contest grading page (which I apologize in advance for having ruined for others), where I did actually mark Santorum's paper down a couple of points for irritatingly referencing the "Democrat party." The paper is otherwise fairly evenhanded politically, but include content-free wording just meant to aggravate people and I'll mark you down every time. GeoffG: Thank you also for eloquently describing the always-impressive persecution complex both conservatives and Christians suffer from in a nation they overwhelmingly control and influence. Saved me the trouble.

- janus

February 28, 2012 at 3:17pm

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Skahn, why do people like to beat on humanities classes? "In math and science classes I took, grades seemed fairly “objective,” but in humanities classes they seemed frighteningly subjective. In at least one English class I took as a college student, a nasty professor, a spiteful dolt with a doctorate... etc." Now, that's not very scientific to generalize from a single case. Perhaps your professor was a sociopath, but she is not representative of the vast majority of literature professors, who are in fact known for grading generously and giving ample explanation and comments in order to explain and justify their grades. I mean, if you are making a blanket statement about the lack of "objective criteria" in grading, believe me, students feel entitled to do the same; literature professors know therefore that they are subject to more extensive scrutiny than anybody else, and act accordingly. I spend hours going over corrections and discussing papers with my students (yes, I am preaching for my congregation) and I am in one of those publish-or-perish high-pressure universities where professors are alleged to behave like spoiled starlets. What is more, if there were no way to assess fairly the quality of literature papers, then what would be the point of taking a literature class? The whole discipline would be bullshit. (I acknowledge it is, some of the time, but by no means necessarily so).

- Idefix

February 28, 2012 at 3:34pm

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Agreed -- the fact that there are no objective criteria for evaluation as in the sciences or sometimes the social sciences does not mean that there are no criteria for evaluation in the humanities. The criteria are different, and involve such things as familiarity with texts, argumentative logic, rhetorical strategy, ability to see implications, sensitivity to language, and the like. They are indeed qualitative rather than quantitative measures, but the idea is to show students that it's not all a random exercise. The material for study in the humanities (and law) is often language and that is a cultural rather than a natural product; a speech in a Shakespeare play can't be isolated in the way a molecule or a geometric angle can be.

- ironyroad

February 28, 2012 at 3:51pm

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Let me repeat: Republicans are so full of it, that it's coming out of their eyes instead of their ears. I got a B.A. in history and did grad work in the Sixties and Seventies at Wayne State University in "radical" Detroit--at the height of the student unrest in America. I saw no evidence at all of bias on the part of "Leftist" professors or any other kind of professors at WSU. In fact my Soviet History professor, whom the Right would say would have to be a flaming Red, ended up working for the CIA, when he didn't get tenure. And my Eastern European (Communist block) History professor was working for the CIA while he was teaching at Wayne State. My English History professor (from Canada) had written a 2-volume bestselling textbook on English history and was a millionaire while he was teaching at Wayne State. And he imposed no political philosophy at all on us, as the Left might expect him to do. Republicans are living in a made-up world from which they never want to escape. Sooner or later that will catch up with them. Eventually they will lose 3 or 4 presidential elections in a row, and they will be forced to break out of the ideological prison that they themselves built.

- magboy47.

February 28, 2012 at 4:19pm

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Wow, ratster, what's with the caveats all of a sudden? How can someone possible be insulted by a liberal? They are inept, inane, parasitic creates who do less, create less, make less and are less than private sector conservatives (within the context of US society) They believe in a large active Government because it is in their self-interest as a public sector parasite. They contribute the least to society across a wide range of areas --- least in net taxes, front-line soldiers, small business owners, married couples, donations to charity (secular), ....... Most suffer from chronic cognitive dissonance with an elevated sense of self-worth in the face of their failings. Liberals "are inept, inane, parasitic creates who do less, create less, make less and are less than private sector conservatives (within the context of US society)". Does this mean that American liberals are actually making more money and/or contributing more wealth to the global economy? That "private sector conservatives" are making most of their money shuffling it around the American market, while liberals are making money globally and bringing it back home? Also, why the interesting designation of "private sector conservatives" -- is this an admission that "public sector conservatives" like, say, Republican elected officials are also just a bunch of parasites? And then we have the interesting qualification that liberals "contribute the least to society ... in donations to charity (secular)". Does that suggest that liberals actually donate more to religious charities than conservatives do? If you simply compare conservative Rick Santorum to liberal Barack Obama, that certainly seems to be the case. Maybe you are on to something, ratty.

- wildboy

February 28, 2012 at 4:50pm

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Idefix, Your comments are reasonable and pertinent. Most of my humanities professors were good teachers and worked hard to explain their grading system and to grade fairly. However, [sorry for repetition], I describe myself as an “ethical nihilist” as I think all of life is “chickenshit/bullshit, and elephant shit” as Fritz Perls memorably described it. I don't murder, rape, torture, and steal (thus the “ethical”) and as an intelligent animal I survive and reproduce and “putter around” as my wife describes the meaningless activities of life because that is what animals do. I am an empiricist. Physical reality seems to observe “laws” we call science. Moral laws and concepts such as “fairness” are products of evolution and cultural development, but they are not “laws” in the same sense as gravity, the speed of light, and the structure of atoms. Children say at some point, “That's not fair”; adults at some point respond, “Life is not fair.” Nevertheless, most of us (the 95-98% of humans who are not natural or cultured sociopaths) strive to make life as fair as possible, whether it is in our political-economic system (the most common topic at TNR) or in our academic “grading” system as involves some of the people reading this thread. When I graded I worked hard at grading “fairly.” When a student let his political passions lead him astray a bit in his term paper, I chose to “err” on the side of reasonable mercy as I described. I am sure you do something similar. It's just harder to grade “fairly” in English classes or political sciences than in physics classes or in calculus classes. I assume that you are an excellent professor and that you grade fairly. As I was about half way toward my Masters degree in English, I said to myself, “This is bullshit for me,” and I went into something else. I feared that if I completed my doctorate in English, my classes would become the “night of the living dead,” and I chose not to inflict that on myself or my students to be. I applaud you and every humanities professor who teaches well and grades fairly. Now I live in the woods, satisfy my inner unethical nihilist/sociopath by feeding earthworms and bugs to my (little dinosaur) chickens, and by shooting the occasional bunny and grey squirrel, and I tell my 8-year-old granddaughter that it is OK for her to like to eat meat (which she feels a little uneasy and guilty about) because evolutionarily speaking, she is an omnivore. How many people reading this are vegetarians?

- skahn

February 28, 2012 at 6:22pm

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I think the paper merits about a solid 'B', it makes some interesting conclusions and includes some solid research, but suffers from a poor writing style and some internal contradictions.

- dangibbons

February 28, 2012 at 7:53pm

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On the basis of the college paper which I just read I agree with Molly Redden's view that Santorum was not interested in social issues. It would be hard to guess to what party the writer belonged if one didn't know the name of the writer. The paper's organization could have been tightened and there a few solecisms which indicate it's the work of an undergraduate but otherwise this is a solid piece of work. I was wondering if Santorum had some help in composing the study. One doesn’t often see such well written papers handed in by undergraduates. As for grades, I don’t know if I would have given the paper a B+ or an A- minus. That would depend on the quality of the other papers handed in that semester. I am surprised that this candidate who has degenerate almost into madness seemed to be so rational at one time. It’s as if he became a parody of the candidates who tailored their views to those who back them with cash. In other words he became what he seemed to criticize in his study.

- arnon1

February 28, 2012 at 9:05pm

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I tried to read Santorum's paper. I started to fall asleep. Probably my fault, not his. This is the 150th anniversary of the University of Washington. The local NPR station is running feature stories about its history every day. Today they had a story connected to my story. In the 1940s, the UW had a witch hunting episode hunting for Communists on the faculty. This may have been one of the earliest anti-Communist witch hunting scandals, pre-dating the HUAC and Senator McCarthy abominations. The professor I worked for (whose name I forget) told at the time I worked for him about suffering terribly on those persecutions. Communism was in fact terrible, and it is a shame that so many on the left in America and elsewhere made excuses for it and whitewashed it. None of that excused the United States behaving terribly and tyrannically in trying to oppose it.

- skahn

February 29, 2012 at 12:23am

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