by Maisie Allison
As Santorum basks in the resurgence of the culture wars, Steve Benen marks the sudden return of "Culture Warrior Mitt." Alec MacGillis points out that this is treacherous ground for Romney:
[D]oes Romney really want to spend much of the months ahead pounding the lectern on religious liberty? That's Santorum's wheelhouse. But for Romney, it cannot help but remind voters that he hails from a religion that, not so long ago, was invoking religious liberty to defend practices that are now deemed utterly unacceptable — polygamy, a century ago, (his own great-grandfather led the way in establishing a Mormon outpost in Mexico to avoid a federal crackdown on polygamy) and more recently the banning of African-Americans from positions of leadership.
Similarly, on yesterday's appeals court ruling against Proposition 8 in California, Romney decried the decision as stridently as anyone, going so far as to imply that the ruling was biased because of a judge's sexual orientation. But if he keeps talking about Prop 8, surely that will mean more attention to the fact that members of his church, to which he has given millions of dollars over the years, spent an estimated $20 million to help pass Prop 8.
Meanwhile, the White House is happy to identify similarities between Obama and Romney's policies on contraception:
[T]he White House is in effect giving Romney a social issues death hug … encouraging a dynamic that could further damage Romney in the GOP nomination process: The better Santorum does, the more social issues will come to dominate. And the more Romney has to move to the right on them, in a campaign he had bet would be all about the economy, and at a time when Romney had hoped to be moderating his image in preparation for the general election. This social issues death hug is similar to the health care death hug that the White House gave Romney some time ago by pointing out the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare. But in some ways social issues could be more problematic.
The Dish 