WashPost's Nia-Malika Henderson Sees Political Doom for 'Strident' Santorum and 'Pandering' Romney

February 27th, 2012 1:32 PM

On Thursday night’s Al Sharpton show, Washington Post political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson spouted that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are “overwhelmingly” hurting Republicans in the general election by seeking out conservative voters on cultural issues.

On the front page of Monday’s Post, Henderson was at it again, suggesting “Santorum’s strident rhetoric comes as his advantages in the polls, both in Michigan and nationally, have shrunk,” and the story ends with a GOP strategist who suggests this is not a winning way to grab independents.

The story began: “Rick Santorum has opened up a new and provocative front in the political culture wars as he boldly tries to cast the race for the White House as a battle between the secular and the religious.”

Do you ever notice that Democrats never “open up new and provocative fronts in the culture wars” when they push gay marriage or oppose the slightest intrusion on untrammeled abortions? They never threaten their hold on vaunted independents by veering hard left on cultural issues?

Then it's funny to click on the Reverend Al Sharpton's show and watch the assembled disparage people bringing up God with their politics. The first words out of Henderson's mouth on Friday night's "Politics Nation" program showed her warm friendship with Sharpton: "It's great to be here, Rev."

Sharpton asked why the Republicans aren't focusing on jobs rather than tangential issues like abortion. Henderson was more dismissive of the Republicans than she is in the paper:

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON; You saw a resurgent Rick Santorum over the last week and that surge was powered in many ways by his talking about contraception. By him talking about this Catholic Church controversy. And so then you have Romney trying to make some inroads with that as well.

But I do think overwhelmingly this will hurt them in the general. In some ways it was fitting it was in Arizona. Arizona is going to be a state that's going to be about 16 percent of the voting population will be Latino come this fall. And they are going to have 11 electoral votes. That`s up one from last time. And you have a White House I think it`s very much concentrating on this western collection of states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

And then for Mitt Romney who looks like he's a stronger candidate at this point. And I think the White House views him as the presumptive nominee. You have a candidate who in some ways you saw him sort of softening his rhetoric on the Latino issues and in terms of immigration.

But then again you heard him pandering, calling Arizona a model for immigration. I think it is a model in some ways. It's a model for alienating the Hispanic vote. Republicans have to figure out how they're going to move to the center come the general election in November.

Henderson and the Posties – the newspaper who casually described conservative Christians as “poor, uneducated, and easy to command” – think Santorum’s God talk is going to be a big problem.


Santorum and his aides insist it is the media that focuses on social issues, but the candidate spent an hour Saturday lecturing to a group of about 1,000 people in a church auditorium in Hixon, Tenn., about the dangers of a feel-good culture.

“True happiness comes from doing God’s will,” he said as the audience at Central Baptist Church cheered and gave him a nearly minute-long standing ovation. “It comes from not doing what you want to do, but doing what you ought to do.”

At a rally Sunday evening in Davison, Mich., that opened with a prayer and gospel hymns, Santorum was introduced as a “man who knows a nation cannot rise without God’s aid.”