Rick Santorum – Why Does He Still Appeal To Louisianians?

Rick Santorum will be a guest speaker at the 2013 Gala, a benefit for John Paul the Great Academy.

Santorum is a former two-term member of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, representing the people of Pennsylvania for 16 years. He ran for the U.S. Presidency in 2012, ultimately losing the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney, but lasting long into the race.

So what makes Santorum so attractive to Louisianians, even after falling short in the Republican nomination for the Presidency?

Founder, President and Headmaster of John Paul the Great Academy Dr. Kevin Roberts calls Santorum "an ideal speaker" for the upcoming event. Given this is an event being put on by a Catholic organization, the reasons Dr. Roberts gives for why they picked Santorum shouldn't surprise you:

People know him to be…first and foremost a man of God…a wonderful husband and father and…a man who has been really a model for how we advance what we believe in a charitable, friendly way in the public square.

Over the years, Louisiana has consistently been in the U.S.'s top half of Catholics per 100,000 people. A recent Top 10 showing can be seen in this article. And Santorum identifies himself as a Roman Catholic.

Santorum was known as a very conservative candidate while running for President in 2012. He won the state of Louisiana in the March primary by garnering 49 percent of the vote (46% in Lafayette Parish, where he will be speaking Saturday). Eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney finished second with just under 27% of the vote in the Bayou State. (Ron Paul went on to win the Louisiana Republican Caucus in April.)

Let's look at where Santorum stands on issues that matter most to the people of Louisiana. His stance on Abortion:

I believe that any doctor who performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.

Santorum's stance on the Budget and Economy:

I opposed the single biggest government intrusion into the private sector, the Wall Street bailout, the TARP program. I opposed it because it violated the principles of our Constitution, the spirit of our Constitution, because the experience I had, that if you open up the door of government involvement in the private sector, some president will, and in fact did, drive a truck through it and explode the size of the federal government and constrict our freedom.

Santorum's stance on Education:

The Department of Education is, in my opinion, unnecessary and overseeing a state bureaucracy which is already a big problem.

Santorum's stance on Energy and Oil:

We need to drill. We need to create energy jobs.

And Santorum's stance on Gun Control:

During the Clinton administration...I voted against the gun ban, voted against the assault weapons ban, voted 100% with the NRA.

As you can see, his views line up very well with not only Catholics but most Louisianians, known as a mostly conservative people, regardless of what their faith may be.