By Scott Italiaander

Whatever happens on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning), control of the Senate is not likely to turn on whether Rick Santorum is returned by the voters of Pennsylvania for a third term as that state’s junior U.S. Senator. If you believe the polls, Santorum will have to pull a Truman-esque upset in order to prevail over his lackluster Democrat challenger, State Treasurer and political scion Bob Casey.

So it’s a good thing for Republicans that Rick’s seat is not likely to be the knife-edge on which their hopes for keeping the Senate are balanced. Not that they will necessarily keep the Senate…but if they don’t it’ll be because they lost races a lot closer than the one in Pennsylvania.

But a Santorum loss is decidedly not a good thing for the Senate, for Republicans or for Americans in general.  Rick has been vilified mercilessly by the mainstream press for 12 years, and is the Democrat poster child for all that is extreme about “right-wing zealots.”  And because he is part of the Senate leadership, Rick is Public Enemy #1 as far as the Democratic Senate campaign committee led by Chuck Schumer-- who is determined to take back the Senate for the Dems--is concerned.

Rick is famously anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage, two of the holiest sacraments in the progressive religion. He has made some sharp statements over the years about both subjects, such as the one he made in July 2005 declaring abortion to be crueler than slavery: “…in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."

And the comments he made after the U.S. Supreme Court in effect overturned Texas’ sodomy laws did little to endear him to the Barbara Boxer Left. Santorum argued that under the Court’s reasoning in Lawrence v. Texas, all manner of behavior, from polygamy to bestiality to parent-child and man-boy sex, could arguably be protected as “privacy matters.”

But Rick is adored by conservatives, precisely because is so hated by liberals and even moderates.  If Rick manages to defy the pundits and eke out a win it’ll be because “values voters” in Pennsylvania understand what a loss of Santorum would be to the state and country, and thus turnout in droves. Even that may not be enough, since Rick’s approval ratings are in the 40s--bad news for an incumbent.

If you are Jewish and love Israel, or non-Jewish and love Israel, or you just plain fear the rise of Islamofascism in Iran, the Levant and most specifically in the countries and territories surrounding the Jewish State, then you will miss Santorum if he is gone. Santorum has been a major sponsor of the Syria Accountability Act.  Rick sponsored legislation that would make it more difficult for the Iranian government to use foreign investments to support Islamic terrorism.  He advocates funding for pro-democracy groups who oppose a totalitarian regime and support the advancement of democratic ideals and principles in Iran.

In addition to his sponsorship of legislation that would hold Syria and Iran accountable for their actions, Rick introduced legislation declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization.  And he has worked hard to force the U.S. intelligence agencies to release documents captured in Iraq so we can all see evidence of Saddam’s ties to Islamic terrorism.

Rick’s first act as Senator in 1995 was to support legislation that would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Rick is a great friend of Israel and Jewish Americans, and is also a leader in the fight for religious freedom abroad and religious tolerance at home.

Although Senator Santorum's willingness to speak out about the grave issues confronting Israel, the U.S. and the West may be costing him votes, and may even cost him the election, Rick is willing to pay the ultimate political price for speaking the truth as he sees it.  As Peggy Noonan said in her OpinionJournal piece the other day, entitled “We Need His Kind:”

Mr. Santorum has been at odds with the modernist impulse, or liberalism, or whatever it now and fairly should be called. Most of his own impulses--protect the unprotected, help the helpless, respect the common man--have not been conservative in the way conservative is roughly understood, or portrayed, in the national imagination. If this were the JFK era, his politics would not be called "right wing" but "progressive." He is, at heart, a Catholic social reformer. Bobby Kennedy would have loved him.

Well, I don’t know about Bobby Kennedy, but I love Rick Santorum. (Not in the Lawrence v. Texas sense, of course).  I love the fact that he is passionate, gutsy, hardworking, principled, and dare I say, heroic.

He is everything people say they want in a politician, and yet Rick may well lose his place in American politics to an empty suit named Casey who has campaigned by hiding.

Then again, he may win, which would be a huge vindication of his style of politics, not to mention a sweet defeat of the MSM and the Democrats.