File this under "Well, duh!": Santorum says "no" to White House run

From the Philly fishwrap:

Don't expect to see Sen. Rick Santorum's name on the 2008 presidential ballot.

"Absolutely, positively not. Absolutely not," Santorum said yesterday on The Michael Smerconish Show on WPHT-AM (1210). "My wife would throw me out of the house if I do anything in '08."

Even though he lost his Senate seat last week by 18 points to Democrat Bob Casey Jr., some supporters hoped he would still fill the social conservative niche on the Republican ticket.

William J. Bennett, the former U.S. secretary of education and national drug czar, had predicted a "draft Rick Santorum" movement, citing a lack of conservatism on the part of the current GOP front-runners, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Ah, so Santorum should be enticed into running for president because he's more conservative than McCain and Rudy? That may be true, but I noticed that unlike McCain and Rudy, Santorum has tasted recent (and substantial) political defeat.

I wondered the same thing that the once-respected Larry Sabato pondered: How exactly does a man that lost his own state, especially by a crushing 18%, in a Senate race exude an aura of electability? Were the GOP base dumb enough to nominate Santorum in '08, they could immediately consider the already-bluish PA "out of play." Truth be told, folks, I have to wonder how Santorum ever won in prior PA races in the first place.