The art of war, revised

Rick Santorum is a hated man. He is hated for two reasons: firstly, because he is a staunch conservative; and secondly, because he is a successful staunch conservative. The former US Senator has recently emerged as a possible Republican candidate for the 2012 Presidential Election. I’m not convinced that American politics should necessarily interest or concern us, but the Santorum case offers a few pieces of sobering advice, something we could probably all use at the back-end of the festive season.

One: choose your enemies carefully.

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In a 2003 interview, Santorum offended the gay community by denying that there was any place in a “healthy, stable, family-based society” for homosexual unions. The backlash was savage. The homosexual lobby commandeered the name ‘Santorum’ and by sheer dint of usage made it to mean something absolutely filthy. The neologism ‘santorum’ was then incorporated into a website name, which website, using SEO principles, dominated Google search ratings for ‘Santorum’. Within months the moral assassination was complete. The name ‘Santorum’ was literally sh _ _.

Don’t quarrel with a queer.

Two: all opinions are equal, but some are more equal than others.

In polite society we insist to each other that we are all entitled to our own opinion, and that all opinions are equal. But, when push comes to shove, the society we actually live in is often less than polite. Mr Santorum has “a problem with homosexual acts”. In his view they are unnatural, and destabilising. Not unsurprisingly, the homosexuals have a problem with Mr Santorum acts. The tacit détente is broken, having never existed. Conflict really is a fact of life.

Don’t resort to bloodshed; learn how, peaceably, to disagree.

Three: accommodate generational change, even if you don’t embrace it.

In politics, as in business, visibility is vital. Parliamentarians, ask yourselves, who’s managing your public profile? When the gay lobby turned their guns on Rick Santorum, the heavy artillery were SEO and Social Media. Knowing how best to manipulate the processes that lead to prominence, the rainbow forces built their Trojan Horse out of tweets and posts and blogs and liked each other to the heights of Google. Bing and Yahoo. The man Santorum was left in their dust, feeling hard done by. Bad move.

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Don’t stand around feeling sorry for yourself; the game moves rapidly on.