Heathens, rejoice: Rick Santorum offers an early Christmas present

Please, please, please. Win. Great news!

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum says he is 'open' to another run for president in 2016. Santorum was asked about a possible presidential campaign Monday at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

'I'm open to it, yeah,' Santorum replied. 'I think there's a fight right now as to what the soul of the Republican party's going to be and the conservative movement, and we have something to say about that. I think from our battle, we're not going to leave the field.'

Santorum says the reason Romney lost is that he didn't spend enough time attacking government:

Santorum argued [Mitt Romney] did not focus on what he considered the 'main issue' of the race: The role of government in the lives of Americans.

'We didn't make that argument in this race. Our candidate didn't make that argument, as some of us said during the campaign, because he was not capable of making that argument,' Santorum said. 'In my opinion, what could have been and what should have been a referendum election on what it means to be an American, what it means for us as a country to head down the road toward European socialism, we just simply didn't make the argument at a time when I think America was ripe to hear the argument.'

Yeah, sure. Except Romney actually did make that argument throughout the campaign and kept on falling further and further behind ... until that first debate came around, and he presented himself as Moderate Mitt Romney, and President Obama pretended he was at a joint press conference. The two weeks following that debate were the best two weeks of Mitt Romney's campaign, and if the Obama campaign hadn't been able to remind people that Romney had spent nearly two years running as Severely Conservative Mitt Romney, he might have even won.

Santorum says he's going to focus on the "cultural issues" between now and 2016.

Santorum said he will be working with his organization, Patriot Voices, over the next couple of years. 'We're going to talk about all of the issues with an emphasis on cultural issues,' he said.

Now there's an idea that should help Santorum do well in the GOP but poorly among everyone else. Remember, among white born-again Christians, Mitt Romney improved on John McCain's performance by seven points. I know Santorum is Catholic, but that's Santorum's base within the GOP, and they turned out for Romney'big time. Santorum wouldn't have done much, if any, better. Meanwhile, Romney only improved by three points among everyone else. And I'll guarantee you Santorum would have had much more trouble with voters outside the GOP bubble than Romney.

Santorum would be a dream candidate for Democrats in 2016. As even The Weekly Standard reminds us in the final line of their article:

He lost his 2006 reelection battle to Democrat Bob Casey by 18 points.

That's called burying the lede.