After Rick Santorum’s victories in a handful of, albeit negligible, primary elections last Wednesday, many state and national tracking polls plot him near and even surpassing Mitt Romney in support.

As a disclaimer, I’ve avoided writing about Pennsylvania’s former senator this semester, just as I’ve avoided pressing toothpicks into my eyeballs or stapling my tongue to my sternum. The thought of devoting ink to this man degrades a deep sense of my self-worth (and ink is expensive), but I figure if Santorum is willing to humiliate himself to such an extent with his candidacy, the least I could do is return the favor.

See what this is doing to me? I’ve barely laced my shoes before delving into polemics, which I’ve been consciously avoiding and for good reason. Two weeks ago I devoted one paragraph (one paragraph!) to a terse condemnation of staunch rightism, and someone told me I should move to Cuba. I should have realized that opinions aren’t allowed in America. Silly me.

I’ll need to introduce some levity as a coping mechanism:

Rick Santorum is that annoying neighbor who’s always asking you to attend church with him. You agreed to go that one time, but the service was offensive, self-hating and a little bit creepy, so you decide you’ve had enough. But he keeps asking you. You make excuses week after week, trying to let him down easy because you don’t want to hurt his feelings or, even worse, have him interpret your refusals as further motivation to save your soul from eternal damnation.

He’s an amalgam of every negative conservative stereotype. He partakes in that same, tired nationalism, that boasting of America’s incapability to do wrong, that America has never committed an act of evil before.

He doesn’t appear to care that he shares this country with non-Christians, as Christianity doesn’t enjoy “equal” status in his eyes unless it’s enjoying privileged, hegemonic status. Either he is unable to conceive of America’s pluralism, or he despises it. Don’t even bother asking him to justify his social beliefs secularly. I’m not begrudging him his faith, only his typical use of it as a tool of oppressive social policy, especially regarding gay rights, women’s health and feminism.

It makes you wonder whether Candidate Patriarchy is simply not cut out for this intellectual era or if he’s actually a time traveler from the distant past, stranded in the present day after the unanticipated closure of the time rift, just trying to acclimate to daily life in an unfamiliar world. I’m not sure which is more realistic at this point.

But if I forced myself to be serious for a minute, Santorum does have some strengths against Romney. Santorum has a cleaner record on health care, and by “cleaner” I mean, he never signed a proto-Obamacare law in his own state like Romney did. With his more recent debate performances as evidence, Santorum does present a stronger challenge to Obama on healthcare, especially if the Supreme Court undermines the law come summertime.

And if the recent optimism regarding the economy materializes into tangible results, Romney’s economy-driven campaign rhetoric may become less effective next to Santorum’s “Faith, Family and Freedom.”

This all hinges upon which of the Not-Romneys drops out first, who has the momentum when it happens and who will gobble up the available votes. Newt Gingrich’s campaign was reportedly $600,000 in debt last week, and he’s fallen in the polls. I’m pegging him as first to go.