Less about fidelity to the historical Jesus, more about the way Chocolate Jesus and his progressive Utopian cronies are working to gut the Constitution and the civil society to impose the Statist model of centralized government onto a once free people.

Unfortunately, I can’t find an embed code, so you’ll have to watch the video off site.

Here’s how the Greeley Tribune reported on the speech that helped lead to Santorum’s upset victory in the CO caucus. For historical perspective, Romney defeated McCain in CO in 2008 by nearly 42%:

Santorum spoke to a crowd of about 650 Republicans at the Weld GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner, the party’s annual gathering and fundraiser. Santorum’s appearance drew a record number of people to the event at the University of Northern Colorado’s University Center. The night also included a speech from Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who took Obama to task for growing the nation’s debt and said this year’s election will set the tone for the country for the next 100 years. While Santorum criticized Obama for growing government — principally in the form of health care and financial reform, as well as energy policy — he also sought to draw stark distinctions between himself and the other Republican candidates for president.

Santorum said he can challenge Obama during the general election campaign on issues such as health care reform. Gingrich, whom Santorum accused of having advocated for a federal health insurance mandate, and Romney, who championed similar reforms as governor of Massachusetts, can’t run on that issue, he said.

“Barack Obama will tear them apart if they even step on this ground,” he said.

Though he didn’t mention him by name, Santorum dismissed Ron Paul’s chances of winning the nomination as unrealistic.

“I know this is tough talk,” he said. “But, folks, this is a big deal. This country hangs in the balance.”

[…]

Santorum cautioned Republicans not to vote a candidate simply because he has more money or he is considered more moderate. Santorum said it’s important Republicans pick a candidate who can best represent core Republican values.

“I think each and every one of us knows, particularly if you were involved in the election two years ago, particularly if you were a member of the tea party, you know that there’s something bigger at stake in America. It’s not just about the economy, it’s not just about jobs,” he said. “It’s something bigger.”

And here’s how one Rush Limbaugh listener who attended Santorum’s speech in Loveland CO characterized it in her call to Limbaugh’s radio program:

RUSH: Beth in Boulder, Colorado. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I appreciate you taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I’m calling today from Boulder because I love freedom, and we’re having our caucuses in Colorado today. This weekend I’ve been listening to the debates, and I wanted to actually see some of the candidates and hear them before I made my decision. I went to the Santorum speech that he gave up in Loveland on Saturday. And I was surprised. I’ve heard a lot in the debate process about jobs and the economy and immigration, and those are vitally important issues, Rush. But I feel like I feel like the most important issue in this election is freedom. I’ve gotten glimmers of that in the debates. You know, when Santorum was talking about health care and challenging Mitt Romney on that, and when Newt was talking earlier in South Carolina, I’ve heard those glimmers. But I haven’t heard anyone come out and express to me as an American, talk to me about my freedom. I went to this speech on Saturday, and it wasn’t a stump. For the next hour, Rick Santorum — he came out, he had no notes, no teleprompter — had a conversation with us as Americans about our freedom. And it was the most amazing thing. It was like the CPAC speech that you gave several years ago —

RUSH: No, nothing’s like that.

CALLER: I’m not saying that, but it was beautiful.

RUSH: I get your point. Yeah.

CALLER: It was amazing. And he started with King George and the French Revolution and how Americans figured out after the French Revolution — a war that was fought on our soil for the benefit of England really by Americans — that basically the government that gives to you can take away from you. And he went from there to the Declaration of Independence and our Founding Fathers, and he dialogued with us about this — or not dialogued because it was a back and forth. But he talked with us about this and how our Founding Fathers laid their lives on the line. They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for this and how the French Revolution was going on at the same time. And they had the liberty, yes. They had equality. They had fraternity. And it didn’t work because their freedoms were from each other —

RUSH: Let me just…

CALLER: — unlike our freedoms —

RUSH: Let me tell you something.

CALLER: — in the Declaration of Independence of Independence, which comes from God.

RUSH: Santorum is sneaking up. Public Policy Polling has a story out today (the North Carolina polling firm) that he’s gonna do well in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. If all these things happen, it could have the potential, the possibility, to upset the applecart — at least from the standpoint of inevitability for Romney. And I find it fascinating. Romney all of a sudden… Now there’s a big opposition research file on Santorum. Now they think they’ve banished Newt, so it’s Santorum. “The only difference between Santorum and a bag of excrement is the bag.” Last week Santorum was the nicest guy in the world! “Sweet guy. So sad about his daughter.”

Today, Santorum is no different than a bag containing excrement. That’s it, and I think it’s too late to pull this. This is typical opposition research. All of the people are sophisticated now. All of a sudden, all this rotten stuff about Santorum? He’s a big government conservative? He is talking about freedom, you’re exactly right. And this HHS, Health and Human Services, mandate against the Catholic Church is a great example of how we are losing our freedom. It’s about how it’s being challenged on all fronts. And I said: Santorum, of the conservatives remaining, is the one with the least baggage in terms of abandoning conservatism at times over his career. I’m glad you called, Beth. I appreciate it.

I post these here because already we’re beginning to hear concern from some GOPers about how the left will work to marginalize and demonize Santorum — cartooning his social conservatism, painting him as intolerant (anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-immigrant), and so on.

But here’s the thing: in order to do so, the Left must rely on Santorum’s refusal to answer questions or defend his positions on all but the most vague grounds. Or else the activist press, which has become nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, will have to work to hide Santorum’s real positions — and his reasoning for holding those positions, which I suspect might resonate with a number of Americans who are increasingly realizing that it is the Left who demands almost religious adherence to their secularist agenda.

Santorum has shown a willingness to defend his positions on political grounds — on grounds that adhere to the Constitution the left is outwardly now suggesting we need to scuttle.

I’ve written before that, in an ironic twist, it may just be that Santorum’s social conservatism will prove precisely the right foil against which to juxtapose the progressive move to demand social and cultural conformity based around what are their own set of faith-based tenets. That is, Santorum’s willingness to fight for the idea of a civil society and religious freedom and conscience that our founders and framers — and those who came here before them — found central to the idea of individual autonomy and liberty, is precisely the right antidote to the ever-encroaching and devouring statism that tries to disguise itself as a form of benevolent non-religious collectivism.

And frankly, I think Santorum will be able to make the argument that it is not religious folk who are a threat to individual liberty — but rather an all-powerful centralized State that promises to protect citizens from the evil theocratic Boogeymen they themselves have created.

As I noted to Matt in the comments to another post,

Santorum is known for being willing to stand up, take questions, and defend his positions intellectually. If he’s given a big platform on which to do that — say, as the GOP nominee for President, where he can speak directly to the American people — I suspect they’d be able to see which religion is more dangerous: the statism, which believes it has a right and a duty to ignore the Constitution for its ends; or a religious dude who just wants the state and the judiciary to follow the Constitution and stop molesting people of faith.

The problem with screaming “anti-woman” and “gay hate” over and over again for years on end is that people roll their eyes at such bs now. Except for the true believers, who were never going to vote for Santorum anyway.

So. Reagan Dem factory workers will have to decide: do we want employment and a tax holiday to reinvigorate this sector of the economy? Or would we rather buy the media spin that Santorum wants to stone gays?

At which point they’re free to pull the lever for the Hope and Change status quo.

But at least we’ll have made a conservative case this time. And that I can live with.