Risk vs Reward

The Republican primaries this year are fascinating for the range of potential outcomes they provide. There is great risk and great reward to be had. And so I am finding that I agree with Andrew Sullivan - I want them to nominate Rick Santorum, for all that I helped boot him out of Pennsylvania six years ago and I like him even less now.
If Romney gets the nomination and wins, Republicans will decide that they are doing the right thing. After all, the post-war pattern has largely been two terms Democrat, two terms Republican. If they can get back into office only one term after inflicting George W Bush on the country, they must be doing OK.If he loses, on the other hand, they will likely decide that their problem is that they have been insufficiently extreme - they put up a reasonable candidate, and he was rejected. They will therefore move further to the right, and US politics will become even less sane.
A Romney nomination, therefore, carries no upside. The best that can be hoped for from it is that if he wins he proves to be less disastrous than George W Bush - a low bar, and still a difficult one for someone of his apparent pliability in a party that has learned nothing since.
If Santorum gets the nomination and wins, the US is in for a horror run - starting with a likely attack on Iran, and all the destructive effects that will have on the world. And continuing at home with the influence of a man who would like to ban contraception; a ban that would lead in the long term to a miserable, overpopulated world, except that most people would ignore it just as most Catholics ignore the Pope on this.
If Santorum loses, however, it would be a welcome wakeup call to the Republican party. One might dare to hope that they will move towards the center, and away from their current combination of private plutocracy and public theocracy. This is the party that abolished slavery in the US and paid the price for a century in the South; it is easy to forget that with their current destructive and divisive positions and politics.
There is great risk in Santorum getting the nomination - he might win. I would like to think that he can't, but this is the same country that elected George W Bush not once but twice. But there is also great reward; if the Republicans were to get an infusion of the reality-based, they could become a great deal saner.
I'd hesitate to actually vote for him in a primary - I do not want even a tiny part of the responsibility of electing him - but part of me still keeps hoping Santorum will win the nomination. The Republican party - and with it the US - simply cannot keep sleepwalking towards its current cliff.
... and yes, I have continued the internet tradition of redefining the word Santorum. Think of it as a well-deserved expression of disgust.