On OpinionJournal this morning, Jason Riley has a piece on the tightening Senate race in Pennsylvania. While Santorum likes to paint himself as a victim of the hostile media, Riley reminds conservatives that the senator largely made his own bed:

Santorum shares some of the blame for his current predicament. In 2004, he backed liberal Republican Sen. Arlen Specter for re-election over the conservative challenger Pat Toomey. Mr. Santorum was eyeing the majority leader post and thought his support for the incumbent would help him lure moderates votes in the GOP caucus. Two years later, however, his embrace of Mr. Specter has probably dampened enthusiasm among Mr. Santorum's conservative base, where turnout is a concern. Indeed, one of the questions Mr. Santorum faced at the town hall meeting was a sarcastic "What's it like working with Sen. Specter?"

Another arguable misstep was publishing a controversial book last year when he was sizing up a White House run. Mr. Santorum is a conservative Catholic, and his biggest political liability may be the perception that he's some kind of theocrat. Releasing a manifesto on how government can be used to propagate Christian moral values has only reinforced that negative image. And it's unlikely to help him with moderate Republican voters in those all-important collar counties of Philadelphia come November.

So, at once, Santorum has managed to be too conservative (on morals issues) and not conservative enough (in shunning a Club for Growth primary candidate). This sounds about right to me. Santorum -- love him or hate him -- is undoubtedly the poster-boy for a new strain of big-government conservatism that's making inroads in the GOP.

Let's just say I don't quite agree with Mr. Riley's concluding sentence. In fact, I think he's just about 180 degrees wrong on that particular point.