Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa)
briefly clashed Tuesday in a Senate hallway over child-rearing
in what
might be a prelude to conflicting
social values in the presidential
election battle to come in 2008.
Clinton, whose book, “It Takes a
Village,” written when she was first
lady in her husband’s administration, argued that successful child
rearing requires the input of the entire community. Santorum, a social
conservative, has just published a book titled, “It Takes a Family” in
obvious counterpoint to Clinton’s more liberal point of view. Both
Clinton and Santorum are considered possible contenders for the next
presidential nomination.
The Associated Press reports that an exchange between the two occurred
as they passed each other in the basement of the Capitol building.
“It takes a village, Rick, don’t forget that,” Clinton, called out.
Until that moment, she has declined comment on Santorum’s book.
“It takes a family,” he retorted.
“Of course; a family is part of a village,” she countered.
Santorum’s 449-page book deals with domestic issues ranging from home
schooling to welfare reform and promotes the influence of family over
Clinton’s “village,” which Santorum decries as a metaphor for big
government. His book also attacks Clinton’s frequently stated desire to
reduce the number of abortions in the country while, at the same time,
defending a woman’s right to choose. Santorum dismisses Clinton’s talk
of meaning and morality as “little more than feel-good rhetoric,
masking a radical left agenda.”
He wrote that respect for stay-at-home mothers “has been poisoned by a
toxic combination of the village elders’ war on the traditional family
and radical feminism’s mysogynistic crusade to make working outside the
home the only marker of social value and self-respect. He also argued
that a college education to help low-skilled, unmarried mothers move up
the economic ladder “is just wrong.”