Former Sen. Rick Santorum lamented that some states allow voters instead of elected leaders to decide major issues, after Ohio residents voted to legalize marijuana and enshrine abortion rights.
“I don’t know what they were thinking, but that’s why I thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country,” the Pennsylvania Republican told Newsmax Tuesday.
Mr. Santorum said the reason those two measures passed in Ohio was because it was an off-year election, which typically brings out more Democrats but fewer voters as a whole.
“Remember these elections, off-year elections, odd-number electrons are very low-turnout elections. They are base elections, and the Democrats have traditionally, No. 1, outspent us, not just in odd-number elections but generally speaking,” he said. “No. 2, their base is more ginned up to go out and vote generally than Republicans.”
He called abortion and marijuana “sexy” issues.
“We’ve seen this now for the last several years, and so a base election, they, Democrats, outspend, and you put very sexy things like abortion and marijuana on the ballot, and a lot of young people come out and vote,” he said. “It was a secret sauce for disaster in Ohio.”
Democrats are hailing the results of the election after winning in states such as Virginia and Ohio and red-state Kentucky, and prevailing on left-leaning issues.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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