Santorum to Pen Inky Column?

Republican former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is in talks to become the Philadelphia Inquirer's newest op-ed columnist. Reached late Wednesday night, Santorum told us, "We're sort of back and forth, haven't decided anything, but we're talking, yes."

About two weeks ago, Santorum discussed "life after the Senate" with Brian Tierney, the Inky's CEO and publisher, at the paper's headquarters on 400 North Broad. "I stopped in for a meeting with Brian Tierney," Santorum said. "He asked. He wanted to see me. They offered an opportunity to do that." If hired, Santorum would join two other recent high-profile additions to the op-ed page: reporter Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, and conservative talk-show host Michael Smerconish, author of Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism — True Stories That Should Be Fiction. Tierney had a personal hand in recruiting both Bowden and Smerconish.

Santorum wouldn't go into more detail. He said his talks with the Inky were "an informal dialogue" and the column "may or may not happen." Since losing big in last November's midterm elections, Santorum has been hiring staff and "trying to do some things to influence the public discussion," mainly on the issue of global terrorism. He joined a think-tank in Washington D.C., the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he heads the subtly named "America's Enemies" project on radical Islam. He also signed with the Harry Walker lecture agency — whose client list includes Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Bono — and is working on a book about the terrorist threat. Santorum said that if he were to write an Inky column, "it would be on a variety of different things," including his work on radical Islam. When we asked him about the chances for the column actually happening, Santorum said, "I've got a lot of other things that I'm doing. So part of it is just whether I have time to do it."

Tierney, reached earlier in the day yesterday, was a bit more pessimistic. He said it was true that the Inky had had "low-level discussions" with Santorum. But Tierney put the chances of Santorum's column ever appearing in the paper at "one out of 1,000. We'd probably be more likely to have Dan Rather write a column for us. Seriously. And I'm not being facetious." Tierney said the paper has been talking about potential columns with plenty of other big-name voices, including both the current and past presidents of the NAACP — Bruce Gordon and Kweisi Mfume — as well as legal-potboiler king John Grisham. According to Tierney, having Santorum write a column was originally the idea of his editorial-page editor, Chris Satullo. Tierney also said that if the column were to happen, it would only be once a month. "It's nothing more than blue-sky, guys kicking around ideas."

Tierney, a longtime Philadelphia adman and PR guru, has deep ties to the GOP. In 2000, he reached out to Catholic voters on behalf of George W. Bush, and in 2003 he chaired the losing campaign of Philadelphia's Republican candidate for mayor, Sam Katz. Last year, he and an eclectic group of hometown investors paid $562 million to buy the two troubled Philadelphia newspapers, the Inquirer and the Daily News. "I'm post-political now," Tierney has told us.

Inky editor Bill Marimow, who isn't involved with the editorial board, declined comment, as did deputy editorial-page editor Harold Jackson. Chris Satullo was traveling and couldn't be reached.

The edit-page talks come in the wake of 71 newsroom layoffs at the Inky in January.

Is pursuing Rick Santorum a smart move for the Inquirer? Let us know what you think.