Kipling saluted the triumph of character:

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

Those words should ring true for Senator Rick Santorum, upon whose head the highest political bounty has been placed almost since the day after the 2004 election. He's been in the crosshairs constantly, and written off by some as a lost cause. He has recently closed much of the nagging gap in the polls, and appears to be hitting the stride which won him four years in the House and twelve in the Senate.

Santorum seems poised to echo Mark Twain's famous telegram: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." If his campaign needed anything, it was simply more of Rick Santorum before the electorate, as is evident from his interview, published today, with Townhall.com's Mary Katharine Ham:

It's been billed as the top race of 2006.

The Senate race in Pennsylvania features a rising Republican star-- an outspoken, staunch conservative Democrats would love to claim as an electoral prize. Facing him is a legacy politician whose father was governor of the state, and who's been embraced by the Left as the key to ridding the U.S. Senate of a powerful advocate of traditional values and a muscular stance on national security and the war on Islamic fascism.

Sen. Rick Santorum vs. Bob Casey, Jr. Liberal blogs have called the race a "clash of the Titans," and Santorum has found himself unexpectedly vulnerable at times, according to polls, which have shown him down as much as 20 points.

A little less than three months from Election Day, the Santorum campaign is catching a bit of momentum. A recent poll showed Santorum down only six points, and late-summer ads on his tough immigration position seem to be paying off.

The Senator took a few minutes, while on the campaign trail this week, to talk to Townhall about his race, and what conservatives can do to make sure this "very solid, very committed vote for victory in the war and clarity about our enemies" stays in the Senate this fall.

The actual Q&A is at the link above. I was going to select a couple of responses in lieu of the introduction, but I couldn't choose. You need to read them all. Then tell me Pennsylvania isn't going to return him over the "guy hiding in a cave."

You'll get that one if you read the interview. Meanwhile, since Kipling's copyright expired about the same time he did, I will reproduce "If" in its entirety in Santorum's honor. Hey, Rick: for all you do, this one's for you - but you still have to click below . . .

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

~ Rudyard Kipling