Democrats and liberal pundits hammered Mitt Romney when he was caught on film last year saying that corporations are people.

In a post-Citizens United America, the idea that a non-individual entity has First Amendment rights isn’t anything new, but Rick Santorum might have revealed last week a GOP affinity to the personification of entities that consolidate power.

When Obama administration announced that all employers, including religious organizations like the Catholic Church, must cover insurance costs for contraceptives, Santorum jumped and made it a Constitutional issue:

“This is the problem when government tells you that they can give you things. They can take it away, but even worse they can tell you how you’re going to exercise this new right that they’ve given you consistent with their values instead of the values guaranteed in our Constitution.”

Santorum also told CNN’s John King that his own argument against the mandate is not to infringe on women’s rights, but with the Catholic Church having to help defray the cost of its employees’ access to contraceptives:

The argument for corporate personhood as it relates to freedom of speech is based on the idea of increased democracy though more participation. The only way that Santorum’s argument floats is if the general consensus gives the Church and other religious institutions the same latitude that Citizens United gave corporations.

Santorum’s position isn’t going to differ much from the other GOP candidates — there’s no need to waste an opportunity to call Obama a Constitutional fraud. But if and when Santorum has to appeal to moderates, he’ll have to convince them that the Church’s rights as employers outweigh the legal protections granted to employees by the Affordable Health Care for America Act. When 57 percent of Catholic voters agree with the Obama administration’s refined policy, it might be harder than it looks.

And while liberals and progressives are chomping at the bit, Santorum has an artfully timed head start. Before Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, the news was saturated with debates about Susan G. Komen vs. Planned Parenthood and the Catholic Bishops’ lawsuit. Add the strong job numbers and Barack Obama’s up-trending approval ratings, and Santorum proved to be just the candidate that value voters needed.

There were a certainly host of other reasons that led to Santorum’s resurgence – including Newt Gingrich’s absence on the Missouri ballot, conservatives’ ongoing lackluster support for Romney and overall low voter turnout –- but Santorum again defied all expectations by tapping into a voting bloc that makes up for its numbers with enthusiasm.

Have you met Rick Santorum yet?

Before you start Googling him, you should already know that Santorum is the ideologically consistent and unwavering conservative legislator-turned-2012-presidential-candidate-first-name-Rick not from Texas. In fact, the Pennsylvania native’s campaign has outlived a myriad of celebrated Republican figureheads. Santorum even won the first caucus of the season, albeit retroactively.

So how does the winner of the first GOP presidential candidate contest end up fourth on Saturday’s Nevada primary?

A clue might lie in understanding the candidate and his platform, the former of which appears to be the stronger of the two. Santorum doesn’t shy from emphasizing his origins as a Republican senator who represented a heavily Democratic state. Not unlike former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Santorum tries to appeal to the pragmatic side of primary voters, specifically those who are flocking to ticket headliner Mitt Romney under the impression that “electability” is what matters this season. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Santorum appeals to value voters in big way — recently having landing endorsements from Phyllis Schlafly and James Dobson, which helps solidify Evangelical support for the Catholic candidate — but he’s failing to appeal to a post-2010 electorate. Texas firebrand and fellow candidate Ron Paul jumped at the chance to take down Santorum and his non-aversion to big government in advance of the New Hampshire primary.

Since winning Iowa, Santorum lost New Hampshire, beating only Rick Perry’s campaign-suspension-inducing 7 percent. Santorum fared better in Florida, but wasn’t able to recapture his former glory with 13 percent. And Nevada didn’t treat him all that favorably either with the 11 percent of the votes he received, which left him at the bottom.

Santorum may be fighting for first place, but he is struggling for the bronze as it is. Maybe Santorum is vying for a VP slot now, but his battle for third place is striking an interesting chord for the conservative movement.

While Romney and Gingrich cynically duke it out against each other armed with rhetoric du jour, the fight for third place looks to represent an underlying division within the party that pundits tried to pinpoint with 2010′s Republican wave: Ron Paul represents the libertarian-inspired, Tea Party-fueled electorate, and Santorum keeps the neoconservative, value-voting tradition of George W. Bush alive.

The battle of wits and presidential politics might come down to Romney and Gingrich, but the ideological battle between Santorum and Paul could give us the Conservative People’s Champ.

Timmy Wood and Julie Gomez are newlyweds. In their five years together (or six depending on which one you ask), they’ve gone through a period long-distance, a break up and a move to New York during one of the roughest economic climates. Through it all, however, they do the one thing that brought them together: laugh.

Wood is a comedy writer and improv actor, and Gomez is a producer at New York’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater. They met on stage when they were in their late teens in Texas, and continue to share the stage durin their occasional “Timmy Loves Julie” showcase.

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Eliana Jaramillo has worked at the corner of 43rd and 6th for 28 years.

Eliana Jaramillo stands on three-inch sandals on top of a four- or five-inch platform at the intersection of 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue for about four hours a day, and has done so for more than twenty-eight years.

Jaramillo moved to the United States almost thirty years ago from Bolivia, and has seen her corner change a lot. “I used to serve mainly the poor, but these days I’ve got diplomats,” she joked in Spanish while she stood across the street from the glass-paned Bank of America Tower.

She’s worked at the same corner for so long, Jaramillo proudly says she’s garnered a good number of regulars. A couple of them hang out around her cart, sitting and talking to each other whenever Jaramillo gets a break. When they did get a moment to talk to her friends, she pined for easier days.

Jaramillo works on average about four hours a day, every weekday.

“God bless Guliani,” she said, adding that increasing vendor fines and tax rates are the major burdens for her. “I just don’t understand why the poor are taxed more than the wealthy here,” she said. “Taxes are what kill you.”

On average she takes about $60 home a day, and although it fluctuates she said she can’t justify the time for the little profit. She said that she has to keep her prices low in order to compete with neighboring carts, but that the food and supplies she stocks aren’t getting any cheaper. As a result, Jaramillo said that she plans on retiring right after her husband does. “I used to sell a lot in a day, but there’s too much competition these days,” she said.

For now, Jaramillo doesn’t seem terribly worried about losing her regulars, though. “I think no one wants to take them from me.”

Over the course of an hour, she sliced at least 96 buns open. And at a dollar each, it seemed like today was a good day. “And she goes about saying things are too slow,” her friend mused.

Jaramillo at work with a customer.