Use of "Orthogonal"

The state of the Republican Party presidential primary is one of confusion.  Governor Romney is still the one to beat and challengers have appeared and then fallen away.  As The Instapundit, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, notes here, Senator Santorum is doing better against the incumbent than is Governor Romney—albeit by only a couple of points (“Santorum leads Obama in the swing states, 50% to 45%, and nationwide 49% to 46%.  This gives him an edge of three percentage points over Romney, whose swing-state lead is 48% to 46% and who ties the president nationally at 47%.”).  The Instapundit points us to a column by Mr James Taranto, for this data from Pew.

As The Instapundit puts it:

Wait, I thought he was an unelectable extremist. . . .

I’m not a fan of Santorum, whose big-government social conservatism is pretty much orthogonal to my own views.  But I’m not convinced that he’s as out of touch with the views of American voters as his media critics think.

I like the word "orthogonal".

One place this thread leads is back to a Business Week column by Clive Crook, "What Democrats Can Learn from Santorum About Populism:  Rick Santorum—and Bruce Springsteen—could teach Democrats a few things about channeling populist rage".  Toward the end of the column, Mr Crook mentions former Enron Advisor Paul Krugman and notes the view that:

When prosperous liberals vote their values, not their interests, that’s enlightened.  When poor conservatives do it, it’s dumb.

He then references the "bitter clingers" line♠ from the last election, about people in Western PA.  That term has become a sort of catch phrase in some Republican Party circles, a badge of honor.

Regards  —  Cliff
     A bitter clinger  :-)

♠  “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”