President Barack Obama made a mistake.

And yet, he may be able to benefit from it.

Obama should not have mandated that religious employers must cover the cost of birth control for their employees. For one, he gave the right — especially the religious right — something to rally around in the midst of the current rift among conservatives. For another, if this issue had gone to the courts (it would have), it would have been overturned (see recent Supreme Court decision, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC).

But on Friday, Obama changed his mind and decided to place the burden of providing birth control on non-religious insurance companies. That’s much less controversial, and even those who don’t like such a mandate probably also already don’t like Obama’s healthcare plan, so Obama won’t lose many new political points.

Sure, the Republicans can still bring up Obama’s “War on Religion,” and how he tried to impose the mandate on religious employers, but the point is moot now. The political points to be won from the issue are few.

But what has resulted from Obama’s attempt to force religious employers to provide access to birth control? I think it has greatly helped Rick Santorum rise in the polls, given that Santorum is the most religion-associated nominee in the Republican primary.

Obama will have no qualms about Santorum’s rise. Of all the candidates still vying for the GOP nominee, Santorum has the worst chance of winning back the White House for the Republicans.

Further, Santorum’s rise in the polls throws another wrench into this wild GOP primary race. The longer that race endures, the more spent the eventual nominee will be when he has to directly challenge Obama.

Obama may have dodged a bullet on this one, and maybe the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is very relevant here.

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