Santorum

[Crafty_Dog]

Santorum has earned his own thread.

Here to kick it off is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gwwmm-cQxU&feature=share

Does NOT sound good to me , , ,

[G M]

Just a reminder to the left that the big government they love so much they won't like when the shoe is on the other foot.

Thankfully, It's just the momentary upsurge for Santorum as the latest "Not Mitt" flavor of the week. I doubt it'll last long.

[DougMacG]

Like GM, I will predict a short-lived thread.  Support steel tariffs, oppose NAFTA etc, pander to the local constituency to get elected like everyone else does... okay.  Then tell us he is different and he lost because he held a strict line on principle?  Not so much.  He took his own turns sitting on the couch with Nancy.  So the purity test failed with all of the candidates.  Now the question will be how to win and get the best policies going forward that we can.

I wrote elsewhere, but Santorum's wins in Colo, MN and MO (plus Iowa) should provide a teachable moment to the frontrunner to go through his own policies and his arguments and get some focus, clarity and backbone before it is too late.
----------
Must say that Santorum's wins this week came as quite a surprise to me.  He is the only candidate that did not reach me through mailers or media and he won the caucus votes from the activists who turned out by almost 3-fold over Romney.

[Crafty_Dog]

Rick Santorum did his second Lazarus act on Tuesday with his triple victory in two Midwest states and Colorado, interrupting Mitt Romney's media coronation. The question now is whether the Pennsylvanian can, or even wants to, expand his social conservative passions into a broader, governing message.

This is not to dismiss the power of Mr. Santorum's cultural appeal among a large bloc of GOP voters. The former Senator is a Catholic who lives what he preaches. In a world of false political fronts, this is a large part of his strength. He was able to mobilize grass-roots cultural voters first in Iowa, and then on Tuesday in the conservative precincts of Minnesota, Missouri, and rural and exurban Colorado.

He may also be benefitting from the powerful dissection of RomneyCare that he began in the last GOP debate. Mr. Santorum was the first of Mr. Romney's challengers to do his homework and extend his critique beyond the individual mandate to buy health insurance. He zeroed in on the runaway spending in Massachusetts and its failure to reduce government costs for people who still don't buy insurance. Mr. Romney fell back on his feeble talking points.

RomneyCare might continue to help Mr. Santorum over the next month. The furor over the Obama Administration's birth-control mandate on religious hospitals illustrates the core problem with government-mandated insurance, and voters are paying attention. If Mr. Santorum keeps pounding away, we might even have an instructive health-care debate.

Mr. Santorum's weakness is that a party nomination, much the less the Presidency, is not won by values alone. Those issues work best when they are part of a larger vision of reviving America's self-confidence and economic growth. Mr. Santorum already has cultural voters on his side. He needs to win independents and Republicans who are more tolerant traditionalists.

Some of this is tone and emphasis. Mr. Santorum often gives the impression that he views the economy as a secondary issue, something he'll get to after he saves the traditional family. But a President can do only so much to shape the culture, while in the current moment he can do a great deal more to help the economy.

Related Video
 Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center of Politics, on what the GOP candidates' strategies will be going forward. Plus, is Mitt Romney really the most electable candidate?
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.Policy also matters, and Mr. Santorum often sounds as if his economic ideas are a subset of his social agenda. His two signature proposals—a tax preference for manufacturers and tripling the child tax credit—would distort investment decisions and further politicize the tax code. The two-term Senator isn't about to drop the proposals, but he'd do better politically to cast them as part of the larger priority of reviving the economy.

He could also stand to be more cheerful. Like many passionate social conservatives, Mr. Santorum can sound a little dour, like your granduncle who says the country is going to hell on the installment plan. Americans want a President to describe how to create a little bit of heaven on Earth, not to lecture them about their failures in getting there.

That Mr. Santorum even has this opening owes much to Mr. Romney's weakness. Despite his advantages in money and endorsements, the front-runner can't close the sale to a big chunk of GOP voters. On Tuesday he lost two states he carried in 2008, Colorado and Minnesota, and in the latter he finished third behind Ron Paul. He got thumped again among the GOP's populist wing—the tea partiers and cultural conservatives—whose enthusiasm he'd need in November.

Conservatives don't trust Mr. Romney in part because he gives them little reason to do so. On the morning after his big Florida victory last week, Mr. Romney uttered his now famous line that he's not worried about the poor because they can rely on the government. Then he compounded the error by endorsing automatic minimum wage increases indexed for inflation.

Mr. Romney admits the comment about the poor was "a mistake," but the concern isn't that he misspoke. It's what the episode reveals about Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to defend conservative principles. He seems to retreat at the first sound of a liberal moral argument. This means he'd play defense against President Obama, who is distilling his campaign to a moral defense of taxing the rich and government redistributive justice.

The former Massachusetts Governor also isn't winning friends with his relentlessly negative campaign. He first chopped up Rick Perry by running hard to the right on immigration. Then his attack ads tore apart Newt Gingrich in Iowa and Florida—in part because they revealed truths about Mr. Gingrich's prodigal politics on Freddie Mac and other things.

Now his political team's instinct will be to dig into its oppo research and savage Mr. Santorum. This may get Mr. Romney to 50.1% of the GOP delegates, but he'd be a weaker nominee for it. The low GOP turnout in early primary states is one sign of his weakness. What Mr. Romney needs is to make a better, positive case for his candidacy beyond his business resume.

***
The biggest problem with the GOP Presidential field is that each of the candidates seems to be running to represent only part of the Republican coalition. Mr. Romney sounds like he thinks conservatives can be won over with a few poll-tested lines like "I'll repeal ObamaCare," while Mr. Santorum sounds like he only needs conservative votes to become President. To adapt Ronald Reagan's famous line, Where's the rest of them?

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKi0ryyBnss&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ses5HMEqgdQ

[Crafty_Dog]

Bringing this forward from the "Big Picture WW3" thread:

October 26, 2006, 0:26 p.m.

The Gathering Storm

An NRO Primary Document

Editor's note: This is the text of a speech Republican senator Rick Santorum is delivering around his state today and tomorrow.

This summer I gave two speeches that defined the unique challenges that confront the United States as we conduct a new world war. ?I gave those speeches-one in Washington at the National Press Club, and one here in Pennsylvania at the Pennsylvania Press Club-because I believe that now more than ever we need to study the past, learn from events, and take proactive measures to protect our freedoms at home and provide a safer world in which to exercise those freedoms.

I am here again today talking about this issue because Islamic Fascism continues to rear its ugly head. ?And because it is being joined by others, becoming a hydra.

The war is at our doorsteps, and it is fueled, figuratively and literally, by Islamic fascism, nurtured and bred in Iran.

Islamic terrorists planned a mass kidnapping at the Central Synagogue in Prague just a few weeks ago. They intended to carry it out on Rosh Hashanah, when large numbers of Jews would be celebrating the New Year. Once the world's attention was focused on Prague, they intended to make impossible demands, and then blow up the synagogue and all within.

Those people were not marked for death because they supported the war in Iraq, or supported George W. Bush, or sent troops to Afghanistan. They were targeted because they were guilty of being Jews. This is evil.

Islamic terrorists organized an assault on civilian aircraft leaving London, planning to blow up many planes over the North Atlantic. Two of the participants, a husband and wife, intended to take their six-month old baby on a plane with them, and blow him up along with everyone else on board. This is evil.

Islamic terrorists slaughter innocent Iraqi citizens every day. A man in Baghdad recently called his daughter in America to say that "once upon a time, garbage trucks went through the streets to collect refuse. Now they collect beheaded bodies." Our enemies celebrate these massacres. They use videos of beheadings to recruit new members to their ranks. In recent days, they beheaded an Orthodox priest and crucified a teen-age boy, both guilty of Christianity. This is evil.

Somalia's interim president has appealed for international help in dealing with a powerful Islamist movement that now controls all of southern and central Somalia, a country of enormous strategic importance in guaranteeing oil shipping in the Gulf. The State Department concurs that the risk is very real, especially because Osama bin Laden listed Somalia as a target in al Qaeda's war against the West. Our Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs says that "Somalia is a safe haven for terrorists...."

Kuwait has just uncovered an Iranian-created network of sleeper cells trained in espionage and sabotage. Many of them were trained in Iran itself and then infiltrated into the Shi'ite community of Kuwait, which is about half the population;

How many Americans realize that Iran declared war on us 27 years ago - in 1979 - and has been killing Americans ever since? ?

Most everybody has heard by now that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth. But that's only the beginning of his mission. He continued with a rhetorical question: "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" He answered himself: "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved."

He is only the latest in a series of Iranian leaders who have vowed death to us and visited death upon us. Our troops in Iraq are killed by Iranian weapons paid for with Iranian money, smuggled into Iraq by Iranian logistics, and utilized by Iranian-trained terrorists. A couple of years ago you needed a security clearance to know this. Today it is common knowledge. Iran is the centerpiece of the assault against us and the other countries in the civilized world, which is why I fought so hard for passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

I fought for it, and, after years of opposition from the Democrats, some of my own colleagues, the State Department and even the White House, it is now law.

I fought for it because I do not want my children to suffer through devastating attacks on American soil, and to risk their own lives in the battle against those who brazenly tell us they are planning to destroy what they call Anglo-Saxon civilization - and we call freedom.

This is an unpopular war. ?I have been ridiculed by the media and my opponents for defining the enemy Islamic fascism - they say words don't matter. But words do matter because words are what define the enemy we confront. ?Words are needed for Americans to comprehend what motivates the deeds that the enemy is planning, so we can effectively defeat them. And defeat them we must.

Ahmadinejad has recruited and is training 52000 suicide terrorists called the Commando of Voluntary Martyrs. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence officer bragged that "We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization and for the uprooting of the Americans and English ... There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and the West. ?We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them."

Our growing challenge, however, is that Iran is not alone in its rhetoric, intent or capacity to threaten the security of the U.S.

It is important for Americans to know that the threat is more complex, and has grown more complex. ?The enemy that has to be named is greater than Islamic Fascism.

Just last month, in advance of the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, Iran, Syria, North Korea and more than 100 other nations met in Cuba to discuss a push to broaden the world's definition of terrorism to include the "U.S. occupation" of Iraq and the "Israeli invasion" of Lebanon. ?Participating countries drafted a declaration condemning Israel but made no comments about Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel.

Following this meeting of the non-aligned movement, I introduced a Senate resolution that expressed concern relating to the threatening behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ideological alliance that exists between the countries of Cuba and Venezuela. We must support the people of Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela in the quest to achieve a truly democratic form of government.

North Korea's nuclear test made it clear that it threat is not made of mere words. ?They are now intensifying real military confrontation. ?When the U.N. resolution condemned the nuclear test, North Korea called it "a declaration of a war" and threatened the United States: "we will deliver merciless blows without hesitation to whoever tries to breach our sovereignty and right to survive under the excuse of carrying out the U.N. Security Council resolution."

North Korea, the world's leading missile proliferator, and Iran are on the verge of starting nuclear arms races in both Asia and the Middle East - both hubs of terrorist networks that reach around the world - which could easily result in nuclear material, perhaps even a weapon, ending up in the hands of a terrorist organization.

But it's not just terrorist organizations we should fear. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the holocaust and called Israel just last week "illegitimate" and "could not survive," said he plans on using "the technical factor" to augment "national security."

Ahmadinejad , like Hitler and Mussolini, intends to conquer the world. ?This is not a hidden agenda. His goal is to establish a Caliphate. ?Like Khrushchev, he wants a nuclear arsenal, and he is building the same sort of frightening global alliances that enabled the Soviet Union to put missiles near us.

Look again at the Iranians' strategy. A couple of months ago Ahmadinejad signed a mutual defense pact with his pal, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Two dictators, awash in petrodollars, and besotted with hatred for the United States.

President Chavez, who called President Bush "a devil" at the podium of the U.N., spoke to the applause of those in attendance as he decried America. ?Calling America an "imperialist power," he says his ambition is to become leader of global alliance of nations to "radically oppose the violent pressure that the (American) empire exercises." ?This summer Chavez honored Ahmadinejad at a gala and plans to visit North Korea, at which an "oil-for-missiles deal" may be on the agenda.

The same North Korea that has been building nuclear weapons to put on missiles that can reach our soil.

Did you know that Venezuela is the leading buyer of arms and military equipment in the world today? Did you know that Chavez is building an army of more than a million soldiers and the most potent air force in South America-the largest Spanish-speaking armed force in history?

Did you know that Venezuela will shortly spend thirty billion dollars to build twenty military bases in neighboring Bolivia, which will dominate the borders with Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil? The bases will be commanded by Venezuelan and Cuban officers. This is what the brilliant Carlos Alberto Montaner-a survivor of Castro's bloody regime-calls "a delirious vision of history," and it is driven by a new alliance of dictators from Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

It is part of the grand design so proudly announced by Ahmadinejad: the destruction of our civilization.

And the sad irony is, we are dependent on the very people who hate us. ?American imports 60% of the oil we need to fuel our economy. ?We are underwriting their efforts to undermine us. ?

Venezuela is our fourth largest supplier of oil. ?President Chavez called oil "a geopolitical weapon" and said "I could easily order the closing of the refineries that we have in the United States. ?I could easily sell the oil that we sell to the United States to other countries of the world ... to real friends and allies like China."

A recent Congressional report found that Hezbollah may, right now, have established bases in Venezuela, a country which has issued thousands of visas to people from places like Cuba and the Middle East, possibly giving them passports to evade U.S. border security.

To make matters worse, Cuba and China, with help from Venezuela, are together exploring and drilling for oil only 50 miles off the US coast. ?50 miles off our coast. ?In an interview on Al-Jazeera, Chavez said working with Cuba is an example of how they will "use oil in our war against neoliberalism." ?

Radical environmentalists and my opponent won't let us drill 100 miles off our coast, but dictators who hate us are drilling for American oil just 50 miles offshore. ?Does this make any sense?

And my opponent is sleepwalking into the gathering storm, siding with the left to ban drilling off our coast and banning oil drilling in an area in Alaska no bigger than the Philadelphia airport.

If we really understood the threat at hand, we would not be fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

We have forgotten our history. ?We have been here before.

We only entered the First World War after German U-boats sank American civilian and commercial ships on the North Atlantic. World War I was "the war to end war," and with the defeat of the German armies, it seemed that peace was destined to last a long time. But it did not last even one generation. It did not last because we failed to recognize the evil of fascism, and because we allowed the fascists to grow stronger and stronger, until they felt capable of defeating us.

We left Great Britain alone to face the Nazis for several years, and despite the Mussolini's entrance, we only engaged in the Second World War after the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. ?Germany, Italy and Japan. ?They had nothing in common, so we weren't willing to see the axis of evil gathering around us.

We entered the Cold War only after Stalin's aggression in the Middle East and Greece. In every case the evil was obvious, the threat indisputable, but the willingness to confront was in every case late and prohibitively costly. Are we willing to see the storm gathering around us and act before it is too late? ?Was 9-11 not enough? ?Have our memories faded? Or will it take something even more devastating?

When Winston Churchill wrote his great history of the Second World War, he began the first volume-"The Gathering Storm"? with a short description: "How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm."

We were part of that moment of folly, and we paid a terrible price for it on the battlefields of that war. We are running the same risk today, and we are again acting carelessly, unwisely and we are permitting the wicked to grow stronger and stronger.

Just as we refused to recognize we were at war with a great evil, the European fascists and Japanese imperialists in the late nineteen thirties, so today we shrink from the recognition that we are once again under attack from evil forces - Islamic fascists led by Iran, and the Socialist and Communist rulers of Venezuela and North Korea.

Ahmadinejad is often treated as if he were a stand-up comedian on a late night TV show, some wacko character from far away who really doesn't affect us. This is a way of avoiding the life and death challenge of the war.

We have seen it before. Hitler and Mussolini were also ridiculed-the house painter with the funny moustache, and the bald guy with the fat neck-until the bombs fell in Hawaii and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in Nikita Khrushchev was ridiculed as a peasant who pounded his shoe on the table at the United Nations, until Soviet nuclear missiles showed up in Cuba, less than a hundred miles from our shores. Then we realized he wasn't so funny.
This is not funny business.

Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. ?They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors of a single American administration, even of a single American president. Some even pretend that it will all go away if only the Democrat Party-including my opponent who did not even know the name of the former Iranian president whose presence kicked up a firestorm a few weeks ago by coming to America-is elected in November.

How do they propose to save us from these people? By negotiating at the United Nations? By removing U.N. Ambassador John Bolton office? By relocating American forces from Iraq to Okinawa? By abandoning the Iraqi people to Iranian and Syrian slaughter and domination? ?By engaging in more direct talks with a nuclear North Korea?

No wonder Mr. Casey won't say anything about the danger from North Korea's nuclear bombs. ?He can't. He has virtually nothing to say. Except he does have something to say about preparing to defend ourselves against North Korea. ?He told the Council for a Livable World he opposes building nuclear bunker buster weapons and would halt deployment of national missile defense until, quote, "further research proves the system will work."

Time for research is past. ?North Korea has been building nuclear weapons to put on missiles that can reach our soil.

It's time to wake up.

Mr. Casey said that "the U.S. should not escalate the drive to place weapons in space and should seek an international ban on such weaponry." ?I hate to break the news to you, but Iran and North Korea are already escalating things.

My opponent and the anti-war left seems more worried about the tactics we use to catch the terrorists than about the terrorists themselves. ?They want to "investigate" the NSA surveillance program that, thank God, has allowed us to listen in on calls coming from known terrorists abroad.

I think people are indeed concerned, and they are right to be concerned. ?About our enemies. ?Americans are concerned when they learn that ten flights from Britain to America were targeted by Islamic fascists just last month, and, had it not been for the British surveillance, they might have succeeded.

Let me tell you, Mr. Casey, people are concerned when Venezuela is harboring terrorists, many of whom will penetrate our border because of the amnesty bill you support, that puts amnesty before security.

You said you would have voted for the war, but now you say you would vote against it. ?You said we weren't misled, but now you say that we were lied to.

You are sleepwalking into a nightmare.

It's time to wake up. ?

From everything I can see, Mr. Casey is unready, unqualified for the high office he seeks at a time when our survival as a free people is at stake.

He is one of many Americans sleepwalking in this nightmare. These horrors no longer shock us as they did on 9/11. They have become part of the background noise of our world. Some even blame our own leaders rather than the savages who do the killing. But I believe that Pennsylvanians are awakening to this threat, and can send a message to the nation and our enemies.

It's time to stop dreaming and start acting. ?We have to bring the fight to our enemies, and that means we have to do a lot more than respond to their attacks in Iraq. We must go after the regimes that recruit, pay, train and arm terrorists. I am not-NOT-talking about sending more American troops onto foreign battlefields, or even dropping precision bombs from safe altitudes. I am talking about political and economic warfare, to bring down the terror regimes in Tehran and Damascus. The best way to do that is to support their own people, most of whom are eager for freedom.

That is why I drafted legislation that commits America to support freedom in Iran. A free Iran will be our friend, not an implacable enemy. We know that is true, because public opinion polls taken by the regime itself show that more than seventy percent of Iranians want to choose their own system of government and elect their own leaders.

And we know it is true because the Iranian regime is frantically trying to isolate the Iranian people from contact with the free world. Satellite dishes are torn down, dissidents are arrested, tortured and executed. High speed internet is banned. Surviving vestiges of a free press are shut down. Those are the actions of a regime that fears its people, and knows that the desire for freedom can destroy the Islamic fascist tyranny.

A free Iran will change the world, because it will deprive the terrorists of their single greatest source of support, and isolate the likes of Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong 'il. Why is a free Iran and Iraq so essential? ?Because the United States nor any western country will be able on its own to defeat radical Islamic fascism. ?We must create an environment where moderate Islam - whether Sunni or Shi'ia or any other strain - combats and suppresses its radical elements. ?I believe the best way to accomplish this is through democratic self rule.

And although Iran is at the center of this Islamic fascist mosaic, our engagement must be focused closer to home as well.

Just as we have seen our neighbors' economies grow as well as our own - we need to work diligently to forge free trade agreements with other countries, as we have seen impressive results with free trade agreements in Israel, Canada, Mexico, Jordan, Singapore, Chile, Australia, Bahrain, and Morocco. Our current partnerships with these countries account for more than $900 billion in two-way trade, which is about 36 percent of total U.S. trade with the world. U.S. exports with FTA partner countries are growing twice as fast as U.S. exports to countries that do not have agreements with the U.S.

As Chavez works to create an anti-American alliance, we have to be even more diligent in protecting our homeland.

We should support immediate programmatic additions to U.S. missile defenses in order to carry out critical national security objectives. ?I agree with Congressman Duncan Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, that we should be capable of addressing the "full range of North Korean missile-based threats to the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies."

We must also pursue energy security. Alongside the political pressure on the Iranians and their allies, we must also stop funding Iran and Venezuela, which is what happens whenever we buy a barrel of their oil. We need to use our own energy resources more effectively, and we must find other fuels.

This is why I have fought, again, against the administration, for funding for a coal-to liquid-fuels plant here in Pennsylvania to both clean up the environment and make us more energy secure. ?$100 million dollars, here in our own state, to pioneer our way to independence.

That is why I wrote the Empower America Act, which calls for investments of more than $20 billion for research and development, loan guarantees, and grants to create, produce and distribute renewable fuels, cleaner coal, and nuclear energy. It extends tax incentives for the production of renewable energy and alternative fuels, and also for hybrid vehicles.

One of my opponent's favorite talking points is that "we can't drill ourselves out of our energy dependence."

Let me say to Mr. Casey, and his sound bite driven sleepwalking colleagues; the gathering storm demands it. ?We have no choice. ?Our men and women in uniform are laboring, sacrificing and dying to protect our homeland, we have no choice. ?We have no choice but to explore every form of American energy that can make use independent and secure. ?We are drilling 3700 wells in western Pennsylvania, including one of the sites of next year's U.S. Open Golf Tournament, and you won't allow less than 1000 wells over 25 years, in a place no one lives?

My bill permits environmentally sensitive production of our own energy resources on the outer continental shelf and on the coastal plain of ANWR. And it encourages the construction of new refineries and expands existing ones, along with biorefineries and additional coal-to-liquid facilities to meet our current needs for motor fuels and enables us to grow in the future.

There are many other things that need to be done in this war, but none of them will happen unless we come to grips with the terrible fact that we are at war, it came to us and it will be with us for some time. There is no way to escape it, no matter what our policies, and whoever our elected representatives are. There is no escape because our enemies are fully committed to our destruction, and they will not stop until they have either destroyed us, or have been destroyed.

That is our choice: we can win or lose, but we cannot opt out walk away from the greatest threat and most resistant threat this country has ever faced.

That is why I have spent so much time talking about the war during this campaign. It is why I have fought heart and soul to pass legislation that will hurt our enemies and strengthen our country. If you reelect me, I will press ahead with all my strength and passion, and you will know that you have a United States Senator who sees the world as it is and will fight for our security - rather than repeat slogans written for him by consultants.

This is not a time for politicians who think the world stops at the Delaware River.

Osama bin Laden said "In the final phase of the ongoing struggle, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. ?Now we have defeated and destroyed the more difficult and the more dangerous of the two. ?Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy."

Let me tell you. ?With the right leadership, he's got a surprise ahead. ?It won't be easy at all. ?It is a time for leadership to confront the gathering storm, and to defend the people of this state and this nation against terrible enemies. The stakes are too high to sleepwalk. ?I hope you will join me in this fight. ?And God bless America


National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzZmYWUyNWYzNThlM2UwZGY0ZmUxYmI5NTIyMTJjYWU=

[G M]

Osama bin Laden said "In the final phase of the ongoing struggle, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. ?Now we have defeated and destroyed the more difficult and the more dangerous of the two. ?Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy."

Props to him for getting that.

[JDN]

Santorum decries 'judicial tyranny' in Prop. 8 ruling

"Santorum said he was particularly troubled by the 9th Circuit ruling because the federal judges had overturned a state constitutional amendment approved by the voters. “Here, you have the 9th Circuit saying that a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional. I mean, that’s just, on its face, almost absurd,” he said. “The people of the state of California can decide what kind constitution they have.”

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th Circuit judges said that repealing gay marriage by a voter initiative violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law."

I'm not one of the lawyers on this Forum, but doesn't the U.S. Constitution supersede the CA State Constitution?

Whether you agree or disagree with the decision, what is Santorum talking about?

[Crafty_Dog]

Of course state consitutions cannot go against the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution, so the real question is the meaning of the equal protection clause.  I think it safe to say that gay marriage was not on the mind of those who passed the equal protection clause; of course it need not to have been for the clause to be applicable-- but Santorum I think is on the right track here: Judicial Imperialism and arrogance.

Surely a certain degree of humility is called for when the people of a state amend their consitution-- especially when this step is to reverse a judicial creation of a right!  My point of view is that gay marriage is not required by the equal protection clause.  A man can marry a woman, and vice versa.

I think the real solution here is for people to be free to be gay and other people to be free to be grossed out by it, with or without God's blessing. 

Yes, I am saying that people should be allowed to discriminate.

Anyone wanting to discuss this further, please take it to a relevant thread (e.g. Gender; Gay and Straight)

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/right-wing-bigot-rick-santorum-shouted-down-glitter-bombed-by-occupiers-in-wa/

GB newletter:

Public policy poll shows Rick Santorum leads Romney nationally by 15 points
But that's just one poll, so says an angry Ron Paul supporter! And they would be correct, however, the RCP average of several polls has Santorum in the lead by 1.6% nationally. Quite a stunning comeback from a candidate who was under 5% for 47 weeks. Glenn has more on the continuing Santorum surge on radio today.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204909104577235471075318762.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, he declared that marriage is between a man and a woman. For the most part, his position was treated as a nonissue.

Now Rick Santorum is campaigning for president. He too says that marriage is between a man and a woman. What a different reaction he gets.

There's no mystery why. Mr. Santorum is attacked because everyone understands that he means what he says.

President Obama, by contrast, gets a pass because everyone understands—nudge nudge, wink wink—that he's not telling the truth. The press understands that this is just one of those things a Democratic candidate has to say so he doesn't rile up the great unwashed.

It's arguably the most glaring double standard in American life today. It helps explain why candidates with social views that are fairly conventional among ordinary Americans—the citizens of 31 states including California have rejected same-sex marriage when put to a vote—find themselves depicted as extreme. It also speaks to why even some who share Mr. Santorum's social views nonetheless fear that his outspokenness on these issues will only undermine his candidacy.

That has led some folks to suggest that Mr. Santorum simply drop these issues altogether. Their hope is that by concentrating his energies solely on Mr. Obama's management of the economy and foreign affairs, Mr. Santorum might avoid dividing his party and America. However reasonable the argument may be on paper, it is simply not practical.

PIt's not practical, first, because Mr. Santorum is running as what he is, a conviction politician. Having been dismissed for months by Republicans hostile to his social views, he is not likely to take their advice now. He appreciates that he did not get where he is today by trimming his sails.

Indeed, that's one reason he has now overtaken Mitt Romney as the front-runner in Michigan. Mr. Romney is behind because Republican voters have yet to be persuaded he stands for anything. Mr. Santorum is ahead because even those who might not sign onto all his social particulars are hungry for a nominee who does not bend with the wind.

Dropping the social issues is also not practical for another reason: The media won't let him. When Mr. Obama used a prayer breakfast earlier this month to suggest that the Gospel of Luke was a call for raising taxes on the wealthy, the press corps yawned. When Mr. Santorum complained about the "phony theology" behind the president's worldview, suddenly it landed on every front page and lead every news show.

So what's the answer? The answer is that when Mr. Santorum discusses these issues, he needs to fold them into his larger narrative about the free society. That narrative has to do with pointing out the dependency that comes with an expanding federal government, the importance of family, and the threat to freedom when, say, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals or a Health and Human Services secretary can substitute their own opinions on these issues for the judgment of the American people.

Mr. Santorum comes to the task well equipped. He echoes Ronald Reagan, for example, when he talks about how small government requires strong families. Or when he's pointing out the intolerance of a federal government bent on forcing religious individuals and institutions to underwrite practices (e.g., contraception and sterilization) they regard as abhorrent.

There is, however, one area where Mr. Santorum needs to demonstrate a discipline it's not yet clear he has. That is the ability to resist the efforts to drag him out of the public questions into the weeds of theological debate.

In short, Mr. Santorum must resist the temptation to run for president on "Humanae Vitae," the 1968 papal encyclical prohibiting artificial contraception. Of late the former Pennsylvania senator has pointed out that, despite his personal views, he has voted for contraceptive funding in the past. Alas, he has also said that artificial contraception is the kind of moral issue he plans to talk about as president.

These are important issues. They have large implications for society, and those few who have actually read "Humanae Vitae," as Mr. Santorum has, might be surprised to find how prophetic that document was in its warnings about the consequences of the contraceptive mentality for society, including the weakening of the marriage bond. A presidential debate, however, is simply not the vehicle for clarifying the coherence of the Catholic Church's view of human sexuality.

That doesn't mean Mr. Santorum should compromise his views. To the contrary, he needs to keep his comments simple, clear, and focused on the political point he is hoping to make. That in turn will require letting pass a great deal that he might be itching to respond to.

Mr. Santorum cannot change the double standard. With a little discipline, however, he need not let himself be defined by it.

[DougMacG]

Along the same lines as the previous piece, John Hinderacker has an anti-Santorum post at Powerline criticising not his answers, but the questions that Santorum draws.  We don't come together over the budget, entitlements, debt or limited government by talking right now about abortion, gay marriage, contraception etc.

He has some answers skipped because the point he is making is the questions that he draws.  In this case he is blaming the candidate, not the CBS liberal host. The ending is priceless: "I had hoped to ask you about some questions about the economy. But, frankly, you made so much news yesterday, out there on the campaign trail, I felt compelled to ask you about that."
-------------------

Posted on February 19, 2012 by John Hinderaker in GOP Presidential Race 2012
Are There Republicans Who Think This Is a Good Idea? Seriously?

Rick Santorum is a bright, well-intentioned guy. But the idea that he is the strongest candidate the Republicans can nominate for the presidency strikes me, with all due respect, as ludicrous. Put aside the fact that Santorum lost his last race by 18 points in his home state of Pennsylvania: not exactly an auspicious way to kick off a presidential campaign. Rather, consider that Santorum has always been most passionate about the social issues. Is that really what the GOP wants to talk to voters about in 2012, when the country–the Brokest Nation In History, as Mark Steyn puts it–is $15 trillion in debt; when the Obama administration has driven our economy into the most prolonged funk since the Great Depression; and when Barack Obama has instituted the most corrupt system of cronyism in American history? Seriously?

The fate of a Santorum candidacy was foreshadowed this morning in Santorum’s appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation. Follow the link to read the entire, sad transcript. Here are the questions that Bob Schieffer asked Santorum, verbatim:

    You are the leader in the polls this morning. And I have to say you were very busy yesterday. The Associated Press led its story of your appearance in Columbus, Ohio, by saying, quote, “Rick Santorum questioned Barack Obama’s Christian values.” That was after you lashed out at the President’s proposal on energy of all things when you said this.

    RICK SANTORUM (Republican Presidential Candidate/Former Pennsylvania Senator): It’s not about you. It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs.

    MAN: Right.

    RICK SANTORUM: It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.

    (Crowd applauding)

    BOB SCHIEFFER: So, Senator, I’ve got to ask you. What– what in the world were you talking about, Sir?

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, how does that translate into some sort of theology that the President’s theology is not based on the Bible. I mean that suggests that he’s not a Christian.

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: I– I don’t want to just spend the whole program on this, but was your use of the word theology, perhaps, you could have had a better word than that? I mean, don’t you know that, or do you wonder that– that might lead some people to suggest that you were questioning the President’s faith?

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: At another stop in Columbus, you took on the President on prenatal care for expectant mothers. Here’s what you said at this– in this passage.

    RICK SANTORUM: One of the things that you don’t know about Obamacare and one of the mandates is they require free prenatal testing in every insurance policy in America. Why? Because it saves money in health care. Why? Because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.

    BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator, I– I have to ask you to– to give some explanation of that. You sound like you’re saying that the purpose of prenatal care is to cause people to– to have abortions, to get more abortions in this country. I think there are any number testing, I think any number of people would– would say that’s not the purpose at all.

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, I– I know you know what you’re talking about. I know that well. I know you also had another child that was stillborn. But–

    RICK SANTORUM (overlapping): And I was–

    BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Didn’t you want to know about that, just a minute.

    (Cross talking)

    BOB SCHIEFFER: Just hold on.

    RICK SANTORUM: But what my– my child was not stillborn. My child was born alive.

    BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.

    RICK SANTORUM: –and he lived two hours.

    BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: I stand corrected on the stillborn. You’re absolutely right. I simply misspoke. But, Senator, do you not want any kind of prenatal testing? I mean would we just turn our back on science that this is something that expectant mothers should not go through, that it’s best not to know about these things ahead of time? I mean is that what you’re saying here?

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): You’re not saying. Let me just ask you, you’re not saying that the cause of this, that the President looks down on disabled people, are you? You’re not accusing him of that?

    ***

    BOB SCHIEFFER: And– and how you feel about this. Another thing that raised a few eyebrows yesterday, Senator, you questioned the value of all things at the public school system. Now here’s what you said about that.

    RICK SANTORUM: But the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly, much less that the state government should be running schools is anachronistic. It goes back to the time of industrialization of America when people came off the farms where they did home school or have the little neighborhood school and into these big factories. So we built equal factories called public schools.

    BOB SCHIEFFER: So, there you are, Senator. I mean, are you saying that we shouldn’t have public schools now? I mean I thought public schools were the foundation of American democracy.

Santorum did a reasonably good job of fielding these questions. But does anyone seriously believe that it is in the Republicans’ interest for the 2012 presidential election to center on theology and gynecology? Here is Schieffer’s last question of Santorum:

    BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator, I want to thank you very much for being with us this morning. I had hoped to ask you about some questions about the economy. But, frankly, you made so much news yesterday, out there on the campaign trail, I felt compelled to ask you about that. Thank you so much for being with us.

That pretty much says it all. With Santorum launching one social issues bomb after another, there is no time to talk about the economy. Is this the Democratic Party’s dream, or what? In a national poll that came out today, Santorum is leading Mitt Romney by eight points among likely Republican voters. Can Republicans possibly be that foolish? Is it conceivable that a president with Obama’s lousy record could coast to victory, virtually by default, because the Republicans nominate a candidate who would rather talk about gynecology than debt? At the moment, that prospect does not seem far-fetched.

[ccp]

"That pretty much says it all. With Santorum launching one social issues bomb after another, there is no time to talk about the economy. Is this the Democratic Party’s dream, or what? In a national poll that came out today, Santorum is leading Mitt Romney by eight points among likely Republican voters. Can Republicans possibly be that foolish? Is it conceivable that a president with Obama’s lousy record could coast to victory, virtually by default, because the Republicans nominate a candidate who would rather talk about gynecology than debt? At the moment, that prospect does not seem far-fetched."

I think a lot of Repubs active in primaries are tea party types and libertarians.  The latter are Ron Paul followers and the former are anyone with extremely strict conservative values that is willing to take a stand and fight.

Radio hosts like Levin are staunchly for these candidates like Santorum.  He was a giant supporter of Bachman, Palin and that girl in Deleware and the one in Nevada.   They did get some elected.

While I personally support most of all their views to ignore the middle of the road voters who vote with what ever the whim of the day is is suicide for the party.  Levin is wrong.  We cannot just get anyone in there just because they are conservative.  We will lose.  And that IS worse - not better.

None of these people have the charisma to charm over the "independents" or whatever else that voting group(s) is called.  Maybe Newt could have if he wasn't as Crafty aptly put, "flawed".

Mitt doesn't have a lot of charisma but his views are more mainstream and hopefully will appeal to the deciding block of voters that somehow always seem to go with the flow.  And the flow is can Obama bribe more of them then could be convinced they are not better off then four years ago and Mitt can improve upon that.

Since Mitt is not charismatic the election may well be determined as some predict - by how the economy  is doing in Nov.

I am hoping the economy tanks - for one month before the election and rebounds in time for Mitt in 01/14. 

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/media_power_defining_santorum.html

and

What would the race for president look like should Rick Santorum win the Republican nomination?

His candidacy would do a lot to put social issues into play. While he would rev up the base of social conservatives who might be left cold by a Romney candidacy, Obama would welcome the distraction from his economic record. He would likely try to bring fringe issues like contraception, back-alley abortions, stem-cell research and others into the dialogue. His insistence on the inclusion of birth control in health insurance policies issued by Catholic institutions is a foretaste of his probable tactics against Santorum should he win the Republican nomination.
 

In a sense, Obama would use on Santorum the same tactics Republicans used in the last decade by turning elections into referenda on gay marriage. While any Democrat can move to the left of almost any Republican on social issues, Santorum's purist record in this area makes it easier for Obama to do.

On the other hand, Santorum is far less vulnerable than Romney on the issue of flip-flopping. His reputation for stubborn consistency will save him from this accusation. He would also be able to attack ObamaCare with a clean record of opposition to individual mandates and without the specter of RomneyCare lurking in the background. (Of course, the Supreme Court could remove the entire issue by ruling the mandate unconstitutional before the election.)

The former Pennsylvania senator will have a hard time dragging the issue back to the economy. While Romney is tailor-made for a campaign about jobs and the recession, the topics are a bit of a reach for Santorum. Even in the primaries, voters largely ignore his program for reviving American manufacturing and back him either because of a dislike for Romney or due to their fervent support of his social agenda.

Santorum also has a 12-year voting record in the Senate that Obama could use against him, picking out votes that make him appear callous and doctrinaire. While Romney will have to defend his record at Bain Capital and in Massachusetts, he has the luxury of never having had to cast votes in Washington on controversial issues.

On a personal level, Santorum's earnestness, youth and idealism will be very attractive to voters in November, as it is showing itself to be during the primaries. But, unlike Obama, Gingrich and even Romney, he has not proven himself to be a great debater. His surge in the polls comes not so much from any knock-it-out-of-the-park debate performance but rather as a byproduct of the exceedingly negative campaign between Romney and Gingrich. The record ugliness of their exchange has wounded both men and left Santorum unscathed.

But, of course, there is a flip side to youth and earnestness -- inexperience. Santorum does not have Romney's track record of having run for president before and of campaigning in the bright spotlight as the front-runner for all of 2011. His record in Pennsylvania does not do much to stoke confidence in his ability to take a punch in the campaign.

And there is a flip side to his idealism -- stubbornness. He clung to his defense of the Iraq war throughout his 2006 race for reelection, refusing to flinch even as the war's popularity took a nosedive. Santorum's friends will tell you that he is loyal to a fault and consistent even at the price of political disadvantage. While admirable traits for a friend, they are not necessarily conducive to winning the presidency.

The bottom line?

Would Santorum have a good chance to beat Obama? Certainly. The president's record would make any Republican look good.

Would Romney be the safer bet? Obviously.

Who should you support? Santorum if you want purity. Romney if you want to be pragmatic. It doesn't so much depend on who these two guys are as on who you are.

[DougMacG]

I think Morris has it about right on Santorum.  He is a fine man and a good conservative, but not good enough to bet the whole election on.  He has not been strategic in terms of setting up to win a general election and he comes into this without executive experience.

He is getting his flash of flame later because he didn't stand out earlier.

He is no further right than Obama is to the left and his social stands are not as extreme as the shocked CBS hosts and NY Times columnists might want to think.  If he is the candidate, they will have already beat the social issues to death on him and the focus will come back to the economy and foreign policy. 

Sen. Santorum has more foreign policy experience than most.  On economic issues, I would have rather have a different PA Senator - Pat Toomey.

[Crafty_Dog]

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Troy, Mich.

The Michigan primary, and possibly the Republican presidential nomination, may come down to this one question: Who is Rick Santorum?

Is he, as the former Pennsylvania senator avers, a consistent "full-spectrum" conservative, a pioneer on tough policy, and the only candidate who can provide a clear contrast with Barack Obama? Or is he, as his opponent Mitt Romney argues, little more than a Bush-era big-spender, a political insider?

Michiganders will make that choice Tuesday, as an estimated 1.7 million voters go to the polls. Mr. Romney may be Michigan's native son, but the state has become Mr. Santorum's to lose. His early-February victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri vaulted him to the top of national polls and to a double-digit lead by mid-February in the Great Lake State. Yet Mr. Santorum has been steadily losing ground and enters in a dead heat.

Part of that slide is a reinvigorated Mr. Romney. The Santorum threat has finally convinced the former governor to try to connect with his base, and in the past week he's unfurled new tax-cut proposals, new plans for fixing Medicare, and a stronger message against unions. At a Saturday event at Kettering University in Flint, Mr. Romney showed a new passion on the big arguments, hitting hard on President Obama's plans to raise taxes, his failed energy policy, his refusal to address entitlements. Mr. Romney is spending less time on biography and more on his reform proposals.

Enlarge Image

CloseZuma Press
 
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum
.It has helped, yet in conversations with voters it is also clear that plenty of Mr. Romney's resurgence rests on the doubts he's sown about Mr. Santorum. This is where the Romney money and organization have consistently proven most effective—in making the race about his competitors. He did it to Rick Perry in Iowa and to Newt Gingrich in Florida. And he's doing it to Mr. Santorum here, in a race that has become largely a fight over how to define the Pennsylvanian.

His opening has been Mr. Santorum's 16-year record in Washington. For weeks now, Mr. Romney has been pounding away at Mr. Santorum's votes for earmarks, for raising the debt ceiling, for protecting unions. Millions of voters have seen his ads, and particular charges have stuck. "Rick Santorum has voted for the Bridge to Nowhere, he's voted for other earmarks, he's an insider," says Laurie Chamberlain, a 51-year-old homemaker from Saginaw, in what is a near recitation of one Romney TV ad.

Mr. Santorum struggled in last week's Arizona debate to explain these votes, and his comment that sometimes you "take one for the team" has given Mr. Romney a new opportunity. He's arguing that Mr. Santorum's votes weren't just bad but proof of political gamesmanship.

Speaking to some 1,200 conservatives at a weekend event in Troy, organized by grass-roots outfit Americans for Prosperity, Mr. Romney noted that Mr. Santorum had said "he was opposed to Planned Parenthood, but voted for it," that he was "opposed to No Child Left Behind, but voted for it."

"We can't do that anymore," said Mr. Romney. "We can't continue to take one for the team."

The reality is that many votes are complex, and the very Senate leadership job that occasionally required Mr. Santorum to vote with his party was also the perch that allowed him to lead the way on bigger issues like entitlement reform. But voters aren't in the mood for nuance, and Mr. Romney knows it. His goal is to paint Mr. Santorum as another of the Bush-era "insiders" that voters threw out. And to some extent it is working.

Related Video
 Editorial page editor Paul Gigot on who will pull out the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Tuesday.
.
."[Santorum] is a go-along-to-get-along guy, and we can't afford that luxury anymore," says Jayson Corey, who is on the staff of Michigan's Romeo Area Tea Party and who, with his wife Deborah, attended the Troy event and intends to vote Romney. The debate over Mr. Santorum's record has inspired voters like the Coreys to do their own research, and to unearth more positions they aren't happy with—for instance, the senator's 1998 vote to confirm (now Supreme Court Justice) Sonia Sotomayor to a circuit court job.

Then, too, there is the race to define Mr. Santorum's social views. Those positions have earned the senator critical support among evangelicals and cultural conservatives and have been a key component in his victories. Yet they have reached a high-enough pitch that they are now also playing into Mr. Romney's electability argument with some voters.

Says Robert Murphy, another tea party member attending the Americans for Prosperity event: "The object here is to get the most conservative person who can win." He worries Mr. Santorum is being painted as a "religious radical" and will "alienate the 40% of the voters in the middle," so he's voting Romney.


The irony is that all this is coming at a time when Mr. Santorum has never looked so good on the stump. He's toned down his talk on social issues and is reassuring voters he doesn't intend to "impose" his views on the country. He's hitting hard on the economic message and reminding audiences that he was pushing big reforms before it was fashionable. At his own turn at the Troy event, he joked of the entitlement mess, "I saw it coming. And people were behind me . . . way behind me."

Most notably, he's honed his argument that Mr. Romney has too much baggage and too little nerve to provide a clear contrast with Mr. Obama. If Republicans nominate Mr. Romney, "We give up the issue of freedom of conscience! We give up the issue of bailouts! We give up the issue of cap-and-trade!" thundered Mr. Santorum. "Why would we do that? Why would we nominate someone who's uniquely unqualified to take on the biggest issues of the day?" By the end of his speech, many of the activists in the crowd were shouting "Go, Rick, go!"


This has been Mr. Santorum's strategy to rebut the Romney attacks, by trying to keep the focus on the big picture and remind voters of Mr. Romney's own liabilities. It has worked with folks like Lori Grajek, a 52-year-old substitute teacher from Dearborn. She's heard about his votes, but she believes she can "trust him" given his longer record of "fighting to get things like health-savings accounts even before they were popular."

Mr. Santorum can't outrun his votes, and his big-picture strategy is arguably his best means of moving beyond them. That's why Michigan matters. The state will not prove decisive—this nomination fight will continue. The results could also be muddled by a Democratic campaign encouraging its party faithful to make mischief by voting in the GOP primary, for Mr. Santorum and for Ron Paul.

Yet a Santorum victory here would prove he could weather the attacks and give him the crucial opening to continue making his broader case. A defeat risks further deflating his surge, once again leaving Mr. Romney to divide and conquer.

Ms. Strassel writes The Journal's Potomac Watch column.

[ccp]

Some have been reporting that Michigan primary is a bit of an anomaly in that Democrats can vote in it.   Something about unions are getting some of their members who are able to vote in this and mess up the Republicans - ie. help Romney lose.

I really question how much of the "support" for Santorum is more cynically driven rather than real blue collar support.

[Crafty_Dog]

A fair point, but also fair is noting that he won the Senate twice in PA with considerable union support.

(He voted FOR Davis-Bacon IIRC -- hiss, boo-- , which would explain union support in part).

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/blow-santorum-and-the-sexual-revolution.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Santorum and the Sexual Revolution
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: March 2, 2012
o   

Rick Santorum wants to bring sexy back ... to the 1950s, when he was born.

That is because Santorum seems to have an unhealthy fixation with, and passionate disdain for, the 1960s and the sexual freedoms that followed.
To fully understand Santorum’s strident rejection of the 1960s, it’s instructive to recall a speech and question-and-answer session he gave in 2008 to a course on religion and politics at the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life in Washington.
The speech was interesting, but the answers he gave to the questions that followed were truly illuminating.
In response to a question about the kinds of words he had heard “attached to religion and politics” during his years in the Senate, Santorum ventured off onto sex:
“It comes down to sex. That’s what it’s all about. It comes down to freedom, and it comes down to sex. If you have anything to do with any of the sexual issues, and if you are on the wrong side of being able to do all of the sexual freedoms you want, you are a bad guy. And you’re dangerous because you are going to limit my freedom in an area that’s the most central to me. And that’s the way it’s looked at.”
Next a commenter falsely claimed that my colleague Maureen Dowd “said that the Republican Party is trying to repeal Woodstock.” It was a misrepresentation of a 1998 column she had written about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. What she actually wrote was:
“Since Watergate, there has been a pendulum of partisan revenge. And, right now, Republicans want their payback for Watergate, for Bork, for Iran-contra, even for Woodstock. Like Kenneth Starr, the Republicans are attempting to repeal the 1960s.”
But let’s not let facts slow us down. Santorum, predictably, deflected back to sex:
“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. They prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom. All of the things are about sexual freedom, and they hate to be called on them. They try to somehow or other tie this to the founding fathers’ vision of liberty, which is bizarre. It’s ridiculous. That’s at the core of why you are attacked.”
The next question was: “Do you see any possibility for a party of Christian reform, or an influx of Christian ideas into this [Democratic] party?”
Santorum’s answer included what? That’s right: Sex!
While explaining what he saw as a shift in the Democratic Party away from “blue-collar working-class folks with traditional values” Santorum said:
“What changed was the ’60s. What changed was sex. What changed was the social and cultural issues that have huge amounts of money because if you look — I haven’t seen numbers on this, but I’m sure it’s true — if you go socioeconomic scale, the higher the income, the more socially liberal you are. The more you know you can buy your way out of the problems that sexual libertinism causes you. You have an abortion, well, I have the money to take care of it. If I want to live an extravagant life and get diseases, I can. ... You can always take care of everything. If you have money, you can get away with things that if you’re poor you can’t.”
The questions finally got around to asking about sex directly, much to Santorum’s delight, I’m sure. To one of those questions Santorum answered in part:
“Sex is a means. Evolution is a means. And the aim is a secular world. It’s a, in my opinion, a hedonistic, self-focused world that is, in my opinion, anti-American.”
Santorum may now cloak his current views in Catholic fundamentalism and Constitutional literalism, but, at their root, they are his reaction to, and revulsion for, the social-sexual liberation that began in the 1960s.

continued

[G M]

if you go socioeconomic scale, the higher the income, the more socially liberal you are. The more you know you can buy your way out of the problems that sexual libertinism causes you. You have an abortion, well, I have the money to take care of it. If I want to live an extravagant life and get diseases, I can. ... You can always take care of everything. If you have money, you can get away with things that if you’re poor you can’t.”


Anyone think this isn't true?

[DougMacG]

My first Rachel Maddow post? (Maybe I wrote that one other time)  She refers to the Santarum campaign as Amateur Hour http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/05/10583286-rick-santorums-amateur-hour and is partly right.  It wasn't only Santorum but not getting on the ballot in Virginia and in parts of must-win Ohio.  Also: "as recently as mid-February, didn't have a national press secretary, a national headquarters, a pollster, or any paid advance staffers to ensure his campaign events run smoothly."

When you run for President, you have to figure out all of the things that have to happen, like getting on the ballots, and work the clock backwards to cover everything that needed to be done.  I think Pawlenty had his plan mapped and realized that he couldn't have zero momentum and zero money at that point and then find funding and staff and volunteers to move 10,000 people in Virginia and have simultaneous motion in 18 congressional districts in Ohio, and all the others.

Obama had no executive experience EXCEPT: he ran a flawless national campaign to win the Presidency.  I'm sure others ran it but still - responsibility goes to the top of the organization.

Santorum ran based mostly on Senate experience and his own compromised version of conservatism.  He got as far as he could without great staff or money, but running a 50 state national campaign is not a one-man job.  He didn't know he had won Iowa and didn't act like a front runner when he finally took the lead.

Now Gallup has Romney up over Santorum 38-22, approaching a 2-1 lead coming into super-"chooseday" today.

We will know more later today.  Gingrich will win his home state of Georgia, Ron Paul might win Alaska in a low turnout caucus, Santorum with his previous momentum might have had the most votes of the day and still have a good showing, but the opportunity if there was one was lost and Romney will take the most delegates and actually start to take on the role of inevitable nominee.

[Crafty_Dog]

Saintorum wants to ban hardcore porn.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rick-santorum-wants-ban-hardcore-pornography-222833811.html

Silly me, I would have thought this to be a matter for the pursuit of happiness, the 9th Amendment (privacy), and the 10th Amendment (States Rights), not the Feds.

Oy fg vey.

[G M]

Saintorum wants to ban hardcore porn.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rick-santorum-wants-ban-hardcore-pornography-222833811.html

Silly me, I would have thought this to be a matter for the pursuit of happiness, the 9th Amendment (privacy), and the 10th Amendment (States Rights), not the Feds.

Oy fg vey.

Those on the left who love Big Government should remember that when the shoe is on the other foot.

Funny how many aging hippies are suddenly 10 amd. advocates when the feds raid their "medical" marijuana shops.

[DougMacG]

I heard Glenn Beck ask Santorum about Paul Ryan's budget.  Santorum said the simplified two tax rate plan at 10 and 15% is very similar to his, 10 and 28%.

Who knew?

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DApjHZq9o7M

First of a series; the concept looks potentially powerful.