Posted on 01/04/2012 6:14:16 AM PST by Tribune7
Congratulations Rick Santorum. Considering the puff coverage, establishment support and personal fortune of your main opponent, a second place Iowa finish eight votes back of Mitt Romney can count as a win. Especially taking into account that if it were a two-man race it would have been a landslide for you.
Also, it is very nice that Newt Gingrich seems to be staying in the race for the sole purpose of torturing Romney, whose first name which he never uses just happens to be Willard.
Yes, just like the movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.billlawrenceonline.com ...
Santorum was an author of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.
He's a fiscal conservative.
Ahhhh....well regardless Pa is represented well, well being subjective...lol
HJ, Rush & Sarah Palin are both behind him. If we can't get behind Santorum we can't get behind anybody and at this point our options are getting kind of limited anyway.
Cain's problem was that he was a one-note singer and that he was never vetted.
Santorum was subject to two decades worth of anal exams. What's the worst they got on him? That he sent his kids to a Pennsylvania cyber-charter school while living in D.C., and that he let a lobbyist buy him a Starbucks latte.
As a resident of PA since 1986 and a conservative
My entire life I can tell you Santorum is slimy and two faced. The voters sent him packing for good reason.
You will hear neophytes and uninformed tell you his endorsement of specter cost him, and that did not help his cause, but that is not why he lost. You will hear those same neophytes tell you He didn’t stand a chance because of the democratic tide and Casey being a popular name. Again that’s complete BS.
Santorum was sent packing by a huge margin because his doublespeak and continual say one thing do another came home to roost. He alienated not only voters but republican establishment and donors in the state.
Santorum talks a good game and is certainly more on the social conservative of the spectrum but he also repeatedly got caught doing a lot of the same old crap that he originally claimed he stood against from fake residency nonsense to have PA pick up his kids educational tab to espousing strong borders on his english web sit and pro illegals on his Spanish version.
He was routes by an opponent who literally no showed the campaign, because Santorum alienated so much or the republican base.
Santorum is not an aweful human being, but most folks who are espousing his praises are projecting and are likely going to be very disappointed when they discover the truth. He is not capable of handling the spotlight that will now be upon him. I see Santorum as a viable VP, he can be a pitbull and knows how to play dirty when he wants to. I don’t see him as the top of the ticket. He’s just not astute enough IMHO to survive at that level.
He is also anything but a fiscal conservative. He campaigns as one but he brought the pork as much if not more than anyone else.
Sorry but talk show hosts backing a candidate means nothing. Those same folks were espousing they viability of Bachman not that long ago and Cain and whoever else.
Santorum is at best a vp candidate, at the top of the ticket he’ll eviscerated.
Yes he certainly is a better option than the joke that Cain was, but I really cannot see Santorum being the top of the ticket and winning.
You can write off PA and OH if he is the candidate, assuming he doesn’t completely collapse under the campaign. He was destroyed by a well funded attack campaign by democratic surrogates for a candidate with the personality of a rock. He will be destroyed by the Obama machine.. and while I am no fan of Obama he is 1000 times the campaigner that Casey is.
Goodpoints. The Specter/Toomey deal bothered me some, but I think I can vote for Mr. Santorum.
“there was good reason he was sent packing by the voters of this state”
No there wasn’t. He was targeted by acorn. HUGE. They threw everything at him including the kitchen sink and most of it was manufactured. PA was controlled by fast eddie rendell and his dem machine...which also controlled the state’s gop, lousy, stinking traitors that they are. You know, the same gop leadership that backed murtha?
They refused to fund Santorum, gave him no support at all, and the conservatives who blamed him for specter stayed home.
He did not want to endorse specter in the first place. He WOULD have endorsed Toomey, but bush, who just happened to be president at the time, (and head of the Republican party,) wanted specter and personally put an awful lot of pressure on Rick.
Toomey could still have won regardless, except for the FACT that the dem unions, rendell’s machine, got out the vote for specter.
To blame Santorum fo Toomey’s loss is pathetic. If you know Pennsylvania, then you know darn well that Santorum’s victories here were absolute miracles because Phildelphia is way too powerful in this state and the thug machine WILL roll.
There is a lot more to Santorum. He stood for his principles even when it was not politically popular to do so.
And anyone who knows anything about the Terri Schiavo case should ALSO know that Rick Santorum was absolutely front and center putting his career on the line to save her life.
Santorum is no milquetoast. He defended marriage against the gay insurgency. He spoke out vehemently against overturning the Texas sodomy laws for which he took intense abuse from the left and all its media.
He did initiate pork spending for PA until pork became a lethal weapon for blackmail. When Jim DeMint called for an end to it, Santorum signed the no pork pledge and that ceased to exist.
Rich Santorum did NOT deserve lose. Not then, and not now.
See #28
I don’t know about Romney but Santorum is behind Newt, Perry and Bachman as far as I’m concerned.. never had much use for Santorum because he was just one of the gang that hung around voted together like McCain, Graham, Hutchinson and his close buddy Arlen Specter.. same ole same ole
You have spouted every leftist talking point against Santorum while living in Pittsbugh which has all but been detroyed by the democrats who have been in power for far too long. You know that all the accustions you have made were made by democrats and have two sides but you chose the dem side. Shame on you.
You are SO full of it. mccain HATES Santorum. What the frak are you talking about?
I didn't think he'd even get in double-digits in Iowa, but he did so it looks like he figured something out.
I don't think Gingrich can win. I don't want Paul, and I am an anti-Romney.
Santorum’s an interesting twist to this election season... starting to look promising...
See him in action against Barbara Boxer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoTjb9rzyEo
Excuse me,
You are blaming ACORN for Santorum’s loss? Really? Incorrect but interesting.
Let me ask you this, since acorn attacking santorum is why he was evicerated..
What makes you think he’s going to face anything different if he’s the nominee?? And if he couldn’t handle the attacks in his last election cycle and win, that he will somehow do so this time, when the stakes are higher and the money spent to attack him will be larger?
Your conclusions on why Santorum lost are completely wrong IMHO, but even assuming they are right, you are not making a strong argument that he can win a national campaign, in fact, based on your version of things, its a strong argument that he can’t.
I didn’t choose the Dem side, I am telling folks who want reality reality. Santorum LOST, and LOST big, and he lost BIG for a reason, trivializing his loss by writing it off as “it was the tide” or “it was spectre” or “it was the polkadotted purple people eater” is ignorant and uninformed.
Santorum is far more liked outside of PA than inside, and there is a reason he failed miserably last election here, and while tryte sound bites might sell, they are not accurate. Santorum didn’t lose a close race, he didn’t lose a squeaker, he was sent packing in a complete and total ROUTE! By an opponent who literally no showed the campaign.
You can continue to believe that Santorum’s loss was just a poor alignment of circumstances.. because you know that might align with your emotional desires, but its not true.
Santorum was a 2 term sitting Senator, and he got destroyed, not because he was the center of some scandal.. but because he was rejected. Folks didn’t vote for Casey, he offered them no reason to... they voted against Santorum by an overwhelming margin... that doesn’t happen by accident people.
YOu can blame acorn, you can blame spectre, you can blame Bush, or Rove or whoever, but end of the day, Santorum was responsible for his fate. He didn’t survive the scrutiny of a hard campaign by an absent oponent. You think the 2012 election cycle will have any less viciousness or smaller budgets for attacks against him??
This is an election, not day care, and Santorum won his seat originally by attacking his oponents for far pettier things than he had thrown against him in 06. He’ll face far far harder and tougher things if he winds up the nominee, and he’s already shown he can’t survive it.
He’s not a small government fiscal conservative, he gives nice speaches, but doesn’t follow through. He didn’t shut off the pork, he brought as much if not more home as anyone else.
I am not someone who hates Santorum, I just don’t see him as capable of carrying a national campaign, his history that I personally witnessed in politics does not remotely inspire confidence in his abilities in this campaign. I do see him as a viable VP, but as the main guy, just don’t see it.
We’ll see how it all plays out, but based on how he was destroyed by Casey, no way he can handle Obama and his war machine IMHO.
He definitely peaked at the right time in Iowa, but will have have staying power? Somehow I doubt it.. now that he’s going to be under the microscope, I think you will see the weaknesses that are there.
Time will tell how it plays out.
I am anti Romney, and would love for a great conservative to show up, but reality is, there is none in this class.. There is no A tier talent in this class anywhere, you have some A-/B+ a whole lot of C and below and maybe a C/C+ in their.
Paul is a joke... his campaign will be over the first closed primary state that votes.
Santorum lasting? I just don’t see it, I see a lot of projecting, little real to back it up, so we’ll see where he’s at in a few weeks to a month. THis campaign is boiling down and always has boiled down to a Romney and a Non Romney. The non-Romney hasn’t been chosen yet.
I don’t share your sentiment that Newt is unelectable, I think he misplayed Iowa by not going negative against Romney sooner, when it became obvious he will do anything... but that’s arm chair quarter backing.
Between Newt and Santorum, I feel Newt is the stronger guy, others will disagree.
However at the end of the day if its Obama vs Mickey Mouse, I am going to vote for Mickey Mouse.. This sadly makes the election of Romney a possibility if he isn’t taken out in the primaries, but if he his taken out by the wrong person, we wind up with Obama again anyway.
Time will tell how this all plays out.
If Newt turns out to be the guy I have no problems supporting him.
So did I!
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