Posted on 03/20/2012 4:36:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Rick Santorum makes an excellent point that “past performance really does indicate future results.” I completely agree—but not just “in Mitt Romney’s case.” Rick Santorum became the third-highest ranking Republican in the Senate in 2001 at a time when Republicans inherited balanced budgets, surpluses, and conservative, pro-life majorities. Senator Santorum and his big spending GOP allies proceeded to squander this inheritance.
The leadership of the Rick Santorum Republicans proved disastrous:
* The Rick Santorum Republicans never passed a single balanced budget, after inheriting balanced budgets and record surpluses. They racked up $1.7 trillion in deficits and increased the average number of earmarks by almost 500 percent. The Senator even voted for the Bridge to Nowhere.
* The Rick Santorum Republicans increased the national debt by 12 percent and voted to raise the debt ceiling five times to accommodate it—even while dealing with a president of their own party.
* The Senator voted with Democrats and Big Labor to defeat the National Right to Work Act of 1995. He justifies this vote saying he was representing Pennsylvania where forced unionization is the law but today, PA Senator Toomey is cosponsoring nearly identical legislation.
* The Senator voted with Democrats and Big Labor — repeatedly — to protect Davis-Bacon legislation, an old law on the books that requires the federal government to pay more to its contractors. He was so wedded to big labor that he even voted against waiving Davis-Bacon in times of emergency. By voting to protect Davis-Bacon, the Senator cost taxpayers many millions in higher taxes, deficits, and national debt.
* The Senator sponsored the “Santorum Amendment” to raise the Minimum Wage 21.4%. He supported Ted Kennedy’s proposed hike in the Minimum Wage. And, in a 2006 campaign commercial, he bragged about his support for a higher Minimum Wage.
* The Rick Santorum Republicans abandoned their principles, resulting in the worst electoral defeat for Republicans since Watergate and the loss of GOP Congressional majorities in both the House and Senate. This left Congress in the hands of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. And in destroying the Republican brand of balanced budgets and spending control, the Rick Santorum Republican failure gave us Barack Obama in 2008.
This is not a record of leadership to be proud of, and in 2006 it resulted in a catastrophic 18-point defeat. I fear it would do so again in the fall of 2012 if he were the nominee.
Unlike Senator Santorum, I did not go to Washington seeing politics as a “team sport.” Instead, I set out to change the game, and was willing to fight the forces of the establishment within the Republican Party to do so. The result was the first GOP majority in 40 years and the largest increase in pro-life votes in House of Representatives history. When I was Speaker, we balanced the budget for the first time since the 1920s — and it stayed balanced for four straight years. We reformed welfare, lifting millions of Americans from poverty. We passed the biggest capital gains tax cut in history, helping create 11 million jobs. And we did it all while paying down the national debt by $400 billion.
If you agree with Senator Santorum that “past performance really does indicate future results,” it means there’s only one candidate in this race who can offer the change our country desperately needs.
WWL-TV's polling results for the 2012 Louisiana Republican presidential primary:
» Undecided: 26.21 percent
» Rick Santorum: 25.44 percent
» Mitt Romney: 20.97 percent
» Newt Gingrich: 19.81 percent
» Ron Paul: 5.63 percent
» Other: 1.94 percent
Source: WWL-TV election analyst Greg Rigamer/GCR & Associates via a telephone poll of 515 likely Republican voters in Louisiana from March 8-10. The poll has a 4.4% margin of error.
On Wednesday, Gingrich will conduct a town-hall meeting at Louisiana College in Pineville from 9 to 10 a.m., followed by meet-and-greets in Lake Charles at 1 p.m. and Lafayette at 4 p.m.
He will make other stops in Louisiana on Thursday, the details of which have yet to be announced. On Friday, Gingrich will tour Port Fouchon in the morning, participate in a Hispanic roundtable meeting at Oakland Plantation Estates in the afternoon, and conduct a town-hall meeting at his alma mater, Tulane University, from 4 to 5 p.m."
Lordy...I just wish Newt had a chance.
What kind of deal did he make with Mitt Romney? Hope it was better than the one Mitt made with Ron Paul. Perhaps after Obama beats Mitt we will find out.
This is positive campaigning? Did we not go to war about this time? Quite disingenuous and unworthy of Newt. I expect better.
I will comment on the top two mistakes in your post.
1) Santorum is no conservative.
2) Santorum cannot win the nomination.
But then what is THEIR opinions compared to yours?
LOL here.
Santorum is NOT a conservative politician. It is misleading to call Santorum "conservative". He may be a moral man but as a politician he is a spender and tries to go along (like Bush did). Santorum (again like Bush) would be unable to veto any spending bill. To be a fiscal conservative politician, you have to be able to veto and veto again and veto yet again until they give you the very limited spending you want. Gingrich is or can be a conservative politician.
The veto, and only the veto can bring spending under control. Bush refused to do it. Obama refuses to do it. Spending will remain out of control until they get a backbone and VETO bills.
Santorum (as well as Romney) “lifts” all the conservative policy talking points Newt gets good buzz on. He also likes, so has adopted, Newt’s term for Mitt — “Massachusetts Moderate.”
Why vote for an imitation?
Newt spells it out in his OpEd; they’re both moderates masquerading as conservatives.
It does seem odd. Since Newt has no chance except at a brokered convention, you would think he would focus on Mitt Romney.
Newt is even behind in Louisiana and behind a lot in Illinois. He can’t get 75% of the remaining delegates. So why is he not focused on Romney?
It is beginning to appear he is helping Romney in one way or another.
That you resort to an appeal to authority, is interesting.
I guess because there is a "consensus" about "catastrophic" climate change, I should go along with fake science. [?] All these radio hosts have been stringing us along. Rush and the others bashed Perry and Newt for their Bain/Romney comments. Will they now bash Rick for doing the same?
I was so pissed at Rick when he did this.
Davis-Bacon was a 1933 law designed by the KKK wing of the demonRAT party in order to keep southern black laborers from coming north and doing work for non union companies in major construction projects.
The blacks today have almost no membership in the craft unions where they work projects out of union halls, electrical, plumbers and steamfitters etc.
If you ever go to a union hall check out the skin color and if there is 2% black it's an over representation and it's very rare.
Black union membership is much higher in service unions {SEIU} and manufacturing {UAW} where the worker goes to the same place every day.
The more I read from Santorum supporters the more I think they want social changes but no big changes in the underlying system that is the cause of everything going down the tubes.
A lot of people who back Lawyer Ricky and Bishop Romney seem to think that a little nudge here and a minor tweak there is going to get things back on the right track. Unfortunately for such folks, we're way beyond the point that we can make little changes and watch things straighten out over time. We're already over the cliff and falling fast.
All that we can really do is elect someone who knows that we need an airbag to survive the impact and major changes that clearly show the world that we've turned the corner and won't go back to business as usual. If the world sees us actually headed toward energy independence and going back to the policies that worked so well for Reagan and Gingrich in the past, we can have things in pretty fair shape within a decade.
Every year people waste tweaking the existing mess probably adds two or three years to the length of time it'll take to get over seventy years of fascist democrat control of Congress "We The People" voted for all these years.
JMHO
‘Why vote for an imitation?’
Indeed! Well said!
Rick will just manage the mess. He will not use the Bully Pulpit to make Americans hold Congress’ feet to the fire on spending and for their support in removing bloated, overbearing regulations and Federal Agencies!
His “team” playing is appreciated and applauded by the Establishment.
Newt on the other hand, is not their cup of tea.
BUMP!!!
excellent
If Newt focused on OBAMA he’d get lots of attention
People dont dislike Santorum or even Romney as much as they dislike OBAMA
So yes, Newt is masquerading as Mitt’s “Ross Perot” to divide the 60% of GOP anti-Mitt vote
Hello VP Gingrich, enjoy that bucket of warm spit assuming you get Mitt annointed
I saw her yakking on Fox this morning. Doesn’t excite me at all.
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