What cause Rick Santorum’s defeat in his senatorial bid in PA? I do not remember the numbers, but his lost by a big margin. I always thought of him as a solid social conservative.
The two things that I recall were that he campaigned with Bush and he endorsed Arlen Specter over Arlen (sic) Toomey (who ran as a conservative and has since revealed that he has no comprehension of the 2a). In general, Santorum had a case of foot-in-mouth disease and would have done fine if he kept his mouth shut and ran on his record. Bush was very unpopular at the time - in PA and nationally. It doesn't make good political sense to tie yourself to an unpopular president - even RATs know that.
The Black Panthers were walking around a number of polling stations in Pennsylvania (not just Phillie) in the last few elections, each carrying a club in their right hands, while slapping it repeatedly into their left palms.
Not like that is threatening or anything.