The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Posted on 01/07/2012 4:36:09 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
CONCORD, N.H.--It takes just one day with Rick Santorum to see why conservative power brokers might consider him the only ideologically pure GOP presidential candidate with the chops to derail moderate Mitt Romney.
A day is all it takes to also understand why President Obama's team might greet a Santorum triumph over Romney with high fives and champagne. This is the Santorum dilemma:
Good Rick: The former senator from Pennsylvania uses a powerful personal narrative to explain his values-laden governing philosophy. That message is accentuated by a variety of political skills: As I wrote during his Iowa campaign, Santorum is comfortable and casual on the campaign trail. He playfully teases voters. He dives deep into policy details. He knifes at his rivals. All with equal ease. There's more: Santorum encourages debate and listens to voters, traits rarely found in the Senate.
Not-so-good Rick: He can seem arrogant and condescending under fire, and even his brightest moments are marred by loquaciousness. Santorum doesn't know when to stop talking. In question-and-answer sessions, the first minute of a typical Santorum response is brilliant. The next five minutes are OK. The final five minutes are a drag, and Santorum doesn't seem to notice when people fidget, close their eyes, and leave the room after a string of 11-minute answers.
"He reminds me of a high school student who transfers into an honors class and tries to show everybody how smart he is,'" said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who attended a Santorum town hall this week. "It gets annoying."
"He talked and talked and talked. The longer he talked," Cullen said, "the fewer votes he got."
Santorum's unflinching conservatism is both a liability and an asset. Many of his policies, particularly on social issues, are so far right of center that many Republican consultants believe he could not win a general election. On the other hand, few would question Santorum's sincerity after attending his town halls. Voters crave authenticity in politics. Romney's record of policy flip-flops leave him lacking in that department.
A raucous exchange between the former senator and college students on Thursday displayed both sides of the Santorum equation. Addressing a college convention, which included several rows of Rep. Ron Paul supporters who were determined to intimidate and embarrass him, Santorum fielded questions for more than an hour. To his credit, he didn't duck the libertarians.
One of them, a college-aged man, asked Santorum how gay marriage affected him personally. A young woman suggested it was hypocritical of Santorum to limit marriage rights while embracing constitutional freedoms such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were the sort of in-your-face questions that New Hampshire town hall meetings are known for.
"Who's attempting to change the law?" Santorum replied. He sharply challenged the man to defend his support of gay marriage. Several audience members shouted answers in support of the questioner.
Santorum threw his hands in the air and said, "Oh, no. We're not going to shout." He admonished the crowd to raise their hands before speaking. Heeding his request, a gay-marriage supporter pressed the hypocrisy angle and drew cheers for her effort.
"Are we saying that everybody should have the right to marry?" Santorum said.
"Yes!" several shouted.
Santorum: "So anyone can marry anyone else?"
"Yes!"
Santorum: "So anybody can marry multiple people?"
Crowd members grumbled and shouted over each other. Santorum called for order again. "OK, maybe we can't do this," he said. "We're going to have a civil discussion or move on to another question." Depending on a person's point of view, Santorum was either restoring order, as a leader should, or oozing arrogance.
The crowd quieted, and one woman spoke for the pro-gay-marriage faction by saying that a legal union between two homosexuals harms nobody.
Replied Santorum: "What about three men?" He was being provocative and might not have expected the answer he got.
"Go for it," the woman said.
Once he realized that she was condoning polygamy among same-sex couples, Santorum sarcastically framed the pro-gay-marriage argument thusly: Anybody, he said, can marry as many people as they want. The gay-rights supporters stood and applauded Santorum, apparently mocking him.
He moved on gracefully and without objection from the crowd after restating his view that God created men and women with the specific purpose to reproduce and marry. "I believe God made man that way," he said.
Earlier in the day, Santorum faced a friendlier audience at the Merrimack Valley Railroad depot in Northfield, N.H. Still, this being New Hampshire, it wasn't easy sledding.
With no empty chairs, one middle-aged man knelt at Santorum's feet until the candidate called on him. Unfolding his lanky body to stand eye-to-eye with Santorum, the man introduced himself as a "self-employed farmer" and said, "I really wish you'd stop just saying "small-business man" and say "small-business man and the self-employed." Parochial question can throw a candidate for a loop. Not Santorum. Not this time.
"You're right," Santorum said, explaining why he had not recognized the distinction between the terms--and why his economic policies would help the man no matter what he called himself.
Another voter asked Santorum how his values influenced his career. This was a softball. "How did I get to where I am, standing here before you?" Santorum asked. He launched into a narrative of his life and those who influenced him:
-- The Catholic grade school nuns who rapped his knuckles. "I still have the scars," he joked, slapping one hand with the palm of the other.
-- His grandfather, a coal miner, who "smoked everything, all day long. Pipes. Cigars. Cigarettes. He had whiskey every morning with his coffee. A whole different breed of cat."
-- His Italian parents. "I know what tough love is."
He transitioned smoothly to an explanation of how those values influence conservative policies, such as limits on welfare and unemployment benefits.
Americans "believe in hard work," he said, and yet will show compassion for those in need. Needy people should turn first to their families and local charities before getting help from the government, he added.
Two rows back, a woman tapped the shoulder of the woman in front of her and mouthed the words, "He's good." With a bit more time, she might have added: And not so good.
What do you mean "once he realized"? He set her ass up, you idiot.
He's obviously thought this issue through and he knows what they're going to say before they even know what they're going to say.
Although an interesting question from Romney might be something like, "I didn't issue any waivers from RomneyCare. How many waivers have you issued from UrkelCare?"
National Review has “Cornered” the market on D.C. elitism and arrogance.
HEY! NR! Go Screw.
Where is the bad? The author has no point except, the one on his head.
Pray for Rick
He's talking about issues that I care about, and his talking makes sense and has layers of information.
The man can hold a debate, an audience, the nation without nary a TelePrompTer or notes!!
I mean...REALLY....'they' criticized Bush for being inarticulate....
..we all know Obama can't say hello without his prompter or notes....
..and now they have the nerve to criticize Santorum because he's articulate, knowledgeable and can actually carry on a discussion.
No doubt....NO DOUBT....Santorum is more than happy to let anyone and everyone know what he thinks on the issues...
..because 'they' sure didn't give him an opportunity to do this in the previous debates....
...he actually had to raise his hand to be recognized.
GO SANTORUM!!
I read the article presented here and I’ll be darned if I can detect the ‘not so good’ part this person seems to see in Santorum.
The guy actually stands up for an hour and entertains any question the crowd wants to toss his way, and this guy thinks it arrogant to respond with conviction. What would he have him do, act like a spineless ankle biter of a writer?
Hint to writer, if you want to tarnish a guy’s image, you might want to present something he’s done wrong.
Fournier should wipe that snot off his nose and go home to his mommy.
That’s the worst they can say about him? I’m loving this guy more and more. (He may not be perfect, but neither was Reagan. The sooner we realize that the better off we conservatives will be.)
I listened to Rick on the radio when he filled in for Dr. Bennett. Liked him then. Didn’t give him much of chance until the results from Iowa. I’d put myself strongly in his camp now. Game On!
Can he win? At this point in 1980 people didn’t think Reagan had a prayer. But what do “they” know?
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Old Ronny is still trashing Republicsns for the left?
This left wing creep was a Clinton operative and full blown
Fraud for the AP !
Then this creep got canned as the head of the AP !
He still shaking for the DNC!
The National Journal is a DC leftist web operation employing old
Left wing has beens like former Full time Clinton operative Ronny F.
Fired lefty Major Garret who was Axelrod buddy landed there too.
Ronny was canned from the AP .
The left is dragging out all the old lefties to attack Rick S.
Yesterday the old Dem troll Charles Babbington
Cooked up a hit piece on Rick S too.
Axelrod has called out the Dogs on Rick !
Agreed.
I’m no longer worrying about picking “the candidate who can beat 0bama”, but picking one who just might make a decent President.
How is that response arrogance? It is exactly the right response.
Santorum: Trim Social Security now even if painful
Associated Press ^ | Jan 6, 2012 6:35 PM (ET) | CHARLES BABINGTON
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2829774/posts?q=1&;page=1#1
They are one in the same...the polls that are out now with candidate x vs. Barry are meaningless. Well, not meaningless actually. They are intended to send us down a Rathole that we should not go down.
The ad and smear campaign against Romney is already created, shot, cut and ready to roll. Perhaps there is some divine intervention in having hidden Rick Santorum out in plain sight for so long.
But there are also a lot of us who understand genuine smarts and decency should not be a handicap in a presidential race. Especially now that we've had three long years of indecency and fakery.
Santorum is as smart as Gingrich without the schlong control problems.
You’re so right.
IMO you put good people up. If the electorate can’t buy into them, then let the electorate suffer the consequences.
Sooner or later the electorate will begin to see the value of a solid person. When they do, you’re off to getting things fixed.
Putting up our 7/10ths version of Obama isn’t going to do anyone any good. If by some chance they get elected, they’ll simply tarnish our name, act as a caretaker for the Left, and when the Left is voted in again, they can take off again from where they left off.
At some point in time, it’s going to have to dawn on our side as well as the Left, if you don’t put someone in who actually understands Conservatism, then we will never roll back the Leftist legislation, and the whole thing is basically a waste of time.
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