Posted on 01/30/2012 8:11:27 AM PST by Kaslin
Rick Santorum opposed TARP.
He didn’t cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008. He didn’t follow the pro-bailout GOP crowd — including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — and he didn’t have to obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did. He also opposed the auto bailout, Freddie and Fannie bailout, and porkulus bills.
Santorum opposed individual health care mandates — clearly and forcefully — as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters.
He voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted yes to drilling in ANWR, and unlike Romney and Gingrich, Santorum has never dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi. He hasn’t written any “Contracts with the Earth.”
Santorum is strong on border security, national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement.
Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed.
He won Iowa through hard work and competent campaign management. Santorum has improved in every GOP debate and gave his strongest performance last week in Florida, wherein he both dismantled Romneycare and popped the Newt bubble by directly challenging the front-runners’ character and candor without resorting to their petty tactics.
He rose above the fray by sticking to issues.
Most commendably, he refused to join Gingrich and Perry in indulging in the contemptible Occupier rhetoric against Romney. Character and honor matter. Santorum has it.
Of course, Santorum is not perfect. As I’ve said all along, every election cycle is a Pageant of the Imperfects. He lost his Senate re-election bid in 2006, an abysmal year for conservatives. He was a go-along, get-along Big Government Republican in the Bush era. He supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit entitlement, steel tariffs, and earmarks and outraged us movement conservatives by endorsing RINO Arlen Specter over stalwart conservative Pat Toomey.
I have no illusions about Rick Santorum. I wish he were as rock-solid on core economic issues as Ron Paul.
And I wish Ron Paul was not the far-out, Alex Jones-panderer on foreign policy, defense, and national security that he is.
If Ron Paul talked more like his son, Rand Paul, about the need for common-sense profiling of jihadists at our State Department consular offices overseas and if he talked more about the need for strengthened visa screening and airport security scrutiny of international flight manifests, I might have more than a kernel of confidence that he would take post-9/11 precautions to guard against jihadi threats and protect us from our enemies foreign and domestic. But he doesn’t, so I can’t support Ron Paul.
Mitt Romney has the backing of many solid conservatives whom I will always hold in high esteem — including Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement stalwart Kris Kobach, former U.N. ambassacor John Bolton, and GOP Govs. Nikki Haley and Bob McDonnell. With such conservative advisers in his camp, Romney would be better than Obama. And a GOP Congress with a staunch Tea Party-backed contingent of fresh-blood leaders in the House and Senate will help keep any GOP president in line. Romney’s private-sector experience and achievements are the best things he’s got going. Only recently has he risen to defend himself effectively. But between his health care debacle, eco-nitwittery, and expedient and unconvincing political metamorphosis, Mitt Romney had way too much ideological baggage for me in 2008 to earn an endorsement — and it still hasn’t changed for me in 2012.
Then there’s Newt, who has long made a career out of trashing progressive Saul Alinsky while employing his tactics at every turn. I’ve been making this point for years and have chronicled his dalliances with leftists as long as anyone in the conservative blogosphere.
Many grass-roots conservatives were awakened to Newt’s double-talk and double-dealing during the NY-23 race. Inconvenient truth: Newt’s transgressions are not from decades ago. It’s not ancient history. It’s here and now. Readers of this blog know the truth: It’s not just “the GOP establishment” that’s repulsed by Gingrich’s combination of moral baggage and K Street/Beltway culture of corruption. It’s the very grass-roots that Gingrich’s cheerleaders purport to represent.
From reader Barnaby, who sent back his crossed-out Republican solicitation forms with a “NO RINOS” sticky note for Newt Gingrich:
Remember the rebuke in Dubuque? May 11, 2011:
Guy: Speaker Gingrich, what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.
Gingrich: I didn’t do anything to Paul Ryan!
Guy: Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the house.
Gingrich: No, I…
Guy: You’re an embarrassment to our party.
Gingrich: I’m sorry you feel that way.
Guy: Why don’t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself.
Lest we forget, this election is not about choosing a showboat candidate to run against John King or Juan Williams or Wolf Blitzer.
It’s not about “raging against” some arbitrarily defined GOP “machine.”
For many grass-roots conservatives across the country, Romney and Gingrich are the machine.
And at this point in the game, Rick Santorum represents the most conservative candidate still standing who can articulate both fiscal and social conservative values — and live them.
***
Side note: Unlike many bloggers and pundits weighing in on GOP 2012, I have zero connections to any of the final four GOP candidates’ campaigns. I have neither received a single penny from, nor donated a single penny, to any of their campaigns. I have not served as any kind of consultant or adviser to any of the campaigns. I have not written any speeches or talking points or briefing papers for any of their campaigns. I have not organized any blogger calls or social media efforts for any of their campaigns. I have not spoken to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich since interviewing them for Hot Air at CPAC in 2006, and as far as I can recall, I have not communicated directly with either Santorum or Paul. My first and only contact with Santorum’s campaign came last week when a spokesman called to assure me that Santorum was not withdrawing from the Florida primary or the race in general and was in it for the long haul.
So much for my “establishment” credentials, eh? 
***
Santorum is headed to Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nevada.
“The Rick Santorum for President Campaign will expand nationally this week with campaign stops in Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nevada in the coming days,” a spokesman MAtt Beynon said in a statement.
Santorum is slated to make several stops in battleground states over the next few days, but did not appear to be heading back to Florida, where Republicans go to the polls on Tuesday.
Santorum is expected be in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday when the Florida results are known.
After winning Iowa — the first state to chose which Republican they want to face Obama in November — Santorum’s campaign has struggled to catch fire.
In Florida — a winner-takes-all race — the former senator has not appeared much and is barely avoiding a vote share in single digits according to polls, putting him in third place behing Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
Nevada will vote just four days after Florida, while Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri all vote on February 7th.
Santorum had put campaigning in Florida on hold Sunday, as his daughter, Bella, was hospitalized just days before a key primary vote.
Two days before Florida’s winner-takes-all primary, Santorum spent the day in Pennsylvania, where his three year-old was admitted to a Philadelphia children’s hospital.
***
A reader writes:
I read your “For Santorum” article on your website. You wrote the argument against Newt clearly and completely. While Romney’s been on both sides of issues, Newt has been on both sides at the same time. I think Newt would be almost as combative and adversarial to a Republican congress than a Democratic one…
***
Question of the day: Who is the “machine?”
Secondary question of the day: If you were a simple machine, what kind of machine would you be — inclined plane, wheel & axle, lever, pulley, wedge, or screw?
OK Michelle, it’s your vote to throw away, and you did.
Who knew she wanted a Theocrasy and wants the govenment in her bedroom.
Who knew?
She’s not for Romney.
Well guess she goes for Romney because an endorsement for the looser Santorum is a vote for Romney. Sometimes one has to select the lesser of the two evils. Michelle screwed up in spite of all her raving. I’m done with her.
Guess you just don't get it. A vote for Santorum IS a vote for Romney.
Just curious. When did one of the liberal memes become a talking point on the GOP side? The whole “Theocracy and Government in the Bedroom” meme goes back to it’s use by the Left on Reagan. Apparently, as your use is not nearly the first I have seen, the GOP, or portions thereof, do not want better than a third of their traditional voters - the Social Conservatives.
The wedge and screw are fancy inclined planes.
Besides. Newt is just as social conservative as Santorum.
I respect Santorum. I respect his supporters. That said, he strikes me as a .22 caliber candidate in a .50 caliber kind of political war. Even this booster article has to concede his fiscal weaknesses. What are we now? Oh yeah, not just broke, but hocked.
His daughter is not well and he had to suspend his campaign to care for her - the right thing to do, and that is another proof of his upright character and his love. I do not dispute his virtues. However, he will not have that freedom of action as a president. Suspending his campaign hurts only himself. Suspending his governance as a president hurts the entire nation.
If he wins the primary I will vote for him in the general. Right now though, his actual contribution is to keep conservatives divided, and as a result each conservative candidate will be defeated in detail.
She punted!
Pray for America
Delegate Math: Don’t Anoint Romney Just Yet
Mitt Romney may have won Iowa and New Hampshire, but even if he wins in South Carolina and Florida, he will technically still have a long way to go before winning the GOP nomination.
Mathematically, no candidate can seal the nomination until late April, which leaves a lot of campaigning yet to be done.
Don't be like the establishment who say we shouldn't vote like we want, but have to vote for their candidate. Most are willing to vote for Newt if we can't get Santorum, but are Newt's backers saying no to Santorum out if he starts to win? Is it never Santorum like its never romney?
Your analysis might be more convincing if you spelled ‘theocracy’ with two ‘c’s.
“Santorum is strong on border security..”
Oh yeah, Michelle??
Explain THIS:
Santorum:
Voted AGAINST increasing the number of immigration investigators:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00201
VOTED AGAINST HIRING AN ADDITIONAL 1,000 BORDER PATROL AGENTS, paid for by reductions in state grants.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00179
VOTED TO GIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00058
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00154
SANTORUM: Trim Social Security now- even if painful.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j7O34Bpp42k-IlMMNiOLBkYF2zNw?docId=b1cff9ecefe24ca6ae1764a09761e361
VOTED AGAINST FOOD STAMP REFORM
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00353
VOTED AGAINST MEDICAID REFORM
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00352
Voted to increase the social services block grant from $1 BILLION to $2 BILLION
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00302
VOTED TO RAID SOCIAL SECURITY instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=2&vote=00056
Voted to impose a uniform federal tax mandate on states to force them to allow convicted , rapists, arsonists drug kingpins and all other ex-convicts to vote in federal elections.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00031
.
Santorum; Big government spender:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6XCZz2X1Y&feature=player_embedded
__________________________
Santorum needs to put his country before his ego and drop out.
.
Please elaborate.
Do you think all pro-life conservatives want America to become a "Theocrasy", whatever that is -- or just Rick Santorum?
Do you support marriage as Rick Santorum does, and if not, why do you consider support for "gay marriage" appropriate?
Do you believe in religious liberty and respect those with beliefs different from your own? If not, what are you doing on FR, and if so, why do you care about what Rick Santorum and his wife do in their own bedroom?
Is your view that anyone who espouses opposition to contraception - the near-unanimous view among Christian churches until the 20th century - should be held up for scorn and persecution?
So, if Newt is so concerned about having a Conservative voice represent the party, why doesn’t he do the honorable thing and drop out and throw his support to Santorum? Polls show Santorum would do better against Obama than Newt.
So you two are OK with Newt trashing Paul Ryan, supporting Dede Scazofazzi and carrying on an affair with Calista for EIGHT YEARS????
The Calista thing is in the not so distant past, but the other two were within the last year and a half! And the guy is out there currently trashing capitalism.
Newt’s a peach all right.
Calling the 2008 Financial Crises “manufactured” seems like a bit of a stretch - it seemed very real to me. Maybe she means manufactured years earlier by the government.
As far as TARP is concerned, most of it was paid back only $132 billion is outstanding of which is mostly owed by GM, Chrysler and AIG - two of which were not originally supposed to be part of TARP
Notice how she starts off with this when she mentions Romney:
“Mitt Romney has the backing of many solid conservatives whom I will always hold in high esteem... “
But for the House Speaker, who gave us the GOP majority for the first time in 40 years, she starts off with:
“Then there’s Newt, who has long made a career out of trashing progressive Saul Alinsky while employing his tactics at every turn...”
So if you are really for Romney and you know your audience will freak out if you say you are for him, just say you are for Santorum!
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