Posted on 02/24/2012 6:01:02 AM PST by rellimpank
DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
These have been good days for Rick Santorum, buoyed as he campaigns by conservative Republicans cheering their newly anointed hope. Still, it will occur to at least some of his supporters that their hope is destined to be short-lived, that their candidate's particular baggage would sink any presidential candidacy. Especially his.
It's not only that a certain body of Santorum pronouncements on social issues exists, and that they're of a sort that large sectors of the American electorate find unpalatable, to put it mildly. Or that he continues to add to them.
By the time Democratic researchers apply themselves to this compendium of Mr. Santorum's views—in the unlikely event that he becomes the Republican nominee—it's size will have doubled, at the least. The Republicans have already provided President Obama with high-value gifts this election year, but none nearly as delectable as the prospect of a run against Mr. Santorum.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The person they really want most is Mitt Romney. They have been preparing their entire attack against him form the very beginning. Rick would give them a different challenge and they are scrambling for a way to go at him. It looks like they are going to paint him as an extremist and trip him up with women voters. I think that is the plan. I am still not sold on Rick Santorum as a national leader, but I am listening. So far, I am not impressed or excited. That is why I am still ‘all in’ with Newt. He can communicate the conservative message better than anyone running. Besides as all of us find out sooner or later, they all have baggage, yes even Mr. Santorum.
Not until we have people who have the stones to say:
... In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! ...
They did not overplay this hand in 2006, they very effectively painted Santorum as completely extreme and unacceptable, and Santorum lost his re-election bid by 17 points. I watched it happen folks, and nothing has changed with him between then and now.
This is exactly what I believe will happen in a national race, Santorum had no answer to this in 06, he’s got none now, and he will be trounced.
Santorum was rejected by PA voters after 2 terms in office for very very big and real reasons, the painting of it as simply, he endorced spectre, or it was a bad democratic year, are complete kool-aid drinking nonsense. He lost because the left targeted him, painted him as extreme, using his own words and deeds against him, and he had no answer to it, and was lambasted by an opponent that literally spent the campaign avoiding the public and saying anything.
“it’s size will have doubled, at the least.”
“it’s size”. She writes for the Wall Street Journal and uses an apostrophe with it to denote the possessive.
I didn’t need to go any further. Such atrocious grammar screams “dim bulb.” Her wiki biography says she won a Pulitzer prize. Sheesh. Santorum is right. America really has gone to the devil when pitiful writing such as this garners a Pulitzer.
She is also given to over the top statements. I dislike Ron Paul but she went further and branded his supporters neo Nazis. Yet she is passed off as a conservative.
Probably hates Santorum because he is prolife and she hails from the Abortion capital of the world, New York City.
Republicans have never lost running on values issues.
You and me, both!
No it is not logical. I think many are trying to find a pathway to winning. And it seems that the fiscal concerns strike a concern accross the board with many, even beyond those who call them conservatives.
Rick should keep talking about social issues. Sometimes he has a way of speaking that comes across as negative and judgemental. He needs to work on that. Not drop them just learn to ariculate them in a way that he can help a broader spectrum of people to understand why he is trying to say. He is starting to and getting better everyday.
Many of us are both social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Some of us believe the pathway to victory goes through the pathway of jobs, economy and the national debt.
Rick would not be a different challeng, Rick wouldn’t even cause team Obama a sweat. The game plan to take him out was written in 2006 and worked like a charm, and will work again in 2012 if he is the nominee, because nothing has changed.
Rick’s social conservative views are not the problem, his inability to effectively articulate them are, and the garbage that has come out of his mouth over the years, and continues to to this day provide all the fodder any oponent needs to paint him as radical and extreme and unacceptable to the general electorate. He’s got no chance in a national campain IMHO.
I will vote for whoever the Republican nominee is, but I truly believe, Santorum has no chance at all of winning a national election, even against the most inept adminstration of my lifetime.
The values that Santorum holds close are sincere. Nobody questions that. They are the traditional values that that made this country great. The values of faith, family, honesty, patriotism and moral strength. They are the values that hold that life is precious and that we are put on this earth by our Creator for a purpose greater than our own self-gratification.
Most of the elites believe in nothing. Their only values are materialism and their own selfish desires. None of them can be trusted. They will say and do whatever is expedient. They will tell any lie to get ahead. They will watch good people get hurt and not care. They will bankrupt and destroy our great country and never even care.
They have consistently lied about anyone with character and integrity. They use the Saul Alinsky model of the politics of personal destruction. They are despicable people.
This is the last chance to save our great country. Unless the Washington elites are replaced America will be bankrupt and ruined. Just a few short years ago America was the richest nation on earth and the worlds only superpower. Now everyone says America is in decline and Americans must accept living in a weakened declining country. That we must accept an America where parents refuse to provide for their own children. Where criminals rule the streets and good people hide in fear. Where the hard working and successful people have everything they earn taken from them. They say we must live in America where religion must be hidden and only spoken of in private. Where homosexuals parade in all our major streets bragging about how proud they are of their unhealthy lifestyle.
The very future of our great country is at stake. If we allow ourselves to be dictated to by the elites, if we become ashamed of our moral values if we cower before the very people who are bankrupting this great country and reject the very principles that have made America great, then we are truly doomed.
I thought they were praying for Gingrich.
Social Issues when they are being articulated by someone who does not have the intellectual ability to articulate his stands on them well, are easily painted as hateful and petty.. This is exactly where Santorum is. He is incapable of articulating his social conservative views in ways that don’t look hateful and foolish. Lets not even get into the fact this guys not a amall government conservative...
I’ll vote for the nominee whoever it is, but I just see 2006 all over again if Santorum is the nominee, he will be painted effectively as a radical extremist and have no change of winning.
I have the same fear. But if he is the nominee I would like to try and help him and his supporters understand why even some of us that are dye hard conservatives are frustrated with him.
My own opinion is that Mitt Romney would be worse however. It is why I am ‘all-in’ for Newt.
2008: Republican’s are Praying for an Obama Nomination.
The two aren't mutually exclusive, as Reagan showed us. 'Reagan democrats' had no problem making common cause with the 'moral majority' back in the 80s.
Ms Rabinowitz was there, I don't know whats happened to her since.
When I hear him speak of social issues directly, and not through the media filter, I get a completely different impression.
-and I will vote AGAINST the Demo, even if the Republidunce candidate has horns, a tail, carries a funny-looking pitchfork and smells of sulphur---
This is exactly what I believe will happen in a national race, Santorum had no answer to this in 06, he’s got none now, and he will be trounced.
Of course you are correct, but unfortunately many people just don't want to hear it.
If Santorum is the nominee this election will turn on social issues - many that have been long since decided by the public. Rick's advisers will try to get him to steer clear of this stuff, but Santorum won't be able to stop himself from being baited over and over again. Instead of an election about massive debt, high gas prices, etc, we will be talking about rubbers, birth control pills, porn, whether a woman should be at home making lots of babies or working, etc.
Santorum would lose in a crushing landslide defeat and Obama would have the massive mandate he needs to truly "fundamentally transform America". But hey, if that happens, at least the social conservatives will have finally had their candidate and be forced to realize that politically re-fighting long lost culture war issues is a complete disaster of an idea.
At this point in time 32 years ago they were lighting candles and praying novenas for Ronald Reagan’s nomination too. Santorum is certainly no Reagan, but Dems are delusional if they think most American voters will be more scared of a nice Catholic boy from western PA than four more years of Obama.
Yes, I am sure they want a Santorum win.
That is why they are trashing him.
And why they trashed Newt.
And why they trashed Cain.
And why they trashed Perry.
And why they trashed Bachman.
The only one the media HAS NOT trashed is Romney- our supposed “most electable” candidate. Romney is the one they fear the most. The one they tell us could beat their guy for certain. “Oooh we would sure be scared if you guys run Romney” they say...
But yet they never go after Romney.
I lived those days, I was there as well. Rick Satorum is no Ronald Reagan, and if he started talking about social issues the way Ronnie did he would be fine. And I never said they were mutually exclusive. They clearly aren’t. But to build a coaltion in todays culture the pathway is clearly fiscal.
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