>>If Rick Santorum ends up as our nominee, we are going to lose the election by 10+ points. Sorry, Santorum lost his home state by 18 the last time around - he’d be destroyed by Obama.<<
I used to feel the same way about his loss in 2006. How do you lose that badly? I no longer do, however. It was a weird year, PA was leaning Democrat, and his opponent was respected and ran as both pro-life, and pro-gun, hardly traditional Democrat stances.
As for his beating Democrats, this is how he got started in 1990 (from Wikipedia): In 1990, at age 32, Santorum was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. He scored a significant upset in the heavily Democratic district, defeating seven-term Democratic incumbent Doug Walgren by a 51%-49% margin. During his campaign Santorum repeatedly criticized Walgren for living outside the district for most of the year. Although the 18th District was redrawn for the 1992 elections, and the new district had a 3:1 ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans, Santorum still won re-election with 61% of the vote.
Looks like he’s capable of winning Independents to me.
As for his support for Spector, Wikipedia reports: “ Reporters have observed that though Santorum and Specter differed on social policy, Specter provided him with key political staff for his successful run in 1994.”
That was when he won his Senate seat, beating a Democrat incumbent, something that’s usually very difficult to accomplish.
I have no trouble thinking that Santorum can beat Obama. He certainly won’t lose by 10 points in the current environment.
Santorum appologists are rather plentiful as well as come cheap around here lately.
But Santorum will get his clock cleaned in short order. Even the most simple minded can plainly see that.