I liked Rick better when he didn't speak... much. But I am glad that he finally "speaks his mind" now, while there may still be time for people to wake up and take another look at who [he thinks] he is, before he did irreparable damage to conservative movement.
In less than two weeks after his win, Santorum is showing more people who he is, and what he would be like as a president, or what he would really like to be if "they/we" let him (a humorless, lacking in humility arrogant sourpuss, two-bit dictator). He was nicknamed "Rooster" in school, so it seems that it developed early.
""Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" - Abraham Lincoln
Looks like being a Senator was already over the limit of his Peter Principle quota. But so was Biden's... and many other public servants.
Santorum was simply a beneficiary of Newt conserving his limited resources and not campaigning in states where "beauty contest" primaries don't allocate binding or any delegates (didn't even register for MO primaries because delegates are assigned later in MO caucuses) hoping for Santorum to stop Romney's Florida "momentum" and then lose delegates in some other states where he is also not likely to contend, which is exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, the possible side-effect of Santorum win, with the help of the willing media and other anti-Newt forces, is that his "momentum" may convince some conservatives to move sharply to Santorum ("to stop Mitt") in the states where Gingrich should naturally do well, and thus jeopardize a slew of delegates in the Super Tuesday and beyond, thus giving more delegates to SantoRomney/RomTorum ticket.
The Tea Parties in the important states and districts should be made aware of this and come out strongly for Newt, not be moved by polls and giving their vote to Romney/Santorum.
Newt was for Tea Party before Tea Party was cool, when it was just a concept. Tea Party people have no other champion in this race, they should understand that:
Gingrich's Secret Weapon: Newt Inc. - FR, post #21, by JediJones, 2012 February 02
Gingrich's ties to the tea party movement are deep and long-lasting. In March 2009, when tea parties were just beginning to be organized, the Georgian pledged to use his prodigious mailing list at American Solutions to publicize the inaugural Tax Day event. He posted a link on every website he owned, sent emails to everyone in his database and produced a video while publicly announcing his support of the tea party movement — long before radio talkers like Glenn Beck jumped on the bandwagon. http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/print/4463516
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" - Abraham Lincoln
Rush crows about the state media using his program for their show prep, so he well knows the power of his words and he makes no bones about his influence on the debate.
It would seem we have 2 "roosters" (with reference to your mention of a Santorum H.S. nickname). But I'm not convinced that Rush isn't already backing Mitt and this is all just manipulation of conservatives.
As Rush continues to repeat, anyone of them would be better than Obama. That holds truth but that has also kept Romney on par with the conservative field (that has been cynically narrowed down to these last 4 "choices").
It would be interesting to look into a crystal ball and see what this primary would look like today w/o the influence of Rush and others (who plead complete fairness toward the field).
If I need to be more clear, I was disussing with altura that RUSH shouldn’t get bogged down defending or even discussing Santorum’s musings that are not on the core of what Rush himself says we face as a nation if O is re-elected.
If Santorum chooses to say more things that aren’t on that core subject, that’s for the best. Best people know that now, not later. Because he has many statements going way back, for the Dems to chew up, and it would be a shame if he shut up and people didn’t research and didn’t know about them, and voted for him on that ignorance.
Altura and I were wishing and hoping that Rush doesn’t pull another all out defense of a candidate against the media, with Santorum, such as he did with Cain.
We want Rush to stay on, get back on, message.
Not that Santorum should be able to hide his true thoughts.