His hypocrisies are well documented on this site and I won’t revisit them, but I don’t hate Rick Santorum. I really don’t. Ultimately, if you strip everything away (Santorum supporters cover your eyes now), my fear is that I can’t find any path to see him BEING ACCEPTED by the country as a President.
“Politijim, is this your OPINION or FACT?”
Despite the view of many that I seem to be prescient and prophetic, (or was that pubescent and pathetic??? I forget), it IS only opinion but it is based on immutable fact. And now we have it in current polling information as well (Fact 3).
Fact 1. People who knew him the longest defeated him by a landslide. In other words, the MORE they saw of him, the less they liked him. Both “true conservatives” and the blue state independents, each for their own reasons, despite his assurances he ran as an unapologetic conservative. (He didn’t – below.) His arguments of why he lost simply don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Fact 2. I wish I could find a less confrontational word for it. If there is anything the press and public disdain more than conservatives – it is hypocritical ones. The GOP as a whole was consider fiscal hypocrites which aided in the party loss in 2006. It is also why “true conservatives” turned away from Rick even INTENTIONALLY voting for the Democrat that facilitated that terrible loss. This 2006 Pennsylvania Republican felt Bob Casey was more conservative ON FACTS he lays out and urges conservatives NOT to vote for him.
To “true conservatives” there is no excusing his liberal record. In his 2006 race, Santorum ran as a Big Government liberal as he boasts in this advertisement.
That was “old news”? Ok. Just a few years ago (2008), when Rick was NOT running for any office he was free to state his REAL view of “limited” government versus big government:
Santorum says: "To Our Credit" the GOP is no longer the party of Small Government.
Not enough? Ok, when he started RUNNING (last year) he again affirmed the expansion of government. (Video)
Since some Sanitariums are squirming, I’ll give you just one more so even YOU can’t deny this isn’t a one time thing.
Not only that, Santorum and his SUPPORTERS are hypocrites as Santorum unequivocally supported mandates in 1994 and more recently in cases of ultrasounds. (How do you tell people who don’t agree with your views that a “mandate” is only good when you decide it is?)
The point is that Rick Santorum and his supporters make great sport of Gingrich supporting individual mandates. However, you will NEVER find GINGRICH advocating INTENTIONAL EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT FOR THE SAKE OF GROWING GOVERNMENT POWER as Santorum has (and consistently voted for) time and time again.
Besides, these (mostly religious) Republicans err in either ignorance or the mortal sin of false accusation. The conservative Heritage Foundation (founded by the same Paul Weyrich that started the Moral Majority and the Free Congress Foundation) offered the idea of an individual that began during the battle against HillaryCare. At a time when we were running surpluses (albeit theoretical ones), MOST AMERICANS were FOR universal health care! Try beating that in the marketplace of ideas with a simple “no.” As even Limbaugh explained, the idea that if government healthcare was inevitable, wouldn’t the MORE conservative idea be to make people PAY FOR IT than get it free?
Like my Chicago Bulls being SO BAD they qualified for Derrick Rose in the NBA Lottery, one of the very few upsides of this economic recession and Obama socialist disaster is that people NOW finally get the contrast in ideas they couldn’t before. Give Rick credit for jumping off the mandate bandwagon earlier (at least that one), but quit being an Alinsky acolyte by accusing the most legislatively successful conservative in our lifetime of something he is not.
Now it’s one thing for Obama to redefine words to mean what they want. Forgive me if I’m upset that Rick Santorum is hoping to change the meaning of “conservative.”
Fact 3. Santorum is culturally inept and divisive.
There have been endless examples of Santorum refusing to stay away from socially divisive issues but none more glaring on the morning he unveiled his new economic program and even steered that into the contraceptive gutter. Even this past Sunday he can’t help but arguing about contraception, religion and other hot button issues.
Would you like to know how a saavy conservative professional gets more conservative legislation through Congress in 100 days than anytime in the past 100 years? Ask the “master” Newt Gingrich who did just that. While Santorum was complaining in the early debates Gingrich wouldn’t include “abortion” and “gay marriage” in the Contract With America, I found press coverage from liberals who were terrified by the Gingrich strategy to put things Americans were already in favor of into a single agenda, knowing that being successful in that, he might actually get the American people to go along with some of the social stuff too.
And Gingrich DID bring up partial birth abortion and other measures. BUT NOT UNTIL AFTER THE ONES WHICH EVERYONE AGREED ON HAD PASSED. A “President” Rick would completely derail any goodwill he had to get economic legislation done, but veering into areas where he had no support. Just like Bill Clinton did in making gays in the military his FIRST legal action. Where did that get Bill Clinton? It got him a Speaker Gingrich and a freshman class that included a “Richard J. Santorum” as he billed himself back then.
Two more things and we’ll end with a bang.
First, The Rickety Rooters want to keep trying to explain WHAT RICK REALLY MEANT when he said…(pick your example). When I was in the full time Hollywood thing, I once had another producer who spent 30 minutes explaining to me why an artsy movie that flopped was so good. My response was, “Is a joke any funnier if you have to explain why it is funny?” No one saw the movie because not enough people thought it was any good. You can try to explain until the prodigals come home why Rick Santorum will do so well among the 20% or more of the NON-Republicans needed to win, but it doesn’t change the fact he keeps veering into subjects that are NOT about what is most critical to Americans right now.
Secondly, people want to LIKE their President. Bush over Kerry wasn’t ideas. George could hardly articulate them, and you know it. But he seemed like a likeable guy they could trust over Thurston Howell the Third. (Thank you Jon Stewart). Not only does Santorum hypocritically moralize about unpopular things, he doesn’t even do it in a manner that someone would listen to.
Listen. I think pornography is harming the country and devaluing women beyond anything we can imagine. If however, in EVERY conversation I felt I had to correct others who didn’t share my view, or worse, tell them how wrong it is every time we met, I would quickly become aware of two things. They would no longer hang around me and I would lose ANY influence I once had over them. Telling people they are wrong never makes them see their errors, ESPECIALLY if you don’t do it in an infrequent, caring and loving way that THEY perceive. The polls clearly show MOST voters don’t want any more religious talk.
Michael Medved makes the point that dissing college will kill the GOP chances against Obama. Regan CARRIED college graduates and they make up an astonishing 44% of all voters. Good job Rick! As if making the non-religious your enemies you decided to create a “big tent” of alienation. And it is already showing how ruinous this is:
Rick Santorum provided only the most egregious example when he went out of his way to insult college educated voters by questioning the value of their university experience and attacking President Obama as a “snob” for seeking to open higher education to more of our fellow citizens. No wonder Mitt Romney soundly defeated Righteous Rick among college graduates in hotly contested Ohio, winning their votes 43 to 35 percent. And even in the famously blue collar Buckeye State, college grads represented a full 45 percent of the GOP primary electorate.
The best indication of how hypocritical Rick is, is to see how he is perceived in the culture. Ironically, this also address Romney. Yes, it’s just comedy. But it influences people. And if you think Rick will sprinkle some magic religious devotion dust on the media and American voters and suddenly see some charisma or character that just doesn’t exist – I hope you will be happy with four more years toward Tyranny.
As conservatives we may understand the nuance of BOTH of the Romney/Santorum arguments. But we have to quit our ignorance of culture to see how BOTH of these approaches play in public. Santorum can not be anything other than who he is and there is no chance he will relate to the average person. Romney is more likeable, and will be less “scary” than Rick, but with the OWS in full swing this summer – he will continue to argue the GOP into old stereotypes.
1 comments:
Loved the Jon Stewart video.
Thanks for the yucks, PJ :)
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