Santorum’s campaign has primarily been a retread of the culture wars of the 1990s. He is best known for his opposition to women’s reproductive rights and civil rights for gays. In 2005, he compared gay sexual relations to bestiality, for which he was given the nickname “Man on Dog” Santorum. (This despite the fact that his senior spokesman, Robert Traynham, was gay.) Seattle-based columnist Dan Savage responded to Santorum’s anti-gay hate rhetoric with the ultimate Google bomb. To this day, if you google Santorum’s name, the results suggest it means a “frothy mix” of body fluids.
Santorum’s sudden rise could be interpreted to mean that the theocratic wing of the Iowa GOP has simply given up and is settling for fifth choice, after being disappointed by Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich. Their choice is bit unusual because Santorum is a lifelong Catholic, a religion that most evangelicals despise almost as much as they do Mormonism. In the 2008 race, for example, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, won the GOP caucuses after having made headlines a month earlier when he suggested that Mormonism, the religion of frontrunner Mitt Romney, was satanic because its dogma allegedly held that Jesus and Satan are brothers. He also said he didn’t know enough about Mormonism to determine whether it was a cult.
What does Santorum have going for him that trumps his religion among theocratic voters? He apparently shares a characteristic with evangelical favorite George W. Bush, who won in Iowa in 2000. Like Bush, Santorum is reportedly not very bright.
Evidence of this includes an exchange last May that began when Santorum said that, as president, he would reinstate America to its Bush era status as a torture state. When Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee who was tortured while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, argued that torture is ineffective, Santorum countered by suggesting that McCain did not understand how torture works.
In response, a McCain spokesman attacked Santorum, saying “Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity, nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today.”
If Santorum really is less intelligent than N.C. Sen. Richard Burr and Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and former Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning, just to name three, that is quite a statement — and it may mean he really is even dumber than Bush.
Rick Santorum will not be the Republican nominee this year, of course. However, in a Washington Post piece today, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake make the case that Santorum’s late surge now is similar to John Edwards’ coming from behind to take second place in Iowa in 2004 — a surge that eventually helped make Edwards John Kerry’s choice for his vice presidential nominee.
But even if Santorum comes in second tomorrow, he would be a problematic choice for vice president, especially if Mitt Romney is the nominee. There may be evangelicals in the South who would hold their collective noses and vote for a Mormon, but its much less likely they would be willing to vote for a ticket with both a Mormon and a Catholic at the top.
On a more practical level, Santorum would be a risky choice as any candidate’s vice presidential nominee because it is doubtful he could deliver his home state. In 2006, in his final reelection bid as Pennsylvania’s U.S. senator, Santorum lost to the current senator, Bob Casey, a Democrat, by 41 to 59 percent. That 18 point difference was the largest margin of defeat ever for an incumbent Republican Senator in Pennsylvania.
We kicked Ricky to the curb in 2006, and if need be will do it again in 2012.
It was refreshing to see someone from the leftist media get a bew one ripped and the audience give a sstanding ovation to the Newt The Ripper!