Why not Rick Santorum?

The 2011 GOP debates have concluded. We've seen candidates rise and candidates fall. We've seen the Washington media and GOP establishment gnashing their teeth trying to define "the" conservative candidate for the Tea Party.

Sarah Palin supporters have seemingly fallen into two camps: those who have let go and are examining or supporting other candidates and those who refuse to let go and instead hang onto the notion that the Governor can be convinced to rejoin the field.

The one common denominator amongst all is the palpable fear of an Obama re-election and what that re-election would mean. Republican elites fear an erosion of their power in the halls of government from a partisan point of view. Tea Party and Sarah Palin supporters fear the erosion of individual liberties through the continued growth of government. For me, I stand firm with the later.

Something happened in the very recent past that gave me a bit more clarity. It happened on December 1st while I was watching Governor Sarah Palin's appearance on the Hannity Show (skip ahead to the 9:00 mark). Governor Palin drew my attention back to Senator Rick Santorum when she talked about "ideological consistency".

That got me thinking: Why NOT Rick Santorum? I have to admit that I hadn't paid a lot of attention to him in recent months due to all the media attention on the "flavor of the week". To reacquaint myself with Senator Santorum, I went back to a conversation he had with the San Fernando Valley Republican Club prior to the GOP debate at the Reagan Library back in May.

I'm going to be playing clips of that conversation tomorrow on the Roderic Deane Show. I encourage you to listen in at Noon ET. With that conversation in mind, take another look at his performance during the last few GOP debates.

Cross-posted from RodericDeane.com

FNS temporarily suspends Gingrich, Santorum contracts (Updated)

Time to announce or lose the paycheck
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From Fox News Insider:


Will Gov. Palin and Gov. Huckabee be next?

Update: Ed Morrisey comments...

What does this say about the intent of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee? Both are also high-profile contributors to Fox, and Huckabee has his own show on the network. Both ran in the 2008 cycle, and both continue to organize for something. Baier was careful to say that this does not preclude further announcements, but it would seem a little odd if Fox bounced Gingrich and Santorum for potential presidential runs that will be long-shots at best while continuing to employ two potential front-runners without bothering to first ask about their plans for 2012.

"Sean Hannity hardest hit" - What will he do with no Newt on his show at least once a week?

- JP

Santorum: Palin and I are 'fine'

"No problem"
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So much for Andy Barr and Politico's attempt to start a fight between Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin:

In reaction to Sarah Palin’s terming of Rick Santorum a "Neanderthal," Santorum told reporters Thursday, “I’ve had exchanges with Sarah Palin not not for public record, and there is no problem between Sarah Palin and me on this issue.”

He said these exchanges happened within the last 24 hours but refused to comment on what was said between the two of them.

“We are fine. No problem,” Santorum said. “We’ve had exchanges.”

Santorum said the private contact between he and Gov. Palin was facilitated “through an intermediary.”

h/t: Draw For Truth for the Pollutico graphic

- JP

Santorum: Politico article 'is garbage'

"All I said was- she is VERY busy, PERIOD"
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After Politico published one of its typically deceptive hit pieces, this one written by Andy Barr alleging that Rick Santorum had criticized Sarah Palin’s decision to skip CPAC, Santorum called BS via Twitter:

This article is garbage.All I said was- she is VERY busy, PERIOD. Reporter trying to create something out of nothing http://politi.co/gJ4ARo

Here's the first paragraph of Barr's article:

Rick Santorum knocked Sarah Palin’s decision to skip CPAC, saying on Tuesday that she must have “business opportunities” that are keeping her from the annual conservative conference that is a showcase for potential presidential contenders

And here's the actual exchange between Santorum and S.E. Cupp:


Pollutico never misses an opportunity to use lies and distortions to paint Gov. Palin in a negative hue. In this case, Barr and his editors took a mostly uncritical observation by Santorum and tried to make it appear that the former Senator from Pennsylvania was bashing Gov. Palin. The article also draws on one of the constant memes promoted on left wing blogs that Sarah Palin is some kind of money-crazed fiend, simply because she gets paid well for her speaking appearances. So does Bill Clinton.

We had always considered Barr to be one of the lesser evils on Politico's staff, but with his latest slanted piece, he proves that he's no better than the rest of the biased website's resident leftists. The left wing, anti-Palin agenda is there for all to see, and it's the main engine that drives the corrupt Politico.

Don't get us wrong; we're no Santorum fans. He supported liberal Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey in 2004, explaining that Snarlin' Arlen is "with us on the votes that matter." That really worked out well, didn't it? And Santorum has subtly and not so subtly dissed Gov. Palin before. He got in his little sexist dig in his remarks to Cupp, but that's almost par for the course for Santorum, whose loose lips show what a loose cannon he is. But the real outrage here is the way Politico always puts a negative spin on any story it writes about Gov. Palin. And if it can brew a tempest in a teapot by pitting Republicans against each other, that's just considered bonus points at the leftist website.

Related: Sheya has a good roundup of opinion over this one here.

- JP

Santorum joins Sarah Palin in endorsing Carly Fiorina

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Tuesday night on Fox News' "On The Record" with Greta Susteren, former Sen. Rick Santorum defended Sarah Palin's endorsement of Carly Fiorina and declared his own support for the former Hewlett Packard CEO in California's GOP primary race for the U.S. Senate:



- JP

Quote of the Day (May 8, 2010)

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Rick Santorum:

"Sarah Palin's not Washington, D.C. I mean, getting her endorsement means something because she's part of the Tea Party movement. Carly Fiorina, you know, she's pro-life. People say that she's moderate. I don't know where she's 'moderate' to be very honest with you. I think she's a pretty solid conservative, and that's why Sarah Palin endorsed her."

- JP

Will Santorum be Romney's stalking horse against Palin?

Michael Ralston thinks that Rick Santorum will be a stalking horse in Iowa for Mitt Romney. According to Safire's Political Dictionary, a stalking horse is "a decoy; a candidate put forward to split a vote..." Ralston believes that reports of Santorum "testing the waters" in Ohio for a possible 2012 White House run is just a cover:

What I think he’s really doing is a favor for his friend Mitt Romney, hoping to undercut Sarah Palin’s votes within the Republican Party’s 'base' of religious voters, and, in his view, possibly saving the GOP in the process.

The way Ralston figures it, Santorum's aim is to kneecap Palin in Iowa so that the state's religious base will split their votes, allowing Romney to cruise to an easy win on the votes of those Iowa Republicans who are not social conservatives. To support his theory, Ralston reminds us what happened in early 2008:

Mitt Romney was already virtually knocked out of the presidential race because of his poor showing in early primaries. Santorum took to the radio and came out swinging against John McCain, and had this to say about Romney in an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s show:

If you’re a Republican, if you’re a Republican in the broadest sense, there is only one place to go right now and that’s Mitt Romney.

That’s a pretty strong endorsement from one man to another he knew at that time would not be the GOP’s presidential candidate. Santorum was throwing his weight behind Romney not just out of spite, but because he believes in Mitt in the long-term. He knew McCain wasn’t going to win and was trying to elect his party’s eventual standard-bearer with his big mouth.

That's may be true, but we don't see how much good Santorum actually did for Romney. McCain turned his given-up-for-dead bandwagon around, and even with more bundles of campaign cash than the others presidential wanabes could even dream of, Romney couldn't beat a rival who was detested by most of the GOP's conservative base.

Ralston thinks one of Santorum's motivations to help Mitt this time around is based on a strong dislike of Sarah Palin personally and politically. He cites the birth out of wedlock of Bristol Palin's child, for which Santorum allegedly holds Sarah Palin responsible. Rick's reasoning there would have to be that children are only born to unmarried girls who had lousy mothers who couldn't raise their daughters right. Politically, Ralston points to Santorum's appearance on Greta Van Susteren's show in which he indicated that by resigning her office, Palin had signed her own political death warrant and wouldn't be able to attract the votes of enough Republicans to win the general election. We think Sarah has a big surprise in store for St. Rick and no small number of other folks.

Regardless of his motivations, we know that the Rickster is a faux conservative, one who supported the liberal Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey the last time around. Word gets around. Santorum's stabbing of a conservative in the back only serves to solidify his reputation as a loose cannon, and we just don't see him being able to make much of a difference in Iowa. Besides, why try to create a stalking horse in a state where Mike Huckabee will likely be runing to split the religious vote with Palin anyway? Unlike Santorum, Huckabee has proven clout in the Iowa, having already beaten Romney there in a dramatic upset victory.

But perhaps Ralston is partially right, and Santorum is just a fallback option in case Huckabee, for some unfathomable reason, decides not to compete for the GOP nomination in 2012. We can think of better candidates to play the stalking horse for Romney than Santorum, but none probably as willing as the Rickster to do it. After cutting Toomey's throat in Pennsylvania for Specter, playing the decoy for Romney would be a relatively minor sin for Santorum, who seems to have no problem sitting in judgment of the unholy trangressions of others.

- JP