Santorum Social Conservative or Fanatic?

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse Rick Santorum has gone off the rails. While pandering his special brand of zeal to the Ohio Christian Alliance, Santorum unleashed a barrage of harsh attacks against President Obama today, in an attempt to keep his religious crusade at full throttle. He said of the Presidents agenda, "it’s not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."

You know people, comments like this are not made by mistake. Just like Senator Santorum wanted to maintain some hidden mystery about the Presidents religion when he refused to correct a woman who called him a Muslim, here he attempts to reinforce that mystery, by in some way, invalidating the Presidents faith. Of course he tries to cover up this pile of crap explaining, "In the Christian church there are a lot of different stripes of Christianity," he said. "If the president says he's a Christian, he's a Christian." If I say Rick Santorum is a pious horses ass, he's a pious horses ass. Can you see what's happening here? It's just one more lame attempt to say the President is "Not one of us." He's a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, a NAZI, a Kenyan colonialist, the anti-christ! For Gods sake give it a rest!

The Obama Administration called Santorum's comments, "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity." Did that stop Father Rick? Hell no, when your on a roll, run with it. Santorum rebuffed the Administration by saying, "If you don’t want to call it a theology, I’m fine, you can have them let me know what they want to call it, but it is a different set of moral values that they are imposing on people who have a constitutional right to have their own values within the church, and that’s not a new low. That’s a reflection of exactly what….it is a new low. I should go back, it is a new low. The President has reached a new low in this country’s history of oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before. If he doesn’t want to call his imposition of his values a theology that’s fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a church who has very clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is forcing on them.”

He wanted to insure a woman's right to have access to birth control? He's not firing up some secular American Inquisition? He's not the one who wants to legislate what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom?! This kind of rhetoric makes me absolutely mental! Who the hell is Rick Santorum to tell the President, or anybody else, he doesn't pass the Santorum litmus test for what is religiously correct or incorrect? Last I heard we were a democracy, not a theocracy? I respect the fact that the man has serious religious convictions, but don't tell me I'm somehow sub-standard, because I don't live up to the Father Rick Bible Quiz! I mean where does this guy get off?!

Tread lightly Father Rick, that kind of garbage may be foder for your evangelical standard bearers, but nobody wants to have your religion, or any religion rammed down their throat. Least of all by some two bit, second string, conservative windbag like you. You are the worst of worst Senator. Now I know why you lost your Senate seat by 700,000 votes, because of your sanctimonious, judgemental, ungodly proclamations, that show just how Christian you really are.

Rick Santorum's Socially Conservative Religious Zeal Is Just Scary

The rights social conservative crusade, like most things Republican, has a very distinct tinge of hypocrisy. They want to tell you who you can love, what you can do in your own bedroom, what you can do with your own body, and attempt at every turn to legislate their own brand of religious morality. While on the other hand, if your some multi-millionaire, corporation, or industrial giant that has the potential to influence all manner of public policy that effects our economy, our tax code for the rich, regulations on banks, our water, our air, our food, and our environment, its hands off? It is a perspective that is to often lost in today's political discussions.
From attempting to strip funding for Planned Parenthood, have state referendums that dictate life begins at conception, to morphing a government mandate about fairness with regard to woman's rights, into a battle over religious freedom, the republican agenda is crystal clear.

Enter our man Rick Santorum. I spoke previously about his 2005 book It Takes A Family, but politician's who write books often give us a blueprint of the man behind the curtain, the man some individuals may otherwise not want revealed. In the recent HHS contraception mandate fight, Santorum was front and center in calling it an infringement on religious freedoms, well at least he's consistent.

So lets take a look at the world according to Rick Santorum? His political credo is Faith, Family, and Freedom, it is important to note the order here, because it's not only spot on, its quite literal. Lets look at some quotes from his book, as well as, some of his comments on the record.

From the Book:
"Conservatives trust families and the ordinary Americans that are formed by them. Liberals don't. They border on disdain for the common man."
"Ordinary Americans" who is he talking about? What is an "ordinary American? Again this is dog whistle political verbiage meaning white, christian families, that function in the 1950's traditional role where women stay home and raise babies, while men go to work. To be against this is to have "...disdain for the common man."

"We now have a generation that has grown up with the belief, inspired by the Sixties' free-love assault on sexual mores, that true love is a feeling, and that it should not be resisted or constrained--rather, its ultimate validation is through sexual relations, without regard to the outdated social convention of marriage."
Once again, lets get into our wayback machines and go back to the 50's where minorities, women, and homosexuals knew their place.

On the Record:
Republican former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum's statements about homosexuality and the right to privacy. In an interview with the Associated Press (AP) taped on April 7, 2003, and published April 20, 2003, Santorum stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. Santorum described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states' ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behavior, such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.
OK here we have a perfect example of Republicans who preach the horrors of big government, while telling you what you can and can't do in the privacy of your own bedroom? Maybe if it was Exxon and Mobil in the bedroom they would leave them alone?

In the interview by Associated Press reporter Lara Jakes Jordan When Jordan asked "Okay, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?" Santorum's response concluded:"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality —" (At this point, Jordan commented, "I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about 'man on dog' with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out", coining a phrase widely used in connection with this incident.
Here again, no matter your thoughts on the subject, Republicans have to take it to the extreme in an attempt to save their argument. No one is suggesting "man on dog" sex here. Its simply about the right of two consenting adults, regardless of their gender, to display affection for one another in the privacy of their own homes. Again they have to turn it into something they see as so repellent it borders on the edge of social anarchy.

He lamented the laws that overturned states ability to ban the sale of contraception in 1965. He further decried the law that outlawed interracial marriage in 1967. He has openly stated his support to allow states to once again ban contraception, and his homophobic rhetoric continues sometimes veiled, sometimes not. Regardless, this is the real Rick Santorum. He makes no excuses about what he believes, and what he stands for, and that my friends, is scary.

New Polling Has Rick Santorum Prepared to Overtake Romney

Yes it's true honestly, Rick Santorum. Lets go to the polling numbers.

In Ohio:

Santorum 36%
Romney 29%
Gingrich 20%
Paul 9%





In Pennsylvania:

Santorum 34%
Romney 32%
Paul 16%
Gingrich 15%



In Michigan:

Santorum 39%
Romney 24%
Paul 12%
Gingrich 11%

Mitt Romney is down by by 15 points in his home state of Michigan, just 13 days from the primary, that ladies and gentleman spells big trouble for Mitt Romney. He was raised in Michigan, his father was a popular Governor there, his mother even ran for Senate there. If he loses in Michigan, a state he carried big in 2008, all bets are off. Last August I predicted Romney would win the Republican nomination. I'm still not prepared to back away from that yet, but if he goes down hard in Michigan, it will be a massive game changer. Adding to his polling nightmare, in 3 out of 4 national polls he is either losing, or in a statistical dead heat against Santorum. In the era of "Citizens United" maybe money can't buy you the Presidency... Maybe? There is no question Romney has a serious disconnect with Republican voters, and with the conservative rebellion stared by Gingrich, and now catching fire with Santorum, Romney seems to be losing control of a dialogue he struggled with from the beginning. Here is his latest mistake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9fUJ87p9Htw

Here he makes an ad that touts his roots in Michigan, and then talks fondly about the American automobile industry, and the Detroit Car Show, all of which would be GONE if Mitt Romney had gotten his way. It is astounding that he dared to even go there?! If he thinks this ad is going to help him make up 15 points, with 13 days to go, guess again.

On the other hand, you have the rise of religious Rick. Who only 18% of Republicans think can beat Barack Obama, 55% think Romney can. So there sits the dilemma for Republicans. Do they go with the man who has the best chance to win that they hate, or do they go with the guy who has little chance of winning that they love? Make no mistake people, Rick Santorum is just as good as Newt Gingrich when matched against the President. Oh he has his hard right political convictions, and blue collar appeal, but he's just as big a whack job as Gingrich ever was. He just hasn't been baptised by the fire of being vetted by the media, or truly taken on by his opponents, because until now he was thought a non factor, but that's gonna change real quick. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my Gingrich sign off the lawn to put up my new Santorum one.

A Mixed Week In Review All Around

Poor Mitt Romney, he doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt. He ended the week up, with a negligible 3 point win over Ron Paul in Maine last night. At the CPAC convention this week, where all the real hardcore conservative crazies meet once a year. Mitt Romney said conservative so many times, maybe if he clicked his heals real hard three times he'd win the nomination. He suffered a major setback with Rick Sanatorum's trifecta in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado, which turned this nomination fight on its head. In keeping with the Wizard of Oz metaphors, Romney is like a Republican tin man. He's hollow with no political core, and desperately wants to capture the heart of the Republican party. Yet, every time he tries to shed a tear for the middle class, he rusts. Then he has to backtrack, and his campaign comes running with the oil can. If he admits he has a heart, he gets hit by the right. If he admits he's looking for a heart, Republican don't think he's the man for the job.

Rick Santorum's three state win on Tuesday gave his faltering campaign a much needed shot in the arm. He, and front runner Mitt Romney have now each won four states, Newt Gingrich has won one. Santorum has now also managed to put himself into the cross heirs of Mitt Romney's money machine. Look for him to flush the bombers against Santorum in the next two big contests, the primaries in Michigan and Arizona. Santorum also exposed his Achilles heal this week, by diving head first into the contraception mandate fight. It was his rigid religious dogma regarding women's issues, birth control, abortion, and his belief religion(christian religion specifically), is a corner stone of our governments power. As apposed to an individuals protected freedom to practice whatever religion they wish outside the reach of government. It was this very zealous conviction that got him kicked to the curb by the people of Pennsylvania in 2006 by more than 18 points. Thomas Jefferson once said, "If God is just, I tremble for my country." For a party who loves to invoke the founding fathers, they might do well to read what they actually said, as opposed to what they think they said.

Santorum wrote a book called It Takes A Family: Conservatism and the Common Good. The book was released on July 4th, 2005. Hows that for blatant irony that misses the mark. It was written in response to then First Lady Hillary Clinton's best seller It Takes A Village. Upon reviewing the then Pennsylvania Senator's book, The Philadelphia Inquirer referred to Santorum as "one of the finest minds of the Thirteenth Century". Id say that puts him right up there with Pope Benedict and the rest of the Catholic church, who have been trapped in the Thirteenth Century for some time now. I was raised Roman Catholic, I graduated from a Catholic High School, and for those who remain active in the church, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who buys Catholic dogma lock, stock, and barrel. The term used this week was "Cafeteria Catholic" those in the church who pick and choose what makes sense to them, and what doesn't. This is not a new phenomena. Catholics still active in the church go to give their hour to God, no matter how out of touch their religious leaders are, especially on birth control.

Finally, A big thumbs down to the Obama Administration for creating this shit storm in the first place. You had good economic news, poll numbers up across the board, and somebody lets this skunk out of the barn? The President lost control of the conversation almost immediately, and gave an uninspiring group of second string contenders for the Republican nomination a wedge issue they will now use for months. Add Catholic Bishops balking at the compromise announced Friday, and look for the big red toxic rhetoric machine to beat this issue to death, using misinformation and their hallmark scare tactics. I wonder sometimes if President Obama isn't happy unless he finds himself on the shitty end of the stick? A reasonable administration might tackle an issue like this in an off year, but an election year? All I can say is, "What were they thinking?"