Countryboy JJ
Skyler the Weird
Rick Barton
Wiley Coyote
BooneCountyGirl
The Santorum Conundrum
Mitt Romney has withstood every challenge to date, remaining the only constant in the Republican nomination race. There are legitimate reasons for his consistency. Romney is photogenic, has proven business skills, can manage a budget, and heads a campaign flush with cash. The sum total of these assets is the demise of everyone, thus far, who has challenged him.
However, conservatives haven’t warmed to Romney, as last week’s caucuses confirm. So Rick Santorum becomes the latest, and perhaps strongest, “conservative alternative” the “anyone but Romney” camp has long sought.
Santorum is solidly conservative on many issues. He’s pro-life and dedicated to the time-tested family unit. Santorum opposed TARP, Obama’s “stimulus” slush fund, and both the auto and Freddie/Fannie bailouts. He’s a proven proponent of entitlement reform, recognizing the entitlement system as a budgetary and economic albatross around the nation’s neck. He also voted to end direct farm subsidies, and still he won the Iowa Caucuses.
Yet Santorum’s silver lining contains a dark cloud. In fact, his résumé includes glaring inconsistencies. His 2005 vote to subsidize milk production contradicts his efforts to end farm subsidies. While Santorum was fiscally disciplined during the 90s, he fell in line with the “compassionate conservatism” of the Bush era, supporting Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, and a highway bill rich in earmarks, including the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. Santorum opposed ethanol subsidies prior to 9/11, changed his mind due to security concerns afterwards, and then voted to end them altogether just a few years later.
Santorum didn’t contest Maine, so those results are irrelevant to his momentum. However, before elevating him to savior status we might also consider that he lost his Senate reelection bid by a wide margin. He seems equally comfortable on either side of an issue, depending on whether he’s supporting his party or preaching against the opposition. Let’s also consider that he received no delegates for his Missouri victory and awarded delegates in Colorado aren’t necessarily bound to him. Furthermore, Newt Gingrich — the other “anti-Romney” — bypassed those caucuses. Where might Santorum have finished had the anti-Romney voters been split between he and Newt, especially in Colorado?
Also, Romney’s money and political organization remain formidable. The Mitt Machine was quite thorough in highlighting Gingrich’s flaws and we witnessed an associated tumble in Newt’s standing. Romney’s guns weren’t then trained on Santorum. But, with last week’s results, Rick becomes an intrusion that warrants a full salvo from Romney’s battlewagon. Santorum should expect to take fire from here forward, and not only from Romney. Gingrich isn’t the type to fade gracefully into the background, either.
Maybe Rick Santorum is the conservative’s best option. He does present solid credentials. However, no candidate is perfect, including Santorum. He bears the dead weight of personal and policy contradictions and inconsistencies. The question is: Can Santorum survive the Romney camp’s predictable assault long enough to become the legitimate “anti-Mitt?”
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If Santorum is our “best option” then I’ll be “putting an aspirin between my knees…”
while serving as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in 2004, Santorum claimed his legal address was a house in a Pittsburgh, – but he never lived in the abandoned house. He ACTUALLY lived in a $600,000 mansion in Virginia. Why? To receive $100,000 school tuition vouchers dependent on PA residency. He lost re-election in 2006 because of his fraud. But he got plenty of spending in before he got kicked out: A few of Santorum’s Pay2play deals: 3.5m to Piasecki Aircraft, 3.5 m to JLG Industries; 1.4m to Medico Industries- then he went to work lining his pockets as a lobbyist! Yeah that’s “Real Conservative”
Judge the candidates by their ACTIONS not their RHETORIC.
ONLY Romney & Paul have unwaveringly LIVED conservative values of fidelity to their fellow man, spouse, church & country. Santorum is a scumbag. He is the Republican McGovern.
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actually, only ron paul has lived liberty values.it’s becoming quite amusing,and sad,that so many folks continue to seek “a lesser of two evils”.
hilarious this story never mentions dr. paul.
really,won the iowa caucuses?withstood every challenge?
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/16/politics/maine-gop-reportedly-working-on-a-caucus-recount/
http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-paul-maine-caucuses-gop-takeover-2012-2
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Boonecountygirl: I would argue that Romney and Paul also have serious flaws. Romney is a moderate – who I have doubts will repeal Obamacare and Paul, although he is strong on fiscal matters, his foreign policy is for lack of a better word – scary (he doesn’t think Iran has a nuke – come on). Also, Paul loads up bills with pork and then votes against them knowing the bill will get passed without his vote.
Regardless, I will vote for whoever the republican nominee is – even if it’s a tin can, because in the end a tin can would do a better job than the marixist in the White House. If Obama gets reelected, you might as well get the death nail out and put it in the coffin of America.
We have to understand that the Obama propaganda machine is out in full force already and if we are not willing to stand together and rally around whoever gets the republic nominee then we are doomed. In other words, you will need more than an asprin.
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please consider the foreign policy perspectives of this lady of liberty;
“We use the word ‘war’ too much today, and we fear its ‘power’ perhaps more than we should. Wars are just the wasteful, deadly and destructive spasms of fearful kings and dictators, created largely by the laziness and greed of those who control and drive the overweening state. Conservative and Progressive alike, the so-called left and the presumed right, those who love the Constitution as God’s inspired guidance and those who believe as Lysander Spooner did, that it is no law at all – all of these believers should boldly hold state war in profound contempt.
As we treasure peace, freedom, and self-ownership, community and family, we should not teach our children to revere state war, and to become patriotic robots and passive foot-soldiers of a lying, corrupted, and spendthrift government. Instead of studying the histories of wars, written by the surviving governments, we should, through example and practice, teach our children the art of resistance to evil, the power of peaceful rebellion against tyrants, and the current and very real possibilities of political and personal renewal.”
Karen Kwiatkowski
http://karenkforcongress.com/
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