Santorum surges from behind in Iowa
Santorum surges from behind in Iowa
This reminds me of that scene in the movie "The Perfect Storm," when the terrified meteorologist looks at the radar in panic and says, "It's happening!"
At the start of the month, Rick Santorum needed the following things to happen in order for him to be competitive in Iowa: Newt Gingrich needed to fade. Evangelicals needed to move toward his campaign. Then voters needed to see some tangible sign of momentum, in order to speed up the tortoise-like pace of his Iowa campaign.
The former Pennsylvania senator has now gotten at least a dose of all three ingredients. Gingrich’s campaign has lost ground in every recent Iowa poll. Santorum won the endorsement of a number of high-profile Christian conservatives, including the head of The Family Leader. And today, Santorum placed third in an Iowa poll for the first time, running fairly close behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in a CNN/Time magazine survey.
The survey may not be all it’s cracked up to be: it only tested Republican voters, even though non-Republicans can get access to the caucuses. But it also followed a PPP poll released Tuesday night showing that Santorum has the highest net favorability rating of any Republican candidate in Iowa.
Whatever else, Santorum seems all but certain to post the highest finish in a presidential primary or caucus of any former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, which is quite an achievement. On one level, it's shocking that Santorum's rise in the polls has taken so long -- putting ideological critiques aside, he's clearly one of the sharper tools in the GOP's rusted 2012 shed, and he's targeted his appeal to the same evangelicals who gave the Hawkeye State to Mike Huckabee in 2008.
I think his biggest problem, politically, is that he talks like someone who's spent most of his adult life as a Washington insider, circa 1990s, and doesn't know how to "bring tha crazy" the way that the talk radio/Tea Party faction of the party likes it. Yes, a man who spoke in a political interview about "man-on-dog sex" isn't crazy enough for the modern Republican Party. Ponder that. And, at the end of a day, Santorum is a man who wears out his welcome -- his 59 percent rejection by Pennsylvania voters in 2006 was the highest I've ever seen for an incumbent senator not facing corruption charges.
Santorum's surge means people may finally look at his actual record. It won't be pretty. The real Senator Rick Santorum was a shameless pimp for Big Pharma who battled to hold back the working class Americans at companies like Wal-Mart and Outback and who founded a charity which was exposed (by Your Blogger) as not especially charitable. Maybe that kind of record is "evangelical," but not in any sense that I'm familiar with.
Santorum is surging from a behind in Iowa ? ..ewwwwwwwwwwwww! (HTML deleted)
Comment removed.
Is anyone else tired of the 57 state routine? Please get some new material, this one is worn out.— oldlion- Is anyone else tired of the 57 state routine? Please get some new material, this one is worn out.— oldlion
- I'm still voting for Dr. Ron Paul.— PhilsPhan74
- The only surge for Santorum is in his bowels!— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine
- Paul is going to thrash Romney corporate poster boy.
All politics all the time. What a sad, barren existence.— m13sully- Comment removed.
- The lame 57 state line is weak for alot of reasons. Obama knew there are 50 states unlike "W"
— wokmaster - ...unlike "W" who knew very little about anything. unlike Herman Cain - who really didn't know what was going on with Lybia or his policy on abortion or Israel. Unlike Rick Perry - who really didn't know the 3 departments he would eradicate. Unlike Sarah Palin - who didn't know what she likes to read or a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with. But keep up the nonsensical posts, troll. You represent your party well. — wokmaster
- Hmmmm....hard to pick the best GOP candidate. Shall I vote for bat sh*t crazy Bachmann? God Hates F@gs Santorum? The serial adulterer Gingrich? The flip-flopping RINO Romney? Dr. McGoo? Or Mr. Dumb as a rock Perry. If the GOP really wants to winm they would nominate Huntsman, but they aren't bright enough to do it. Here's to another term for Obama!— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine
- Atkins...you are such a weirdo. Why are you fixated on Obama? What do you want this man to do? Erase 40 years of industrial decline, political plundering (courtesy of both parties), credit-driven consumer greed on the part of all of us, and rapid consolidation of wealth to the American aristocracy? Why are you so bitter towards this man? What policies of his will hurt you oh so much? Did you like the America of the last decade? Were you proud of our nation's actions at home and abroad? Are you uncomfortable with his skin tone? Obama has done a fine job of continuing some of Bush's policies that the Left hates to admit are working. He has tried to inject a little domestic progressive action to an America in a funk. I would say he is doing a pretty good job despite the abundance of racist basement-dwellers like you who walk around in a Fox News-driven state of delusion about how this world works.— Barry O
- Santorum has bought in to the Iran must be stopped theory that was the same mentality that got us into Iraq. Please, look up the word for word translation of the Ahmadenejad speeches in question. They have been mistranslated to propagate war. In context, and fully read, Ahmadenejad in no way calls for the destruction of Israel. Please read it for yourselves if you are in favor of the hardline stance that commits our troops to another war. I think that this way of thinking is insane.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/10/debating-every-last-word-ahmadinejads-wipe-israel-map/43372/— scrappdaddy - Well, sure, where else would santorum surge from? (Though "surge" may be the wrong verb; how about "dribbles"? Or "slips"?)— plainerenglish
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