Specter continues to haunt Santorum
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum had to explain again his support for ex-colleague Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter Sunday.
Specter continues to haunt Santorum
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
Rick Santorum, basing his Republican presidential campaign on the idea he is the purest conservative in the race, can’t seem to escape reminders of past entanglements with former Senate colleague (and moderate) Arlen Specter.
On Sunday, Santorum said that his support for Specter’s brief 1996 presidential campaign was a mistake that he wishes he could take back.
“I was his colleague in the United States Senate. He asked me to stand with him,” Santorum told host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week. “That certainly wasn’t one of my prouder moments I look back on. But look, you know, you work together as a team for the state of Pennsylvania,” Santorum said. “I certainly knew that Arlen Specter was going nowhere. I certainly disagreed with a lot of things that he said.”
Santorum, a noted leader in the movement to restrict abortion access, was standing on the dais when Specter, then a moderate Republican who was pro-choice, announced his presidential bid in 1995.
“I want to take abortion out of politics … and leave moral issues such as abortion to the conscience of the individual,” Specter said in that speech. “That is a matter to be decided by women, not by big government.”
Santorum said he owed Specter because his senior colleague had supported him in his successful 1994 Senate election. Supporting Specter, who later became a Democrat before losing his 2010 reelection race, “was something I look back on and wish I hadn’t done,” Santorum said Sunday.
In 2004, Santorum endorsed – and aggressively campaigned for – Specter in the Pennsylvania Republican primary, when the latter was challenged by the conservative former congressman Pat Toomey. Specter narrowly defeated Toomey then, and Santorum continues to take fire from the right for his role, undertaken at the behest of President George W. Bush.
Santorum is a loser put in there to lose....so is Romney.
Enjoy 4 more of Obama.— oakster- If this kook Santorum is on the ballot you can count on me not to vote in this election. Kooky right is no better than the kooky left. The only difference is the mainstream media doesn't like the kooky right but are enthralled with the kooky left.— Keeping it real 4u
- Santorum is a hypocrite when it comes to the separation of church from state. He and Jeb Bush tried to force federal intervention to break the sacred bond of marriage in the Teri Schiavo Case. He will be exposed if he wins. Truth is, the Republicans have screwed up this campaign. President Obama will win re-election unless gas is $5 a gallon or unemployment goes back up to 9%.— The Monk
American now has a +$16T national deficit thanks to Obama (which socialist Central Bankers are making 6% interest on BTW), is teetering towards teh very same socialism that bankrupted Europe, uses Unions to extort US small and medium sized businesses and now is trying to force Americans to purchase a product or services against the US Constitution. Obama is nothing more than a puppet of the Central Bankers that since 1913, have been on a mission to weaken the US Constitution. Obama is nothing more than an unqualified product resulting from Affirmative Action and a nation still looking for a real leader...not one bought and paid for by special interest groups.- I really hate that all presidential elections seem to boil down to God, guns and abortion. It's like they don't even want to give the voting public any credit.— SithLordRizzoLegalizeIt69
- Flip-flopping two-faced disgusting no-morals politicians.— ej610
You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
