Friday, October 13, 2006
Re-elect Rick Santorum
About a year ago, when I had the chance to meet several leading Republican Senators in a blog event organized by the Senate Republican Conference, I came away very impressed by Rick Santorum's passion and sincerity:
Heading in to the session, I confess that I had thought of Rick Santorum as something of a lightweight. I am by no means a social conservative (generally speaking, I'm against "family values"), and Santorum is tough on those issues, especially for a Senator from east of the Mississippi and north of the Maxon-Dixon line. However ... I came away extremely impressed with Rick Santorum and will pay much closer attention to him in the future. He spoke candidly, passionately and seriously. If I were to beat his performance to death with a cliche, I would say that he was a breath of fresh air.
In the year since, I have watched Santorum speak very directly about the subject that is most important to me, even when it was quite obviously not in his immediate political best interest. Santorum cares a lot about this fight we are in, and has put his political future at stake in defense of it. I have seen nothing in the last year to shake my view that he is exactly the honest and passionate person he seems to be.
With that backdrop, read Kathryn Jean Lopez's column today. I'm obviously not the only person who feels this way. Lots of Democrats do too. If you live in Pennsylvania, give Senator Santorum your vote.
UPDATE: The Rick Santorum campaign site, which I should have included in the original post.
10 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Oct 13, 09:45:00 PM:
I live in Pennsylvania and I am a fan of Santorum's. I love how tough he is and I love the fact that he grew up in a Democratic family, but through study and the example of Ronald Regan he realized a much more progressive party was best for America. If he gets by this election, which is no small task, he will have learned a valuable lesson in keeping his yap shut. If Casey beats him, he has only himself to blame. His book and some of his absolute moral stances and his "no-win" positions (e.g. Stem Cells, Same Sex Marriage)go over like a fart in Church in a blue state. It is one thing to follow your concience and vote your concience, actually it is preferred, however when you are in a state that is 60+% Democrat, it may be a good idea to quietly vote and stear clear of the grandstand.
By , at
Fri Oct 13, 10:35:00 PM:
I am a Pennsylvanian who lives in PA and can comment on Rick Santorum: He is the real deal. The guy is one of the hardest working Senators and truly is a conservative. He is smart, passionate and gets the war on terror unlike most in the Bush administration.
I know a few Democrats that like him or at the least, respect him for being an honest, hard-working guy.
My sister is a true-blue Democrat and she hates Santorum. Why? I don't even think she knows quite why but she just does. I suspect it is penchant in the past for preaching moral issues. Pennsylvanians are turned off by that. And Santorum knows it and thats why he hasn't been very preachy in over a year. I suspect he thought he could cruise to reelection but found himself waaayy down in the polls and finally wised up.
Indeed he will learn if he gets reelected to back off a bit. Afterall, why lose a good politician because he was too passionate?
I also work with a true blue Philadelphian Democrat, 58 years old. But he kinda admits to liking Snatorum. I think he'll vote for him, or at the least, not vote for Casey.
By the way, my sister does not want to vote for Casey. She seriously is thinking of not casting a vote for Senator. She says to me "There both the same!, why bother?". And thats when I point out to her if she thinks that way, why not vote Santorum as why would you want to jettison the #3 ranking Senator for an empty suit? (Yes I called him that too). I also pointed out that even Rendell supports him. That also played a major role on why my Philadelphian coworker respects Santorum (a Rendell nut)...
So Santorum is a stauch Conservative who normally gets creamed anywhere North of the Mason-Dixon line but guess what, he may just win because he is a hard-working honest guy who you know where he is coming from.
Casey is running on his name only. He knows it. Rendell knows it. Hopefully the voters will figure it out too.
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Sat Oct 14, 01:58:00 AM:
He is charasmatic and photogenic, but I can't tell whether Santorum speaks his mind or speaks the president's mind. He votes with the pres close to 100%. His voting record and the K street project should be enough to see him out the door.
By , at
Sat Oct 14, 10:01:00 AM:
It seems rather hard to show that Santorum "votes with the pres close to 100%" what with how the president doesn't actually get to, you know, vote on stuff.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Oct 14, 02:08:00 PM:
Agreeing with the President is enough to damn you in the eyes of anyone with BDS, no matter how good/honest/insert favorite virtue here of a person you are.
That's sad.
By , at
Sat Oct 14, 04:59:00 PM:
Santorum is done for; Dan Savage is reading the polls and already cackling with glee.
I'm sorry that we're losing a politician who is passionate about important foreign policy issues. But homophobia is not a trait I will accept in my elected leaders. My vote goes to Casey, and every liberal in PA who votes on social issues will vote this way as well. Sorry.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Sat Oct 14, 10:48:00 PM:
Dawnfire, you're absolutely right. I think the president has failed this country to such a degree that we're better of without his yes-men. They've shown poor judgement and I don't want them enabling another two years of bad policy. You can write that off as derangement if it makes you feel better, but keep in mind, it's a pretty common opinion. The president's incompetence is going to swing a lot of votes.
You call it sad, I call it accountability. Viva democracy.
By , at
Sun Oct 15, 12:03:00 AM:
Lanky,
The irony in your assessments of Bush is so transparent as to be apparently invisible to you.
I assume no political prophetic mantle as you most assuredly do, but I'd point out to you that your statements are unorigional in the extreme. Neither are they particularly timely, having been said before in 1984.
I'll note that very few politicoes who were screaming about failed policies in 1984 do so of that era now. This is because the footprint of history has become so painfully obvious that only the most dishonest of partisans can so believe.
Before making rash predictions about 'failed legacies', it helps learning a bit from history and getting your head out of the echo chamber.
We'll see in a few days whether your prophetic predictions are as accurate as those of the MSM were in 1980 and 1984.
P.S.
Just a quick what-if scenario fer ya. Would we even be in Iraq and Afghanistan if a certain nobel-prize winning president hadn't thrown over the Shah of Iran? If we would not be there but for this incident, then accusing a current president of failed policies for having to pull another president's chestnuts out of the fire seems to be a bit over the top for me (at least without admitting in the same sentence of the egregarious policy failures of the first president).
By Dan Trabue, at
Mon Oct 16, 05:33:00 PM:
"Would we even be in Iraq and Afghanistan if a certain nobel-prize winning president hadn't thrown over the Shah of Iran?"
Or if Reagan hadn't thrown support to Saddam in the 80s? Or sold weaponry to both Iran and Iraq? Or if we didn't have foreign policies that include interfering with other sovereign nations, coups and attempted coups, puppet dictators and would-be puppets who snipped their strings?
Yes, our foreign policies have been a bit of a mess and too often from both Dems and Republicans.
Doesn't mean we ought not throw Team Bush's sorry collective butts to the curb.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Oct 16, 07:57:00 PM:
If you're willing to vote in a snake over a decent man because the man voted for a Bush policy... well, you'll get what you deserve; a snake as a representative. I'm glad you're comfortable with that. You're gonna have to be for the next 6 years.
