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Rick Santorum drops the (pink bowling) ball*

by

Back in 1998, Chris Bull published a very good book, Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, about how social conservatives opposing gay rights and gay activists were made for each other.  Every time Rick Santorum opens his mouth and says something silly and gay activists, clutching their pearls and reaching for their smelling salts, respond (in the highest of dudgeon) behaving as if the former Senator has just demanded his legions go out and convert gay people — or threaten them with the hell-fire — it seems such folk were made for each other.

A silly statement is not (necessarily) a hateful one.  Nor does it amount to bullying, but it is often revealing.  “Even in the most private, apolitical moment of the day,” Jennifer Rubin reports,

Santorum couldn’t suppress the urge to judge.” This year it was publicly chastising a boy for using a pink bowling ball. Seriously. The world according to Rick must be preached to all of us.

I couldn’t find video of this, and maybe (as the person who alerted me to the story speculates) the former Senator “was being playful in a pseudo-macho way”, but Rick Santorum is not known for his jocular gestures.  More than anything, this comment betrays a certain insecurity — and a failure of discipline.  What does it accomplish for a man who knows he’s being followed by a gaggle of press to say such a thing?

Even though press reports provide no evidence that Santorum linked the pink ball to gay men, the folks at HRC found the former Senator contending the former Senator’s comments could harm gay people.  Really.

Almost out of breath, HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz said, “This is another example of Rick Santorum intentionally making ignorant statements that have a real impact on LGBT people“.  Give a break.  Most gay people who hear of this will laugh at the former Senator’s strangeness.  Only those who have this need to be perpetually aggrieved will feel threatened by his quip.

(Come on, ask yourself, how did you respond when you first heard this story?  Did you laugh or shake your head at yet another silly Santorum statement?  If you felt threatened by this, I can recommend a few people you can talk to.)

Not to be outdone by the breathless spokesperson for HRC, Michelangelo Signorile suggests this reveals a man “with a bully complex.”  Now, I would daresay that most bullies, like the Santorum revealed in this quip, are quite insecure, but this remark does not a bully make.

Jennifer Rubin got it right; this shows a man who can’t suppress his urge to judge.

Let’s not read get all excited when politicians say something silly.  Respond instead with mockery.  They deserve no less.

—-

*and some gay activists just can’t find the humor in it.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  SoCalRobert finds it . . .

. . . asinine that anyone would get their panties in a bunch over this… if everything is outrageous then nothing is outrageous. If the HRC mouthpiece really believes that this has an impact on LGBT(ABCDXYZ) people then we truly have become a nation of candy-ass children.

NB: Tweaked the post.

EVEN MORE FROM THE COMMENTS:  Charles wonders how “

Comments

  1. I honestly don’t think Santorum meant anything by this other than as a joke.

    It’s asinine that anyone would get their panties in a bunch over this… if everything is outrageous then nothing is outrageous. If the HRC mouthpiece really believes that this has an impact on LGBT(ABCDXYZ) people then we truly have become a nation of candy-ass children.

  2. [Rubin:] Santorum couldn’t suppress the urge to judge.” This year it was publicly chastising a boy for using a pink bowling ball

    “Judge”? _The Advocate_ makes clear that Santorum was joking, not scowling:

    “Friends don’t let friends use pink balls,” Santorum quipped…

    I tried to think of some “But OK…” to add here, to concede Rubin’s point partially. I couldn’t. If I were bowling with friends or co-workers and they made the same joke, I’d chuckle obligingly. For that matter, dumber things have come out of my mouth.

    Rick Santorum is not known for his jocular gestures

    So he’s not supposed to make them, on the campaign trail? Sounds like Santorum is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

    If you felt threatened by [Rick’s quip], I can recommend a few people you can talk to

    OK, there we agree!

  6. Actually, you guys did invent him. The real Rick Santorum is not the outrageous caricature the Derangers have made of him. He’s a good, decent, conservative family man. He’s made some political mistakes I don’t agree with, like campaigning for that POS Arlen Specter, but he’s been strong on Federalism and on the threat posed by Islamic extremism.

    It is maddening, I guess, that his ability to speak with conviction, his self-evident core values, and his ability to connect with voters stood out in such contrast to the GOP Establishment’s chosen moderate legacy candidate.

  7. To sum up my view…

    The point that no reasonable person should be offended by Santorum’s quip: Righteous.

    The point that his quip should somehow be held against him anyway, “judging” or something: Lame.

    The point that Santorum sometimes wears goofy pink ties: Righteous. (ty rusty)

  8. If Rick Santorum did not exist, we’d have to invent him — for comic relief, if nothing else.

    Not for comic relief but for something to be offended and pissed off about. Gay libs are victims and they HAVE to have something and/or someone to bitch about. Somebody’s ALWAYS trying to snuff them out and put them in concentration camps idiotically unaware that they’re already in the camps of their and their party’s making.

  9. The real Rick Santorum is not the outrageous caricature the Derangers have made of him. He’s a good, decent, conservative family man. He’s made some political mistakes I don’t agree with, like campaigning for that POS Arlen Specter, but he’s been strong on Federalism and on the threat posed by Islamic extremism.

    … And pathetic on Fiscal Conservatism, the one thing we need the most from the Republican candidate.

  10. Not for comic relief but for something to be offended and pissed off about. Gay libs are victims and they HAVE to have something and/or someone to bitch about.

    Too right, TGC.

    And the pink tie attack is just lame. Lots of married men in my church wear pink ties because their wives like them. Heck, the kid who was the All-State QB wore a pink tie sometimes. It’s nothing.

  11. As for Sonic, I am glad the GOP rejected Rick Santorum in favor of a true-blue fiscal conservative who only raised taxes by $740 million in Massachusetts, doubled taxes on businesses in Massachusetts, raised gasoline taxes in Massachusetts, and secured Federal earmark funding for a massive stimulus project in his state whose cost increased from $4 Billion to 15 Billion on his watch.

    Yup, we sure dodged a bullet.

  12. Sorry for the lame attempt to ‘caption this’ moment. You have far more experience V, donning suggestive soft porn, whispers of misogyny, and undertones of ? . . .

    That poor Ricky had a slip of the tongue with the n word when talking’ up Obama.

  13. VtK: Uh-oh, I hope rusty isn’t accusing you of being a sick intercourse 😉

    I’m a Romney man (he’ll do! zzzzz…) but I have to agree that we’ve created an environment where we 1) loath politicians because they speak in vague, insipid, weasel-word-soaked platitudes and 2) will immediately destroy any politician that dares to speak out in ways other than insipid, weasel-word-soaked platitudes.

    In the case of liberal Dems, replace platitudes with divisive demagoguery.

  14. I’ll vote for Romney, too. I’m just tired of having to choose the sh-t sandwich over the giant douche every time. And I don’t think this particular sh-t sandwich has a chance against the giant douche.

  15. V, do note there is nothing in my comment that suggests that Romney is much better on the issue, but Santorum went along with most every big government thing that came down the pike during the Bush years. The only two guys who have any record of refusing to sign some of those same items are John McCain and Ron Paul…. But they are not “Conservative” enough.

  16. VtK: Uh-oh, I hope rusty isn’t accusing you of being a sick intercourse

    He probably is… only because it was an attack he could copy and paste from somewhere else without the annoyance of developing an original thought.

  17. Weirdly, Romney seems to combine George HW Bush’s complete inability to connect with voters with Bill Clinton’s complete lack of principles. In the unlikely event he is elected to what will certainly be a single term, the best one could expect is that his presidency will be like Clinton’s post-1994. He’ll mostly submit to a Republican Congress and throw the party base a couple of strongly ideological Supreme Court Justices.

  18. Where I bowl the pink house balls are 12 pounds. I see a guy grab one and he is going to get crap. The bright colored balls are lighter 6, 8, 10 and 12 pounds. Rick is guilty of saying a lot of stupid things but this one doesn’t come close to the top of the list.

  19. oh my g-d, V, you have it. . .you have it

    I realized God’s purpose in this life was to teach me to understand and have empathy for the suffering of others.

    Praise Be. Praise Be. I always forget. . .thou shall not judge.

    Well, the gheys get a pass.

    Judge away! Judge away!

    love this refrigerator magnet. . .Be nice or LEAVE

  21. It’s very disappointing that Dan has let his Santorum derangement bring him down to the leftist level of “I disagree with someone politically, so I am going to attack him childishly.”

    Dan Savage and Matt Taibbi welcome you to their sewer.

  22. I haven’t watched all of the primary day victory/concession speeches, but Rick’s speeches early on were poignant and they connected with voters. As the campaign has worn on, he has become tired and increasingly gaffe prone. And these comments after a primary don’t resonate in March like they did in January. Finally, Saying the word BS in front of cameras was not a good idea./

  23. What’s the LGBT community going to do when, Obama, pulls his “October Surprise” and comes out in support of “gay marriage” legislation for his second term?

  24. It’s very disappointing that Dan has let his Santorum derangement bring him down to the leftist level of “I disagree with someone politically, so I am going to attack him childishly.”

    Dan Savage and Matt Taibbi welcome you to their sewer.

    Really V? Dan is now on par with Savage and Taibbi? Just for being critical of Santorum? A little over the top, dontcha think????

    Hey… Look NDT… I’m defending Dan’s honor! Where are you!!!! 🙂

  25. What’s the LGBT community going to do when, Obama, pulls his “October Surprise” and comes out in support of “gay marriage” legislation for his second term?

    He’s cynical enough to use it, and, for a majority of gays, it will be enough.

  26. Republicans Quietly Retreat on Gay Marriage

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/273209_Republicans_Quietly_Retreat_on

    Should we be surprised by the minority liberal Republican Party and the push for the “Father of Homosexual Marriage”?

    Gay ‘marriage’ not a right, prohibiting gay adoption not ‘discrimination’: European Court of

    Human Rights (REJECTION OF THE SOCIAL ACTIVISM OF THE APAs/ABA AND THE SWEDISH MODEL)

    http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gay-marriage-not-a-right-prohibiting-gay-adoption-not-discri

    mination-europe#

    Romney has to earn the 1144 delegates and now the base will surely solidify behind Santorum…………looks like a brokered convention and the RNC bringing in the 2nd string social liberals

  27. @21: VtK – no way has BDB joined Dan Savage in the sewer. Savage is a nasty piece of work on a (low) level all his own. You have to really work to be that low.

    If Romney can get elected, warts and all, then simply saving the country from another couple of Obama SCOTUS appointments is worth a lot. We can’t lose sight of the goal: make Obama a one-term president.

    If it came to an Obama-Santorum race, I’d vote for Rick without hesitation. I’d vote for a yellow dog.

  28. Aaaannnnnnnd Here comes the Terry Schaivo brigade, perhaps the most embarrassing feature of the Republican dominated Congress. They couldn’t control their spend-thrift ways, but they sure could find the time to interfere in a case that did not need their “assistance”!

    I’ll be gone for the rest of the day. Do have fun.

  29. sonicfrog is wedded to a narrative that social conservatives are big spending, big government nanny-staters. (It must be true because Ron Paul says so.) He is not going to divorce this narrative because of inconvenient facts; like the fact that Rick Santorum’s voting record places him as one of the five most fiscally conservative senators during his terms in office earning an A- from the National Taxpayers Union.

    Which, BTW, has been pointed out to him before in this forum, but he would rather embrace a comforting myth than deal with facts that contradict his prejudices.

  30. Nope V, never seen that. Note the article doesn’t link to the actual report so you can see what the actual scoring metrics are…..

    And now I know why. The Weekly Standard played hard and loose with the facts! Here is what the NTU actually says about Santorum, and the Weekly Standard’s article:

    (Alexandria, VA) – During last night’s debate among Republican Presidential candidates, several citizen groups’ congressional scorecards entered the spotlight including the National Taxpayers Union’s (NTU’s) annual Rating of Congress. In order to provide the most complete picture possible, today NTU offered additional information and clarification on its Rating system and results.

    Each year since 1979, NTU has issued a Rating of all Members of Congress based on every roll call vote affecting federal taxes, spending, debt, and regulation (often hundreds of votes in a given year). Votes are weighted according to their fiscal impact, and are tabulated to produce for each lawmaker a Taxpayer Score representing their level of support for limited government and opposition to bigger government. Since 1992, NTU has issued letter grades (often based on a curve) in order to allow citizens to better interpret Taxpayer Scores.

    Yesterday evening, candidate Rick Santorum said:

    “The Weekly Standard just did a review, looking at the National Taxpayers Union, I think, Citizens Against Government Waste, and they measured me up against the other 50 senators who were serving when I did and they said that I was the most fiscally conservative senator in the Congress in the — in the 12 years that I was there.”

    Clarification: The analysis referred to by Santorum during the debate, was performed by the Weekly Standard based on NTU data. The analysis and conclusions of the Weekly Standard’s article – particularly the “GPA” methodology discussed in that piece – are solely the work of the Standard. Given the recent interest surrounding NTU’s Rating, the following tables provide complete information on Taxpayer Scores for Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum for the years they served in Congress.

    Ha Ha! You have to rely on fudged numbers and statistics to prop up you candidate!!!!!! You should be a climate scientist. You’d fit right in.

    But seriously. This is why you should always be suspicious of stories that state “facts” but does not give a link to support those “facts”.

    Santormu’s score isn’t bad, and I will happily admit it’s higher than I had remembered. That said, his rating according to the NTU chart is just a few ticks better than Gingrich, and not even close to the real fiscal conservative that is Ron Paul! It’s funny; so many here, including you, love to get on GW Bush’s case for his lack of fiscal conservatism, yet, for some reason, Santorum gets a pass for voting on some of the very same things that makes GW so bad.

    Here is a list of some of the fiscally related things (and a few others) Santorum voted for or voted against:

    NEA

    Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
    Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.

    Defense and Foreign Policy

    Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
    Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
    Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.
    Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyranical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
    Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
    Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
    Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea
    Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.

    Nominations

    Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge

    Labor

    Voted against Real of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages
    Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding
    Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
    Voted for Job Corps funding
    Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization
    Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here
    Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
    Voted to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws.
    Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.

    Reform

    Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
    Voted twice for a Congressional payraise.
    Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapits, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
    Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
    Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
    Voted for a McCain amendment to require State and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.

    Immigration

    Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators
    Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens
    Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
    Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.
    Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.

    Taxes

    Voted against a flat tax.
    Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs
    Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
    Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
    Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
    Voted twice for internet taxes.
    Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
    Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
    Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
    Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
    Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
    Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
    Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.

    Welfare

    Voted against food stamp reform
    Voted against Medicaid reform
    Voted against TANF reform
    Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion
    Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
    Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.

    Waste

    Sponsored An amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million
    Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA)
    Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion
    Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
    Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million
    Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL)
    Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry
    Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation
    Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
    Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%
    Voted against transferring $20 million from Americorps to veterans.
    Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
    Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
    Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.

    Spending and Entitlements

    Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies an new entitlement.
    Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
    Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
    Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.

    Health Care

    Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
    Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
    Voted against a allow consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.

    Education

    Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing
    Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
    Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.

    Who is Rick Santorum? From his voting record, I can tell you who he’s not. – He’s not the Fiscal Conservative he claims to be. Was he better than many of his Republican counterparts at the time? Yeah. But that’s not a very high bar. And Ron Paul was better.

    I’ll be gone for the rest of the day and tomorrow. Will check in when I get back.

  31. 1. Santorum is not *my* candidate.
    2. I don’t object to reasonable criticism grounded in fact. Criticism that Santorum was not as fiscally conservative as he should have been (under a socially moderate, fiscally liberal president of his own party), or that he is a weaker candidate in the general is legit criticism. Deranged rants that he is going to institute a Theocracy and outlaw birth control, or that a joke about a pink bowling ball reveals deep, dark gay-hatred is not.
    3. When you can no longer tell the difference between legit criticism and derangement, you are deranged.
    4. That long cut-and-paste doesn’t undercut the basic point that Santorum was relatively fiscally conservative, and certainly doesn’t prove he is to the right of Mittens “Big Dig” Romney on that score.

  33. V, apology accepted. Wonder if your misinterpretation was related to the very long sentence in the opening paragraph. I was just trying to cut that into two, but if I did, would lose the breathlessness I was therein trying to convey.

  34. I think I processed the story too quickly and on too little sleep. I have thought your attacks on Santorum have been excessive and unfair, but they don’t sink to the Dan Savage Matt Taibbi level and I retract that comment in its entirety.

  36. For example, on a post on the Michigan primary, you reported that it wasn’t a tie because Romney got more delegates … without pointing out that the Michigan GOP broke its own rules to give Romney delegates that fairly should have gone to Santorum.

    You have sometimes taken Santorum’s remarks out of context; such as his comment about libertarianism a few weeks back, and used that to give the impression that Santorum is anti-liberty, or at least much more so than other candidates.

    You also tend to turn most every Santorum gaffe into a post while ignoring all of Romney’s. If Santorum’s Communication’s Chief had said his campaign promises were like an Etch-a-Sketch, or that he didn’t care about the poor, you would likely have posted on it.

    I also don’t think you acknowledge Santorum’s strengths… but that’s not something I would have expected you to have done anyway. Still, it bugs me because even if I don’t think he would have a better chance than Mittens at beating the SCOAMF, he’s still a decent man and not without virtues… like conviction and the ability to connect to voters.

    Criticisms of his votes for spending are fair, but as the NTU points out, Santorum was better than Gingrich, and probably a lot better than Senator Romney would have been had he defeated Ted Kennedy. Romney’s taxing and spending record in Massachusetts does leave 740 million things to be desired.

    [Granted, the US Senate in the years Santorum served was a fiscal whorehouse, but Santorum was only giving handjobs and the occasional BJ, not the full DVDA you could get from Trent Lott, Harry Reid, Robert Byrd, Frank Murkowski or Ted Stevens.]

    And I think it’s a little over the top to spend so much time and effort attacking someone who isn’t going to win, and never really was, anyway.

  37. V, as to the Michigan primary, it wasn’t a tie because Romney won more votes than Santorum.

    Santorum’s strengths? And what exactly are they? Yes, he has done a good job on occasion of articulating the conservative message (and I did acknowledge as much here).

  38. Consider this… Romney has vast resources, the most expensive consultants, and the support of the full Republican establishment. Rick Santorum ran his campaign on a shoestring, and Mittens still had to outspend him by 7 or 5 to 1 to eke out narrow victories. What does that say about the relative ability of each man to effectively use his resources; the essence of good business Management.

    Santorum is capable of articulating his convictions passionately, and in a way that connects to voters. Romney, despite the most expensive advisors in the world prepping him, cannot. Perhaps, because he has neither passion, nor conviction, nor a core set of beliefs.

    Santorum has been outspoken on the danger of Islamic fascism. He supported the Surge in Iraq, possibly at the cost of his Senate seat. Mittens, IIRC, waffled on the Surge.

    Also, though you may not agree, he is a fundamentally decent and honest man.

  39. There are reasons that Sen. Santorum is a _former_ senator. Among them is his failure to observe a fundamental rule of running for any political office: Consider carefully what one says in public or near anything that could be a live mic. I don’t much care what he might have meant. His remark was ignorant and stupid. Was it homophobic? Maybe. I don’t know or care. He comes nowhere near getting my vote anyway.

  40. Not at all a Santorum fan (he’ll never get my vote) – But, I can’t help but think that all politicians make “mistakes” like this and that some folks are always looking for something to hang the guy with.

    What if he didn’t say anything; would others have jumped on him for letting the kid bowl with a “girly” ball?

    BTW, how much did these same folks go after Obama when he said it was like the Special Olympics when he went bowling? Now, that IS an offensive comment.

  41. V the K, honorable effort, but don’t waste your time trying to defend Rick Santorum to Dan. Dan is a social liberal and suffers from Santorum Derangement Syndrome because Rick Santorum is a social conservative who believes passionately in the traditional sexual and familial moral order which, of course, doesn’t include gay marriage. For social liberals like Dan that is enough to disqualify Santorum, or anyone else, from being a human being in good standing. Just don’t expect Dan to admit that.

  42. Back to my original comment, Seanne-Anne. What the Smittens (i.e. People who are Smitten with Mittens) resent is that Rick Santorum strengths are Mittens’s weaknesses. Rick Santorum has core convictions. Mittens has whatever his advisers told him would work with swing voters this week. Rick Santorum can speak from the heart. Mittens can almost semi-convincingly read a speech on the TelePrompter and only step on the applause lines 60% of the time. Rick Santorum can connect with voters. Mittens needs to outspend his opponents 7 to 1 on attack ads.

    I don’t think any of this bodes well for the general election. I think Santorum has made mistakes, and his biggest mistake is letting the MFM caricature him into a full-on culture warrior, which is unfair and was both forseeable and avoidable. He has let the anti-social-conservative wing (represented by sonicfrog) paint him as a big-spending anti-federalist; an unfair portrait, but one he could have countered more effectively.

    In terms of their actual platforms, there is not much difference between Romney and Santorum; although I think Santorum’s tax plan is not only bolder, but his proposed 0% tax on manufacturing… though it drives the pro-banker, pro-illegal immigrant editorial board at the WSJ into conniption fits… is brilliant fiscally and politically, in that it is something blue collar Democrat voters can understand and find appealing.

    In terms of their ability to beat the SCOAMF, I don’t think either one could beat him. So, that doesn’t even enter into my personal calculus. But it does not bode well that Mittens can’t beat an opponent without outspending him by at least 5-to-1. Mittens is not going to have five billion dollars to spend against the SCOAMF.