Tuesday, February 21, 2012 6:24:30 AM
Santorum’s Gospel of Inequality
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: February 17, 2012
“Santorum Praises Income Inequality.”
That was Fox News’s headline [ http://nation.foxnews.com/rick-santorum/2012/02/16/santorum-praises-income-inequality ] about Rick Santorum [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/rick_santorum/index.html
]’s speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. Santorum said, “I’m not about equality of result when it comes to income inequality. There is income inequality in America. There always has been and, hopefully, and I do say that, there always will be.”
Unbelievable. Maybe not, but stunning all the same.
Then again, Santorum is becoming increasingly unhinged in his public comments. Last week, he said that the president was arguing that Catholics would have to “hire women priests [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoeHuV_6Kkw ]
Also last week, he suggested that liberals and the president were leading religious people into oppression and even beheadings [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/09/santorum-obama-leading-christians-to-the-guillotine/ (also e.g. http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/02/09/421882/santorum-obama-has-put-america-on-the-path-of-executing-religious-people-by-decapitation/ )]. I kid you not. Santorum said: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.”
Yet for Santorum to champion income inequality in Detroit, of all places, is still incredibly tone-deaf.
Detroit has the highest poverty rate of any big city in America, according to data provided by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College. Among the more than 70 cities with populations over 250,000, Detroit’s poverty rate topped the list at a whopping 37.6 percent, more than twice the national poverty rate [ http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html ]. And according to the Census Bureau, median household income in Detroit [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html ] from 2006-10 was just $28,357, which was only 55 percent of the overall U.S. median [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html ] household income over that time.
This is a city that last year announced plans to close half its public schools [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/22/news/economy/detroit_school_restructuring/index.htm ] and send layoff notices to every teacher in the system [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/news/economy/detroit_teachers/index.htm ].
This is a city where the mayor’s pledge to demolish 10,000 abandoned structures was seen as only shaving the tip of the iceberg because, as The Wall Street Journal reported in 2010 [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703950804575242433435338728.html ], “the city has roughly 90,000 abandoned or vacant homes and residential lots, according to Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that tracks demographic data for the city.”
This is not the place to praise income inequality. Last week, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, the chairman of that committee, laid out the issue as many Americans see it [ http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/committeehearings?ContentRecord_id=b1fdd1a8-e28e-4d1e-a6e2-8797f75d97e1&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=d68d31c2-2e75-49fb-a03a-be915cb4550b ]:
“The growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else has serious ramifications for the country. It hinders economic growth, it undermines confidence in our institutions, and it goes against one of the core ideals of this country — that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed and leave a better future for your kids and your grandkids.”
This is arguably even more true of people in Michigan than for the rest of us. Even though income inequality in the Detroit area isn’t particularly high, looking at the issue as an urban one in the case of cities like Detroit is problematic. The whole region took a hit. The comparison for cities like Detroit may be more intra-city than inter-city.
As Willy Staley argued in 2010 in an online column for Next American City [ http://americancity.org/columns/entry/2610/ ] magazine: “In richer cities, the inequality is put side-by-side, in an uncomfortable, loathsome way; for cities left in the dust of deindustrialization, the inequality is presents (sic) as existing between cities, not within them. Gone is the city/suburb divide between rich and poor, income inequality manifests itself within wealthy cities and between cities.”
And it is this feeling of being left behind by the American economy and abandoned by Republicans that is pushing Michigan into the blue. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling company, found this week that Obama would handily defeat all the Republican candidates in head-to-head matchups in the state. The company’s president, Dean Debnam, said in a statement: “Michigan is looking less and less like it will be in the swing state column this fall.” He continued, “Barack Obama’s numbers in the state are improving, while the Republican field is heading in the other direction.”
Santorum went on to say about income inequality during his speech on Thursday: “We should celebrate like we do in the small towns all across America — as you do here in Detroit. You celebrate success. You build statues and monuments. Buildings, you name after them. Why? Because in their greatness and innovation, yes, they created wealth, but they created wealth for everybody else. And that’s a good thing, not something to be condemned in America.”
Santorum might want to take a walk around Detroit to see who’s celebrating and to see how many statues he can find to honor people who simply invented something and got rich.
Furthermore, as a newspaperman and a former Detroiter, I’d like to direct him to the James J. Brady Memorial. Detroit1701.org [ http://detroit1701.org/ ], maintained by a University of Michigan emeritus professor, calls it “one of the more attractive memorials in Detroit.” It pays tribute to Brady, a federal tax collector, who set out to address the issue of child poverty in the city by founding the Old Newsboys’ Goodfellows of Detroit Fund [ http://www.detroitgoodfellows.org/home.html ] in 1914 — what is essentially a local welfare fund.
The group provides “warm clothing, toys, books, games and candy” to local children every Christmas in addition to sending poor children to summer camps, the dentist and to college.
Then again, charitable giving doesn’t appear to be high on Motor Mouth Santorum’s list of priorities. As The Washington Post pointed out [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-and-obama-vie-for-title-of-most-charitable-santorum-gave-least-to-charity/2012/02/16/gIQA3YPyHR_blog.html ], based on Santorum’s tax return disclosure this week, he has given the least amount to charity of the four presidential candidates who have disclosed their tax returns. (Ron Paul has not.) His charitable giving was just 1.8 percent of his adjusted gross income.
The Obamas were the highest, giving 14.2 percent, even though their income was second lowest.
Maybe that’s the imbalance we should praise.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/blow-santorum-exalts-inequality.html [with comments]
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Rick Santorum - Speaks to Dallas, TX (2-8-12)
Rick Santorum speaks, 2-8-12, to Plano, TX (Dallas, TX) the day after sweeping three Republican primaries--Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota.
5:10 - Big job ahead of us. Importance of election. The need to stop the statist polices of Barack Obama.
8:00 - Cannot just go about our normal routine. Extraordinary things are being asked of us!
9:59 - America Rallied! The Fight Against Creeping Statism and Gov't Control of Life and Liberty.
12:24 - Ronald Reagan's biggest concern.
13:24 - What this race is for!
13:57 - Vision for America.
15:25 - Barack Obama - Fundamentally UnAmerican.
18:50 - God Given Natural Rights to be protected by a limited Gov't.
20:20 - The marginalization of faith and family. The revoking of your unalienable rights.
23:40 - Recent HHS and Supreme Court decisions. Gov't control.
25:29 - Economy. Gov't needs to get out of the way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV0FXpdDXSU
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Anywhere I Hang My Hat ...
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: February 17, 2012
Of all the issues you can raise in a political campaign, the dumbest is whether a member of Congress has moved his/her family to Washington.
O.K., possibly not the absolute dumbest. There was that dust-up over whether now-Senator Rand Paul had, as a college student, kidnapped a female friend and forced her to worship “Aqua Buddha.” Although now that I’m thinking about it, I really did enjoy that one.
Right now in Indiana, Senator Richard Lugar is under fire from a Tea Party opponent who claims that Lugar has not actually lived in the state since he first entered the Senate in 1977.
“This scandal is our chance to replace one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate with a conservative!” said a fund-raising letter for Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer.
Lugar is actually a pretty conservative guy himself, although he is best known for his work on nuclear disarmament, which does not appear to be a Tea Party priority. The head of the right-wing PAC, Club for Growth, called for Lugar’s defeat the other day in a statement that denounced the senator for, among other things, having supported the bailout of New York City in 1978. I call that nursing a grudge.
Most of the publicity about the race, however, centers on the residency issue. Mourdock recently held a press conference at the house where Lugar has his voting address, and it definitely did seem to be occupied by another family.
“The entire state is his home,” retorted Lugar’s campaign manager. I am taking this to be a version of “So what?”
The senator’s ability to vote from a residence he hasn’t actually lived in for decades was, the campaign said, based on the same principle that allows a member of the military to vote from the last place he or she lived before going off to fight for the country. I’m not sure this is a comparison they’d want to press.
The issue of voting addresses is particularly sensitive in Indiana, where the secretary of state, Charlie White, was recently tossed out of office after being convicted of registering to vote at his former wife’s address while he actually lived with his fiancée. White, who once worked as a family law attorney, said his private life was “complicated,” which I’m sure we’re all prepared to believe.
Indiana is clearly a state with a lot of political excitement. Just recently, its State House voted in favor of drug-testing welfare recipients, which would not be all that remarkable except that the members also voted to drug-test themselves. “We had an amendment I thought was even better requiring drug testing for all corporate welfare recipients,” said Representative Ryan Dvorak, a Democrat from South Bend. That one, unfortunately, failed on a party-line vote.
But about the residency issue. These fights have been going on forever. One of the very first political investigations I ever worked on involved whether or not a veteran congressman maintained a voting address that was actually a Burger King outlet in North Haven, Conn.
Rick Santorum’s political career was built on an upset victory against a Democratic House member who, Santorum claimed, had lost touch with his district and moved his family to the Washington suburbs. When Santorum moved his own family to the Washington suburbs, he claimed that promises he made when he was in the House didn’t count for the Senate.
Then he enrolled the kids, who were being home-schooled, in a cyberschool that billed his old school district in Pennsylvania $38,000 a year.
“My dad’s opponents have criticized him for moving us to Washington so we could be with him more,” complained one of Santorum’s kids in an ad in 2006, shortly before he lost by one of the widest margins in the history of re-election campaigns. This was the same race in which Santorum claimed that his Democratic opponent, Robert Casey, was a “thug” who sent operatives to peep through the windows of the house near Pittsburgh where the senator maintained a voting address.
“Your despicable actions have endangered our children’s safety,” Santorum and his wife wrote to Casey. A Philadelphia Daily News columnist noted that the children in question were probably not in peril since they were, you know, in Virginia the whole time.
While serving in Congress is really, truly, not the same as serving in combat, these residency flaps are generally bogus. If we want a Congress that looks at least minimally like the country at large — including women, men with working wives, and parents of young children — we can’t carp if they want to keep their families within commuting distance.
Unless, of course, you are talking about somebody who got elected in the first place by running on the residency issue. Then carp away. Please.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/collins-anywhere-i-hang-my-hat.html [with comments]
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Rick Santorum speaks at awkward GOP dinner
By Kathleen Gray
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
9:50 PM, February 16, 2012
At a Republican dinner in Oakland County, where Mitt Romney grew up, Rick Santorum was the featured speaker, but the reception was a bit awkward.
Santorum had to share the program with Romney’s wife Ann and Gov. Rick Snyder, who officially endorsed Romney’s candidacy earlier today.
Santorum's rival, Mitt Romney, was not there.
Santorum was last on the agenda, after Snyder, Ann Romney and a handful of other speakers.
Snyder welcomed Santorum to Michigan from the stage but the two didn’t get the chance for a private talk before their speeches.
At the 1,000-person dinner, Snyder said he wishes the presidential candidates would stop talking about the federal bailout of the auto industry.
“I don’t view it as a great discussion to have,” Snyder said. “Why spend all that time on that when we have so much unemployment today.”
Santorum didn’t talk about the bailout, but told the crowd that the 2012 election was the most important one in his lifetime.
“This election is about freedom and what kind of country you’re going to leave for the next generation,” he said. “If we don’t repeal Obama care and reject the idea that government creates rights, then we will be the generation that lost faith with the greatness of America.”
He also said that God gives people rights, not the government.
“Once we throw God out of the equation … we ultimately end up at the guillotine,” Santorum said. “What makes America great is faith.”
He asked the crowd to make a difference in the primary and general election and vote for him, someone who “Is at the heart and soul of what America is all about. “You have the opportunity be a game changer in this election,” he added. “I can talk to the American people and remind us who we are.”
Copyright © 2012 www.freep.com
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216066/Rick-Santorum-speaks-at-awkward-GOP-dinner [with comments]
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Santorum drove Audi A6 in 2008, tax returns show
Rick Santorum, Republican presidential candidate, looks on during the Detroit Economic Club luncheon at Cobb Center in Detroit, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. Santorum said he would not have supported the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.
By Todd Spangler
Detroit Free Press Washington Staff
11:17 AM, February 16, 2012
WASHINGTON – Rick Santorum preaches Made in America, but, according to his tax returns, he was driving a German-made luxury car just a few years back.
Santorum, now vying with Mitt Romney for frontrunner status nationwide and leading in the race to win the Feb. 28 Republican presidential primary in Michigan, has made American manufacturing a major theme of his campaign. He has called for tax breaks for U.S. manufacturers and one section of his campaign website is called “Made in America: Empowering American Families, Building Economic Freedom.”
But his 2008 tax return, released along with three other years Wednesday night, showed he was started driving an Audi A6 that year as part of his consulting business, putting nearly 12,000 miles on the car. He claimed $241 in depreciation on his assets that year. The website Politico posted the tax returns Wednesday evening.
The Audi A6, manufactured in Germany, listed for $42,950 in 2008.
During the Iowa caucuses, Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, drew attention as he crossed the state in a 2006 Dodge Ram pickup belonging to a campaign aide and dubbed the “Chuck Truck: for aide Chuck Laudner. As was reported by the website autoguide.com earlier this year, “Whether or not it was intentional, the Dodge Ram has become a symbol for Santorum to prove that he’s hardworking and has spent the time to travel across the state.”
The Santorum campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
The auto industry has been a sore point for Romney as well, as Democrats have hit him for opposing President Barack Obama’s 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Romney has argued that a privately financed managed bankruptcy would have been preferable – even though experts including the head of Obama’s auto task force, Steven Rattner, say there was no private financing available at the time. Without government help, they say, the companies could have slid into bankruptcy.
The Free Press had earlier asked the Romney campaign for information on the former Massachusetts governor’s cars and was told he drives a red 2005 Ford Mustang and his wife Ann a gray 2010 Cadillac SRX. They also have a 2007 Cadillac SRX and a 2001 Chevrolet pickup truck.
Romney acknowledged owning a vehicle other than one built by the Detroit Three – Chrysler, Ford and GM – in the last 10 years following a meeting with the Free Press editorial board, but he did not provide additional details.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another Republican candidate for president, has also released his tax return for 2010 but it did not include any vehicles. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, also in the race, has not released his tax returns.
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Related Links
Santorum: I wouldn't have supported auto rescue or Wall Street bailout
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216015
Conservative Christian group holding Santorum rally Friday in Shelby Township
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216035
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Copyright © 2012 www.freep.com
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216021/Santorum-german-car [with comments]
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Santorum: Satan is Systematically Destroying America
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 4:12pm
Back in 2008, Rick Santorum traveled to Ave Maria University in Florida [ http://old.avemaria.edu/news/156.html ] to deliver an address to students attending the Catholic university founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan [ http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/pie_in_the_sky.php?page=all ] which he moved from Michigan as part of his effort to build [ http://www.naplesnews.com/news/ave-maria/town-without-vote/ ] his own personal theocracy in Naples.
Santorum told the students [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-hails-ave-maria%E2%80%99s-religious-warriors ( http://peoplefor.tumblr.com/post/49310534/santorum-hails-ave-marias-religious-warriors ; page not found)] at Ave Maria how lucky they were to be living in a time when God's Army is more needed than ever because all of the major institutions in society were under attack by Satan.
The audio of Santorum's remarks is still posted [download mp3 http://www.avemaria.edu/Portals/0/Podcasts/2323.mp3 ; streaming windows media http://www.avemaria.edu/Portals/0/Podcasts/2448.wma (via http://www.avemaria.edu/NewsEvents/Podcasts.aspx )] on the Ave Maria website and the bulk of his speech was dedicated to explaining how God had used him, his political career, and even the death of his son Gabriel [ http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Gabriel-Karen-Garver-Santorum/dp/1568145284 ] in the fight to outlaw abortion in America.
But Santorum began his remarks by explaining to the students in attendance how every institution in America has been destroyed by Satan; from academia to politics with even the church having fallen under His sway - not the Catholic church, of course, but "mainline Protestantism" which is in such "shambles" that it is not even Christian any longer [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4jopm7hYFk (embedded)]:
He didn't have much success in the early days. Our foundation was very strong, in fact, is very strong. But over time, that great, acidic quality of time corrodes even the strongest foundations. And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.
He was successful. He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were, in fact, smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different. Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they're smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.
And you say "what could be the impact of academia falling?" Well, I would have the argument that the other structures that I'm going to talk about here had root of their destruction because of academia. Because what academia does is educate the elites in our society, educates the leaders in our society, particularly at the college level. And they were the first to fall.
And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church.
After that, you start destroying the Church and you start destroying academia, the culture is where their next success was and I need not even go into the state of the popular culture today. Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.
The fourth, and this was harder, now I know you’re going to challenge me on this one, but politics and government was the next to fall. You say, ‘you would think they would be the first to fall, as fallible as we are in politics,’ but people in political life get elected by ordinary folks from lots of places all over the country where the foundations of this country are still strong. So while we may certainly have had examples, the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too.
Copyright 2012 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-satan-systematically-destroying-america
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Santorum: God Is Essential To National Security
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Santorum says Obama agenda not "based on Bible"
Feb 18, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/18/us-usa-campaign-santorum-idUSTRE81H0M220120218 [with comments]
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Santorum attacks Obama on prenatal screening
(Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay)
By Rebecca Kaplan
February 18, 2012 4:11 PM
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Campaigning in Ohio on Saturday, Rick Santorum displayed his culture-warrior side in full force, as he harshly attacked President Obama by suggesting the president wanted to see more disabled babies aborted and accusing him of projecting his values - which Santorum claimed were not rooted in the Bible - on the Catholic Church.
Santorum recalled his prominent role in the 1990s debates over the controversial procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion. He lambasted the president's health care law requiring insurance policies to include free prenatal testing, "because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society."
"That, too, is part of Obamacare, another hidden message as to what President Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country," Santorum said.
Prenatal tests are a standard part of modern medical care. The Department of Health and Human Services says such tests "help keep you and your baby healthy during pregnancy. It also involves education and counseling about how to handle different aspects of your pregnancy."
After devoting much of his speech to the health care law, an occasionally testy Santorum found himself the subject of reporters' regarding his socially conservative stances.
Earlier in the day, the former Pennsylvania senator charged that Obama's agenda is "not about you ... It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible." That prompted Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt to call Santorum's comment "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness and searing pessimism and negativity." LaBolt said it was "a stark contrast with the President who is focused every day on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class."
But Santorum doubled down on his attacks, accusing the president of forcing a new moral code on the Catholic church.
"The president has reached a new low in this country's history of oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before," he said. "If he doesn't want to call his imposition of his values a theology, that's fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a church who has very clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is forcing on them."
Asked about the fact that the president is a Christian, Santorum answered: "He says he's a Christian, he's a Christian," and would not elaborate on how to balance competing ideas about contraception within the broader faith. But he was firm in painting the president as promulgating a "new moral code" that he contended was "intolerant" of the church.
Santorum's high-profile role on such issues ensures that questions about his social positions will follow him across the country and through a general election campaign, should he win the nomination. Despite the firestorm they ignite at times - and the fact that it can produce lower poll numbers among women voters - the former Pennsylvania senator said he doesn't intend to let up.
"You ask a lot of questions about the social issues," he accused a reporter who asked if he would speak out on those issues during a general election race. "I'm going to talk about the things that I think are important to this country. I've done so throughout the course of this campaign, and I'll continue to do so."
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57380887-503544/santorum-attacks-obama-on-prenatal-screening/ [with comments]
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Rick Santorum: Prenatal testing encourages abortions (VIDEO)
[from Face the Nation]
02/19/2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rick-santorum-prenatal-testing-encourages-abortions/2012/02/19/gIQAvmZeNR_blog.html [with comments]
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Santorum defends prenatal care attack
Now leading in the polls, Rick Santorum ups his attacks on President Obama and prenatal healthcare. Jim Acosta reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sGc4aIit2k
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Rick Santorum plays hard to conservative base in Ohio
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum attends a tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio.
(Eric Gay, Associated Press / February 18, 2012)
He takes shots at Republican rival Mitt Romney and President Obama, and refers to public schools as 'factories.'
By Mitchell Landsberg and Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2012
Reporting from Columbus, Ohio, and Salt Lake City,— As he bounded from one cheering throng to the next in the battleground state of Ohio, Rick Santorum roused his conservative base Saturday with ideas not often heard in mainstream American politics. His audiences — Christian conservatives, tea party activists and other right-leaning Republicans — loved it.
Speaking to the Ohio Christian Alliance, Santorum went so far as to refer to public schools as "factories" and say that federal or state support for education is an "anachronism."
With polls showing him leading in Ohio, Santorum is trying to lock down support from Republicans who find former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney too moderate and have given up on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Nowhere was that more evident than at Saturday's back-to-back appearances at a tea party gathering and at the Christian Alliance luncheon, both in Columbus.
Speaking to tea party activists, he warned that President Obama was pushing the United States "to the brink of socialism, to the brink of losing our freedom," and he brought the crowd to its feet with an impassioned call to reclaim the country. "Will you join me?" he asked, to roars of assent.
Although Obama was his main target, he also took shots at Romney, mocking him over one of the former governor's proudest achievements.
Romney frequently touts his role in turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City after a bribery scandal threw the planning off track. But Santorum brought up the Olympics to swing back at Romney's assertion that the former Pennsylvania senator was "a big proponent of earmarks" during his days in Congress.
Speaking sarcastically, Santorum said that Romney "heroically bailed out the Salt Lake Olympic Games — by heroically going to Congress and asking them to bail out the Salt Lake Olympic Games. In an earmark!"
A Romney campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, issued a statement responding to Santorum's attack. "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot," she said. "There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post-9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo."
Later, addressing about 600 people at the Christian Alliance, Santorum spoke extensively about the role of faith in American public life and about his opposition to abortion. He also brought up education.
Santorum often speaks about how he and his wife home-school their children. He devotes a chapter to it in his book, "It Takes a Family," acknowledging that he is "something of a salesman for home schooling and for cyber-schooling," but conceding that it is not for everyone.
On Saturday, he went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.
In the nation's past, he said, "Most presidents home-schooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.
"Yes, the government can help, but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic."
(Aside from schools for the children of military personnel, the federal government does not actually operate schools. Most U.S. schools are supported primarily by state or local funding, or a combination of the two.)
Santorum said the public education system was an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, "when people came off the farms where they did home school or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools."
Romney, meanwhile, returned to Utah to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Salt Lake City Olympics.
"These games will always be about the greatness of the people of this great land. They will always hold a place in my heart — and I believe your heart — that will never be erased," Romney told thousands gathered Saturday night at a Stars on Ice celebration of the anniversary, featuring famous skaters such as gold medal winners Sarah Hughes, Jamie Salé and David Pelletier. "I love you. I love the experience we shared together."
He shared a story he often tells on the campaign trail about speed skater Derek Parra, who after winning gold and silver medals told Romney that the most moving experience of the games was carrying into the stadium the torn, burned flag that had flown above the World Trade Center.
Earlier, Romney thanked people who worked on the games' organizing committee at a private reception nearby.
"These were the most inspirational games I have ever seen," he told a few hundred people gathered in a restored historic train station lobby. He called out various teams that worked on providing food, decorating the city, finding entertainment and doing other work that made the games a financial and sporting success.
"There's power in unity," Romney said. "We came together as a group of people, not caring about who got credit but caring about putting on the best games in the history" of the Olympics.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
seema.mehta@latimes.com
Landsberg reported from Columbus and Mehta from Salt Lake City.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-race-20120219,0,2831889.story [with comments]
===
Santorum defends remarks on Obama's faith
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," defends his remarks about President Obama's faith.
(Chris Usher, CBS News / February 19, 2012)
The Republican candidate says the president has 'a worldview that elevates the Earth above man,' mentioning the global warming debate. All the GOP contenders will meet Wednesday in a debate.
By Mitchell Landsberg and Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2012, 10:25 p.m.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum denied Sunday that he had questioned President Obama's Christian faith, but said the president held an environmental belief "that elevates the Earth above man."
Santorum was quoted Saturday as telling an audience in Ohio that although he accepted the president's Christianity, he believed Obama adhered to "some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."
Asked about that statement Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," Santorum framed the issue as a disagreement over global warming and how "radical environmentalists" care for the Earth.
"I accept the fact that the president's a Christian," he said. "I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man, and says that, you know, we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the Earth by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, like for example that politicization of the whole global warming debate, this is just all an attempt to centralize power, to give more power to the government."
He added: "I'm talking about the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth and should have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it."
An Obama campaign advisor told ABC's "This Week" that the Republican candidate went "well over the line" in his comments about the president's theology. Robert Gibbs, a former White House spokesman, said it was time "to get rid of this mind-set in our politics that, if we disagree, we have to question character and faith."
A Santorum rival,Rep. Ron Paulof Texas, also leveled criticism at the former Pennsylvania senator and said he doubted that Santorum could defeat Obama.
"His voting record is ... from my viewpoint, an atrocious voting record — how liberal he's been in all the things he's voted for over the many years he was in the Senate and in the House," Paul said onCNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley.
A third GOP candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, used his Sunday talk show appearance to defend casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife has contributed $11 million to an independent political committee backing Gingrich. Gingrich said Adelson helped his candidacy offset millions of dollars in attack ads from Mitt Romney and his allies.
"Sheldon Adelson is desperately worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon and he is desperately worried about the survival of Israel, and I am the strongest candidate on foreign policy and the strongest candidate on national security," Gingrich told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace.
Last month, Gingrich called on Santorum to drop out of the race so that voters could consolidate behind a Romney alternative. But he rebuffed Wallace's question about whether he should do the same, now that Santorum is leading him in the polls.
"I think you should have played Rick's answer, which I now agree with ... which was no," he told Wallace.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney had no public events Sunday. All four candidates will meet in a debate Wednesday in Arizona.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
melanie.mason@latimes.com
Times staff writer Maeve Reston contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-race-20120220,0,2373129.story [with comments]
===
Santorum uses Hitler analogy to describe Obama
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday likened the upcoming U.S. election to World War II.
While the candidate’s comments to a packed First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia were somewhat vague, NBC news noted [ http://www.kplctv.com/story/16972416/santorums-controversial-comments-meet-criticism ] that he “seemed to compare President [Barack] Obama to [Adolf] Hitler.”
The former Pennsylvania senator told his supporters that this election was like World War II, “where our closest ally, Britain, was being bombed and leveled.”
“And America sat from 1940 when France fell to December of ’41 and did almost nothing,” he explained. “Why? Because we’re a hopeful people. We think, ‘You know it will get better. Yeah, I mean, he’s a nice guy. It won’t be near as bad as what we think. You know, this will be OK. You know, maybe he’s not the best guy.’ After a while, you found out some things about this guy over in Europe and maybe he’s not so good of a guy after all. But you know what? ‘Why do we need to be involved? We’ll just take care of our own problems, just get our families off to work and our kids off to school and we’ll be OK.’”
The candidate added: “Sometimes, sometimes it’s not OK.”
As BuzzFeed pointed out [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/senate-democrats-are-like-hitler-santorum-said ] earlier this year, it’s not the first time Santorum has compared his opponents to Adolf Hitler.
During a 2005 speech on the Senate floor, the then-senator blasted Senate Democrats for complaining that Republicans were trying to stop them from filibustering President George W. Bush’s judicial appointees.
“It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942: ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine,’” he said.
Over the weekend, Santorum also said that Obama’s theology [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/19/santorum-obama-a-christian-but-theology-not-based-on-the-bible/ ] was not “based on the Bible.” He later clarified that he wasn’t questioning if the president was a Christian.
Watch this video from CBS’s This Morning, broadcast Feb. 20, 2012.
[video embedded]
Copyright 2012 The Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/20/santorum-uses-hitler-analogy-to-describe-obama/ [with comments]
===
Santorum Compares Obama To Hitler, Immediately Denies Comparing Obama To Hitler
by Wonkette Jr.
1:19 pm February 20, 2012
The wonderful man we are dearly hoping becomes the GOP nominee for president has now joined the rest of the right-wing Internet in comparing President Barack Obama to Nazi Germany mastermind Adolf Hitler. CBS News reports [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57381329-503544/santorum-denies-comparing-obama-to-hitler/ ]:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum flatly rejected suggestions that he likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler Sunday when he used an analogy comparing the 2012 election to the buildup to World War II.
“No, of course not,” Santorum said dismissively when asked by a National Journal-CBS News reporter whether he was comparing the two. “The World War II metaphor is one I’ve used 100 times in my career,” he insisted.
Once you compare Obama to Hitler a hundred times, it has magically never happened!
©2012 Wonkette Media LLC
http://wonkette.com/464206/santorum-compares-obama-to-hitler-immediately-denies-comparing-obama-to-hitler [with comments]
===
Santorum denies Hitler-Obama comparison
Sen. Rick Santorum says he has not compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsitF8Zsj-A
===
For Santorum voters, he's a candidate like them
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is pictured as he appears on ''Face the Nation'' from a remote location in Sterling, Virginia February 19, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Chris Usher/CBS News/Handout
(Reuters) - Sporting his signature sweater vest and telling stories of his coal miner grandfather, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has struck a chord in the Rust Belt that is helping propel his once long-shot candidacy.
Although he is a millionaire, Santorum has found a common touch that has helped put him atop opinion polls in the industrial states of Michigan and Ohio and raised serious doubts about whether longtime front-runner Mitt Romney can win the Republican nomination to take on President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.
Santorum's portrayal of himself as the blue-collar Republican has managed to overshadow Romney's jobs message in a part of the country troubled by unemployment.
In conversations with nearly a dozen voters preparing to cast ballots for the former Pennsylvania senator in the Ohio and Michigan primaries, not one person volunteered that Santorum was the best candidate to revive American industry.
Instead, voters said they were coming to Santorum's side because his everyman style and Christian faith reminded them of themselves.
"He's basically down-to-earth," said Janice Thomas, 56, of Pickerington, Ohio, who is retired.
"Maybe I think he is more like me," said David Diyani, 58, a pastor at the Vineyard Church in Etna, Ohio. "I feel like I can relate to him."
Santorum's life, though, is far from ordinary.
He spent 12 years in the Senate, known as the "world's most exclusive club," and earned degrees in law and business. He purchased a luxury Audi sedan and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars as a consultant in recent years. Santorum's 2010 salary - $923,000 - placed him squarely within the top 1 percent of income earners in America.
Yet he can still draw a sharp contrast to Romney, a former Massachusetts governor whose fortune is estimated at up to $270 million and who often makes gaffes that show a lack of familiarity with ordinary Americans' struggles.
"I do my own taxes," Santorum said at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. "Heck, Romney paid half the taxes I did. He doesn't do his own taxes. Maybe I should hire an accountant in the future."
Santorum's previous criticism of the government bailout of the auto industry in 2009 might be a problem in Michigan where millions of people rely on the car companies. But Romney was a more vocal opponent of the rescue, leaving his rival's opposition to it largely overlooked.
A Detroit News poll, released last week, showed Santorum leading Romney 34 percent to 30 percent in Michigan, the state where Romney was born and where his father was governor. A Quinnipiac poll had Santorum leading Romney 36 percent to 29 percent in Ohio. Michigan's primary is on February 28 and Ohio votes on March 6.
GINGRICH DEFECTORS
Part of the Santorum surge can be accounted for by disaffected supporters of Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I decided to support him three weeks ago. Before that, I was for Gingrich," said Steve Izev, 34, of Westerville, Ohio. "The more popular he got, the more I liked him."
Santorum's rise in the polls is also fueled by the same phenomenon that successively lifted Texas Governor Rick Perry, former pizza magnate Herman Cain, and Gingrich to the front of the pack: He is not Romney.
In a Pew Research Center poll released last Monday, 50 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents nationwide said Romney was not a strong conservative.
"They are the 'anybody-but-Romney' people. They are the 'un-Romney' people," said Bill Ballenger, editor of the "Inside Michigan Politics" newsletter. "There is no reason in Michigan that they should be for Santorum. They don't really know who he is really."
A political climate featuring renewed debate over religious freedom, contraception and gay rights has benefited the devoutly
Catholic Santorum among evangelical Republicans.
In the Inside Michigan Poll, Michigan voters who said social issues were most important to them chose Santorum over Romney by 64 percent to 19 percent.
Faith is never far from the Santorum campaign. At a phone bank for Santorum in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the Ten Commandments were nailed to the wall. Paintings of Jesus and Mary hung in a back room.
Supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement praise Santorum for his frequent references to the U.S. Constitution. Santorum campaigns with a pocket-sized version that he removes from his coat for emphasis on the campaign trail.
In a MRG/Inside Michigan Poll released on Wednesday, Santorum bettered Romney among Tea Party supporters by 51 percent to 22 percent.
Female voters are the most resistant to Santorum. In Michigan polls, where Santorum leads Romney among a number of groups, the two are neck and neck in support among women.
In recent weeks, Santorum has drawn controversy with comments about working women and women in the military.
On the campaign trail, Santorum stokes voters' outrage that they are underappreciated by people in power.
"You are not being talked to as adults," Santorum told a Tea Party rally in Columbus on Saturday. "You are being treated as mindless, fly-over-country rubes who don't need to know the truth."
"We used to be called the Silent Majority," said Terry McGiffin, 69, a retired management trainer from Westerville, Ohio, describing Santorum's supporters.
Many supporters confess a lack of familiarity with Santorum's policy prescriptions but say they find him to be the Republican field's most likable entrant.
"I don't know a lot about him," said Gary Henson, 32, the owner of a medical supply company in Columbus. "I like his demeanor. I like his personality."
(Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/20/us-usa-campaign-santorum-idUSTRE81H0M220120220 [with comments]
===
10 Outrageous Things Rick Santorum Has Said
Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign stop Sunday at a church in Cumming, Ga., Eric Gay
AP Photos
As Rick Santorum enjoys a surge over Mitt Romney in national polls, The Daily Beast rounds up some of his craziest statements.
by The Daily Beast Feb 20, 2012 10:32 AM EST
There are politicians who make gaffes, and then there’s Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential contender has gained respect from some conservatives [ ] for what they see as a politician sticking to his guns, but others think he’s just a few Knights Templar short of a holy war. From presidential prostrations to medieval aggression, The Daily Beast rounds up Santorum’s kookiest utterances.
1. Canine Lovin’
This one has followed Santorum for nearly a decade. In a 2003 interview with The Associated Press, Santorum argued that if the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws and allowed people to perform homosexual acts in their own homes, thousands of years of civilization would go out the window. Marriage as an institution that exists only between a man and a woman must be upheld, he said. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality,” Santorum said [ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm ]. “That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”
2. America’s Trojan Horse
In a freewheeling interview [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690&feature=player_embedded#! ] with conservative blog CaffeinatedThoughts.com last October, Candidate Rick spent a good deal of time rhapsodizing about what President Rick would do about contraception and sexual ethics. “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” Santorum said. “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK; contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
3. Penny for His Thoughts
At a January campaign stop in Iowa, Santorum took on entitlement reform. He took criticism for his remarks [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57350990-503544/santorum-targets-blacks-in-entitlement-reform/ ] when he told a monochromatic Iowa audience, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn money.”
4. Face Plant
In an appearance on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show in March 2010, Santorum was asked [ http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=5082461 ] whether President Obama should delay a trip abroad or stay in Washington and hash out a resolution to the debate over health-care reform. Brushing aside the health-care issue, Santorum said, “I think the Democrats are actually worried he [Obama] may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.”
5. Kissing Kin
Returning to the topic of the Supreme Court and sodomy laws, Santorum wrote in a 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer column that “the latest distressing news came last week in California. The state Supreme Court there ruled, 4-3, that same-sex couples can marry.” Santorum went on to say, “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?”
6. Turf Wars
At another Iowa campaign stop in November, Santorum engaged an earnest young voter [ http://blogs.reuters.com/political-theater/2011/11/22/rick-santorum-claims-everyone-who-lives-in-the-west-bank-is-israeli/ ] on the issue of Israeli control of the West Bank. “If they want to negotiate with Israelis, and all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians. There is no ‘Palestinian,’” Santorum said. “This is Israeli land.”
The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rick-santorums-claim-that-no-palestinian-lives-on-the-west-bank/2012/01/04/gIQAcxsIbP_blog.html ] noted that the comment was reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”
7. Materfamilias
Blame it on mom. It’s hapless single mothers who necessitate the welfare state, Santorum said in a radio interview [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/rick-santorum-single-mothers_n_1017859.html ] in October 2011. And the Republican solution is to get more people hitched, stat. “Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: it is single mothers who run a household,” Santorum said. “Why? Because it’s so tough economically that they look to the government for help, and therefore they’re going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two-parent families, you eliminate that desire for government.”
8. Francophile? Non.
In Santorum’s mind, the relationship between France and America isn’t a long and glorious one going back to the Marquis de Lafayette and further. Nope. We landed at Normandy, and now they owe us. In another Philadelphia Inquirer column in 2009, Santorum wrote: “Watching President Obama apologize last week for America’s arrogance—before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans—helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions.”
9. Choosing His Battles
In a February 2004 article in The Morning Call, an Allentown, Pa., newspaper, Santorum (cited in the article as “the Senate’s No. 3 GOP leader”) said gay marriage “is an issue just like 9/11. We didn’t decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?”
10. Deus Vult
Liberals have been fiddling with medieval history [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50054.html ], Santorum alleged at an appearance in Spartanburg, S.C., in February 2011. “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical,” Santorum said. “And that is what the perception is by the American left, who hates Christendom.”
Accessibiliity © 2012 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/20/10-outrageous-things-rick-santorum-has-said.html [with comments]
===
Rick Santorum’s 12 Most Offensive Statements
By Igor Volsky on Jun 6, 2011 at 9:10 am
This morning, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “We are ready to announce that we are going to be in this race and we’re in it to win.” But Santorum — who is possibly most famous for his “Google problem” — may have an uphill climb to the nomination. He currently polls in the single digits in the early primary states and has a long history of making offensive statements about gay people, African Americans, women, and Muslims. Below is a short recap of his record:
GAYS:
1. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be….If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.” [4/2003] [ http://articles.cnn.com/2003-04-23/politics/santorum.gays_1_santorum-traditional-heterosexual-relationships-homosexuality?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS ]
2. “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?” [5/22/2008] [ http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/22/santorum-gay/ ]
3. On repeal of DADT: “I’m worried when many people will stand up and say, ‘well whatever the Generals want.’ I’m not too sure that we haven’t indoctrinated the Officer Corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decisions.” [2/20/2010] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201002200008 ]
4. On gay adoption: “A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.” [5/3/2011] [ http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/05/03/177387/santorum-adoption-gay/ ]
5. On teaching history of gay Americans: “I certainly would not approve of [a bill moving through the California legislature compels the state to add gay history to the state education curriculum], but there’s a logical consequence to the courts injecting themselves in creating rights and people attaching their legislative ideas to those rights that in some respects could logically flow from that. So I’m not surprised.” [5/10/2011] [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/10/164976/santorum-gay-history/ ]
RACE:
6. “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people’.” [1/19/2011] [ http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/19/santorum-fetus/ ]
7. “Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American women and is not desirable among African-American males….I think [Obama] has to realize that flying to New York is…self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot, and a beer.” [6/2/2009] [ http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/02/santorum-obama-dating/ ]
WOMEN:
8. “In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to….The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness“. ['It Takes A Family,' 7/6/2005] [ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05187/533421.stm ]
ISLAM:
9. Santorum responded to the Pentagon’s decision rescind its invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at the upcoming National Day over his statement that Islam is “evil” by saying that Graham’s comment was “a reasonable statement at the time.” [3/23/2010] [ http://thinkprogress.org/default/2010/04/23/93454/santorum-graham-islam/ ]
10. “I think the Democrats are actually worried [Obama] may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.” [3/23/2010] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201004230034 ]
11. “The creeping Sharia throughout Europe and here in this country and in Canada. The Islamization of Europe that is already on the way and will visit these shores not too soon is a concern for us and something that we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being“. [2/28/2009] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200902280001 ]
12. “Now we have the Attorney General confirming to Osama bin Laden just bide your time and the effeminate and pampered Americans will cower away.” [2/28/2009] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200902280001 ]
© 2011 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/06/237112/rick-santorums-top-12-most-offensive-statements/ [with comments]
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By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: February 17, 2012
“Santorum Praises Income Inequality.”
That was Fox News’s headline [ http://nation.foxnews.com/rick-santorum/2012/02/16/santorum-praises-income-inequality ] about Rick Santorum [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/rick_santorum/index.html
]’s speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. Santorum said, “I’m not about equality of result when it comes to income inequality. There is income inequality in America. There always has been and, hopefully, and I do say that, there always will be.”
Unbelievable. Maybe not, but stunning all the same.
Then again, Santorum is becoming increasingly unhinged in his public comments. Last week, he said that the president was arguing that Catholics would have to “hire women priests [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoeHuV_6Kkw ]
to comply with employment discrimination issues.”
Also last week, he suggested that liberals and the president were leading religious people into oppression and even beheadings [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/09/santorum-obama-leading-christians-to-the-guillotine/ (also e.g. http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/02/09/421882/santorum-obama-has-put-america-on-the-path-of-executing-religious-people-by-decapitation/ )]. I kid you not. Santorum said: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.”
Yet for Santorum to champion income inequality in Detroit, of all places, is still incredibly tone-deaf.
Detroit has the highest poverty rate of any big city in America, according to data provided by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College. Among the more than 70 cities with populations over 250,000, Detroit’s poverty rate topped the list at a whopping 37.6 percent, more than twice the national poverty rate [ http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html ]. And according to the Census Bureau, median household income in Detroit [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html ] from 2006-10 was just $28,357, which was only 55 percent of the overall U.S. median [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html ] household income over that time.
This is a city that last year announced plans to close half its public schools [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/22/news/economy/detroit_school_restructuring/index.htm ] and send layoff notices to every teacher in the system [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/news/economy/detroit_teachers/index.htm ].
This is a city where the mayor’s pledge to demolish 10,000 abandoned structures was seen as only shaving the tip of the iceberg because, as The Wall Street Journal reported in 2010 [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703950804575242433435338728.html ], “the city has roughly 90,000 abandoned or vacant homes and residential lots, according to Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that tracks demographic data for the city.”
This is not the place to praise income inequality. Last week, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, the chairman of that committee, laid out the issue as many Americans see it [ http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/committeehearings?ContentRecord_id=b1fdd1a8-e28e-4d1e-a6e2-8797f75d97e1&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=d68d31c2-2e75-49fb-a03a-be915cb4550b ]:
“The growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else has serious ramifications for the country. It hinders economic growth, it undermines confidence in our institutions, and it goes against one of the core ideals of this country — that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed and leave a better future for your kids and your grandkids.”
This is arguably even more true of people in Michigan than for the rest of us. Even though income inequality in the Detroit area isn’t particularly high, looking at the issue as an urban one in the case of cities like Detroit is problematic. The whole region took a hit. The comparison for cities like Detroit may be more intra-city than inter-city.
As Willy Staley argued in 2010 in an online column for Next American City [ http://americancity.org/columns/entry/2610/ ] magazine: “In richer cities, the inequality is put side-by-side, in an uncomfortable, loathsome way; for cities left in the dust of deindustrialization, the inequality is presents (sic) as existing between cities, not within them. Gone is the city/suburb divide between rich and poor, income inequality manifests itself within wealthy cities and between cities.”
And it is this feeling of being left behind by the American economy and abandoned by Republicans that is pushing Michigan into the blue. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling company, found this week that Obama would handily defeat all the Republican candidates in head-to-head matchups in the state. The company’s president, Dean Debnam, said in a statement: “Michigan is looking less and less like it will be in the swing state column this fall.” He continued, “Barack Obama’s numbers in the state are improving, while the Republican field is heading in the other direction.”
Santorum went on to say about income inequality during his speech on Thursday: “We should celebrate like we do in the small towns all across America — as you do here in Detroit. You celebrate success. You build statues and monuments. Buildings, you name after them. Why? Because in their greatness and innovation, yes, they created wealth, but they created wealth for everybody else. And that’s a good thing, not something to be condemned in America.”
Santorum might want to take a walk around Detroit to see who’s celebrating and to see how many statues he can find to honor people who simply invented something and got rich.
Furthermore, as a newspaperman and a former Detroiter, I’d like to direct him to the James J. Brady Memorial. Detroit1701.org [ http://detroit1701.org/ ], maintained by a University of Michigan emeritus professor, calls it “one of the more attractive memorials in Detroit.” It pays tribute to Brady, a federal tax collector, who set out to address the issue of child poverty in the city by founding the Old Newsboys’ Goodfellows of Detroit Fund [ http://www.detroitgoodfellows.org/home.html ] in 1914 — what is essentially a local welfare fund.
The group provides “warm clothing, toys, books, games and candy” to local children every Christmas in addition to sending poor children to summer camps, the dentist and to college.
Then again, charitable giving doesn’t appear to be high on Motor Mouth Santorum’s list of priorities. As The Washington Post pointed out [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-and-obama-vie-for-title-of-most-charitable-santorum-gave-least-to-charity/2012/02/16/gIQA3YPyHR_blog.html ], based on Santorum’s tax return disclosure this week, he has given the least amount to charity of the four presidential candidates who have disclosed their tax returns. (Ron Paul has not.) His charitable giving was just 1.8 percent of his adjusted gross income.
The Obamas were the highest, giving 14.2 percent, even though their income was second lowest.
Maybe that’s the imbalance we should praise.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/blow-santorum-exalts-inequality.html [with comments]
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Rick Santorum - Speaks to Dallas, TX (2-8-12)
Uploaded by mjgallo1 on Feb 8, 2012
Rick Santorum speaks, 2-8-12, to Plano, TX (Dallas, TX) the day after sweeping three Republican primaries--Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota.
5:10 - Big job ahead of us. Importance of election. The need to stop the statist polices of Barack Obama.
8:00 - Cannot just go about our normal routine. Extraordinary things are being asked of us!
9:59 - America Rallied! The Fight Against Creeping Statism and Gov't Control of Life and Liberty.
12:24 - Ronald Reagan's biggest concern.
13:24 - What this race is for!
13:57 - Vision for America.
15:25 - Barack Obama - Fundamentally UnAmerican.
18:50 - God Given Natural Rights to be protected by a limited Gov't.
20:20 - The marginalization of faith and family. The revoking of your unalienable rights.
23:40 - Recent HHS and Supreme Court decisions. Gov't control.
25:29 - Economy. Gov't needs to get out of the way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV0FXpdDXSU
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Anywhere I Hang My Hat ...
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: February 17, 2012
Of all the issues you can raise in a political campaign, the dumbest is whether a member of Congress has moved his/her family to Washington.
O.K., possibly not the absolute dumbest. There was that dust-up over whether now-Senator Rand Paul had, as a college student, kidnapped a female friend and forced her to worship “Aqua Buddha.” Although now that I’m thinking about it, I really did enjoy that one.
Right now in Indiana, Senator Richard Lugar is under fire from a Tea Party opponent who claims that Lugar has not actually lived in the state since he first entered the Senate in 1977.
“This scandal is our chance to replace one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate with a conservative!” said a fund-raising letter for Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer.
Lugar is actually a pretty conservative guy himself, although he is best known for his work on nuclear disarmament, which does not appear to be a Tea Party priority. The head of the right-wing PAC, Club for Growth, called for Lugar’s defeat the other day in a statement that denounced the senator for, among other things, having supported the bailout of New York City in 1978. I call that nursing a grudge.
Most of the publicity about the race, however, centers on the residency issue. Mourdock recently held a press conference at the house where Lugar has his voting address, and it definitely did seem to be occupied by another family.
“The entire state is his home,” retorted Lugar’s campaign manager. I am taking this to be a version of “So what?”
The senator’s ability to vote from a residence he hasn’t actually lived in for decades was, the campaign said, based on the same principle that allows a member of the military to vote from the last place he or she lived before going off to fight for the country. I’m not sure this is a comparison they’d want to press.
The issue of voting addresses is particularly sensitive in Indiana, where the secretary of state, Charlie White, was recently tossed out of office after being convicted of registering to vote at his former wife’s address while he actually lived with his fiancée. White, who once worked as a family law attorney, said his private life was “complicated,” which I’m sure we’re all prepared to believe.
Indiana is clearly a state with a lot of political excitement. Just recently, its State House voted in favor of drug-testing welfare recipients, which would not be all that remarkable except that the members also voted to drug-test themselves. “We had an amendment I thought was even better requiring drug testing for all corporate welfare recipients,” said Representative Ryan Dvorak, a Democrat from South Bend. That one, unfortunately, failed on a party-line vote.
But about the residency issue. These fights have been going on forever. One of the very first political investigations I ever worked on involved whether or not a veteran congressman maintained a voting address that was actually a Burger King outlet in North Haven, Conn.
Rick Santorum’s political career was built on an upset victory against a Democratic House member who, Santorum claimed, had lost touch with his district and moved his family to the Washington suburbs. When Santorum moved his own family to the Washington suburbs, he claimed that promises he made when he was in the House didn’t count for the Senate.
Then he enrolled the kids, who were being home-schooled, in a cyberschool that billed his old school district in Pennsylvania $38,000 a year.
“My dad’s opponents have criticized him for moving us to Washington so we could be with him more,” complained one of Santorum’s kids in an ad in 2006, shortly before he lost by one of the widest margins in the history of re-election campaigns. This was the same race in which Santorum claimed that his Democratic opponent, Robert Casey, was a “thug” who sent operatives to peep through the windows of the house near Pittsburgh where the senator maintained a voting address.
“Your despicable actions have endangered our children’s safety,” Santorum and his wife wrote to Casey. A Philadelphia Daily News columnist noted that the children in question were probably not in peril since they were, you know, in Virginia the whole time.
While serving in Congress is really, truly, not the same as serving in combat, these residency flaps are generally bogus. If we want a Congress that looks at least minimally like the country at large — including women, men with working wives, and parents of young children — we can’t carp if they want to keep their families within commuting distance.
Unless, of course, you are talking about somebody who got elected in the first place by running on the residency issue. Then carp away. Please.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/collins-anywhere-i-hang-my-hat.html [with comments]
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Rick Santorum speaks at awkward GOP dinner
By Kathleen Gray
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
9:50 PM, February 16, 2012
At a Republican dinner in Oakland County, where Mitt Romney grew up, Rick Santorum was the featured speaker, but the reception was a bit awkward.
Santorum had to share the program with Romney’s wife Ann and Gov. Rick Snyder, who officially endorsed Romney’s candidacy earlier today.
Santorum's rival, Mitt Romney, was not there.
Santorum was last on the agenda, after Snyder, Ann Romney and a handful of other speakers.
Snyder welcomed Santorum to Michigan from the stage but the two didn’t get the chance for a private talk before their speeches.
At the 1,000-person dinner, Snyder said he wishes the presidential candidates would stop talking about the federal bailout of the auto industry.
“I don’t view it as a great discussion to have,” Snyder said. “Why spend all that time on that when we have so much unemployment today.”
Santorum didn’t talk about the bailout, but told the crowd that the 2012 election was the most important one in his lifetime.
“This election is about freedom and what kind of country you’re going to leave for the next generation,” he said. “If we don’t repeal Obama care and reject the idea that government creates rights, then we will be the generation that lost faith with the greatness of America.”
He also said that God gives people rights, not the government.
“Once we throw God out of the equation … we ultimately end up at the guillotine,” Santorum said. “What makes America great is faith.”
He asked the crowd to make a difference in the primary and general election and vote for him, someone who “Is at the heart and soul of what America is all about. “You have the opportunity be a game changer in this election,” he added. “I can talk to the American people and remind us who we are.”
Copyright © 2012 www.freep.com
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216066/Rick-Santorum-speaks-at-awkward-GOP-dinner [with comments]
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Santorum drove Audi A6 in 2008, tax returns show
Rick Santorum, Republican presidential candidate, looks on during the Detroit Economic Club luncheon at Cobb Center in Detroit, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. Santorum said he would not have supported the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.
By Todd Spangler
Detroit Free Press Washington Staff
11:17 AM, February 16, 2012
WASHINGTON – Rick Santorum preaches Made in America, but, according to his tax returns, he was driving a German-made luxury car just a few years back.
Santorum, now vying with Mitt Romney for frontrunner status nationwide and leading in the race to win the Feb. 28 Republican presidential primary in Michigan, has made American manufacturing a major theme of his campaign. He has called for tax breaks for U.S. manufacturers and one section of his campaign website is called “Made in America: Empowering American Families, Building Economic Freedom.”
But his 2008 tax return, released along with three other years Wednesday night, showed he was started driving an Audi A6 that year as part of his consulting business, putting nearly 12,000 miles on the car. He claimed $241 in depreciation on his assets that year. The website Politico posted the tax returns Wednesday evening.
The Audi A6, manufactured in Germany, listed for $42,950 in 2008.
During the Iowa caucuses, Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, drew attention as he crossed the state in a 2006 Dodge Ram pickup belonging to a campaign aide and dubbed the “Chuck Truck: for aide Chuck Laudner. As was reported by the website autoguide.com earlier this year, “Whether or not it was intentional, the Dodge Ram has become a symbol for Santorum to prove that he’s hardworking and has spent the time to travel across the state.”
The Santorum campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
The auto industry has been a sore point for Romney as well, as Democrats have hit him for opposing President Barack Obama’s 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Romney has argued that a privately financed managed bankruptcy would have been preferable – even though experts including the head of Obama’s auto task force, Steven Rattner, say there was no private financing available at the time. Without government help, they say, the companies could have slid into bankruptcy.
The Free Press had earlier asked the Romney campaign for information on the former Massachusetts governor’s cars and was told he drives a red 2005 Ford Mustang and his wife Ann a gray 2010 Cadillac SRX. They also have a 2007 Cadillac SRX and a 2001 Chevrolet pickup truck.
Romney acknowledged owning a vehicle other than one built by the Detroit Three – Chrysler, Ford and GM – in the last 10 years following a meeting with the Free Press editorial board, but he did not provide additional details.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another Republican candidate for president, has also released his tax return for 2010 but it did not include any vehicles. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, also in the race, has not released his tax returns.
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Related Links
Santorum: I wouldn't have supported auto rescue or Wall Street bailout
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216015
Conservative Christian group holding Santorum rally Friday in Shelby Township
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216035
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Copyright © 2012 www.freep.com
http://www.freep.com/article/20120216/NEWS15/120216021/Santorum-german-car [with comments]
===
Santorum: Satan is Systematically Destroying America
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 4:12pm
Back in 2008, Rick Santorum traveled to Ave Maria University in Florida [ http://old.avemaria.edu/news/156.html ] to deliver an address to students attending the Catholic university founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan [ http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/pie_in_the_sky.php?page=all ] which he moved from Michigan as part of his effort to build [ http://www.naplesnews.com/news/ave-maria/town-without-vote/ ] his own personal theocracy in Naples.
Santorum told the students [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-hails-ave-maria%E2%80%99s-religious-warriors ( http://peoplefor.tumblr.com/post/49310534/santorum-hails-ave-marias-religious-warriors ; page not found)] at Ave Maria how lucky they were to be living in a time when God's Army is more needed than ever because all of the major institutions in society were under attack by Satan.
The audio of Santorum's remarks is still posted [download mp3 http://www.avemaria.edu/Portals/0/Podcasts/2323.mp3 ; streaming windows media http://www.avemaria.edu/Portals/0/Podcasts/2448.wma (via http://www.avemaria.edu/NewsEvents/Podcasts.aspx )] on the Ave Maria website and the bulk of his speech was dedicated to explaining how God had used him, his political career, and even the death of his son Gabriel [ http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Gabriel-Karen-Garver-Santorum/dp/1568145284 ] in the fight to outlaw abortion in America.
But Santorum began his remarks by explaining to the students in attendance how every institution in America has been destroyed by Satan; from academia to politics with even the church having fallen under His sway - not the Catholic church, of course, but "mainline Protestantism" which is in such "shambles" that it is not even Christian any longer [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4jopm7hYFk (embedded)]:
This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age. There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America's preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.
He didn't have much success in the early days. Our foundation was very strong, in fact, is very strong. But over time, that great, acidic quality of time corrodes even the strongest foundations. And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.
He was successful. He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were, in fact, smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different. Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they're smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.
And you say "what could be the impact of academia falling?" Well, I would have the argument that the other structures that I'm going to talk about here had root of their destruction because of academia. Because what academia does is educate the elites in our society, educates the leaders in our society, particularly at the college level. And they were the first to fall.
And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church.
After that, you start destroying the Church and you start destroying academia, the culture is where their next success was and I need not even go into the state of the popular culture today. Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.
The fourth, and this was harder, now I know you’re going to challenge me on this one, but politics and government was the next to fall. You say, ‘you would think they would be the first to fall, as fallible as we are in politics,’ but people in political life get elected by ordinary folks from lots of places all over the country where the foundations of this country are still strong. So while we may certainly have had examples, the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too.
Copyright 2012 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-satan-systematically-destroying-america
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Santorum: God Is Essential To National Security
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8PSL4InCMA [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/22/326554/santorum-honoring-god-is-essential-to-national-security/ (with comments)]
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Santorum says Obama agenda not "based on Bible"
Feb 18, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/18/us-usa-campaign-santorum-idUSTRE81H0M220120218 [with comments]
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Santorum attacks Obama on prenatal screening
(Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay)
By Rebecca Kaplan
February 18, 2012 4:11 PM
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Campaigning in Ohio on Saturday, Rick Santorum displayed his culture-warrior side in full force, as he harshly attacked President Obama by suggesting the president wanted to see more disabled babies aborted and accusing him of projecting his values - which Santorum claimed were not rooted in the Bible - on the Catholic Church.
Santorum recalled his prominent role in the 1990s debates over the controversial procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion. He lambasted the president's health care law requiring insurance policies to include free prenatal testing, "because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society."
"That, too, is part of Obamacare, another hidden message as to what President Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country," Santorum said.
Prenatal tests are a standard part of modern medical care. The Department of Health and Human Services says such tests "help keep you and your baby healthy during pregnancy. It also involves education and counseling about how to handle different aspects of your pregnancy."
After devoting much of his speech to the health care law, an occasionally testy Santorum found himself the subject of reporters' regarding his socially conservative stances.
Earlier in the day, the former Pennsylvania senator charged that Obama's agenda is "not about you ... It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible." That prompted Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt to call Santorum's comment "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness and searing pessimism and negativity." LaBolt said it was "a stark contrast with the President who is focused every day on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class."
But Santorum doubled down on his attacks, accusing the president of forcing a new moral code on the Catholic church.
"The president has reached a new low in this country's history of oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before," he said. "If he doesn't want to call his imposition of his values a theology, that's fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a church who has very clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is forcing on them."
Asked about the fact that the president is a Christian, Santorum answered: "He says he's a Christian, he's a Christian," and would not elaborate on how to balance competing ideas about contraception within the broader faith. But he was firm in painting the president as promulgating a "new moral code" that he contended was "intolerant" of the church.
Santorum's high-profile role on such issues ensures that questions about his social positions will follow him across the country and through a general election campaign, should he win the nomination. Despite the firestorm they ignite at times - and the fact that it can produce lower poll numbers among women voters - the former Pennsylvania senator said he doesn't intend to let up.
"You ask a lot of questions about the social issues," he accused a reporter who asked if he would speak out on those issues during a general election race. "I'm going to talk about the things that I think are important to this country. I've done so throughout the course of this campaign, and I'll continue to do so."
Copyright © 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57380887-503544/santorum-attacks-obama-on-prenatal-screening/ [with comments]
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Rick Santorum: Prenatal testing encourages abortions (VIDEO)
[from Face the Nation]
02/19/2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rick-santorum-prenatal-testing-encourages-abortions/2012/02/19/gIQAvmZeNR_blog.html [with comments]
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Santorum defends prenatal care attack
Published on Feb 20, 2012 by CNN
Now leading in the polls, Rick Santorum ups his attacks on President Obama and prenatal healthcare. Jim Acosta reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sGc4aIit2k
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Rick Santorum plays hard to conservative base in Ohio
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum attends a tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio.
(Eric Gay, Associated Press / February 18, 2012)
He takes shots at Republican rival Mitt Romney and President Obama, and refers to public schools as 'factories.'
By Mitchell Landsberg and Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2012
Reporting from Columbus, Ohio, and Salt Lake City,— As he bounded from one cheering throng to the next in the battleground state of Ohio, Rick Santorum roused his conservative base Saturday with ideas not often heard in mainstream American politics. His audiences — Christian conservatives, tea party activists and other right-leaning Republicans — loved it.
Speaking to the Ohio Christian Alliance, Santorum went so far as to refer to public schools as "factories" and say that federal or state support for education is an "anachronism."
With polls showing him leading in Ohio, Santorum is trying to lock down support from Republicans who find former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney too moderate and have given up on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Nowhere was that more evident than at Saturday's back-to-back appearances at a tea party gathering and at the Christian Alliance luncheon, both in Columbus.
Speaking to tea party activists, he warned that President Obama was pushing the United States "to the brink of socialism, to the brink of losing our freedom," and he brought the crowd to its feet with an impassioned call to reclaim the country. "Will you join me?" he asked, to roars of assent.
Although Obama was his main target, he also took shots at Romney, mocking him over one of the former governor's proudest achievements.
Romney frequently touts his role in turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City after a bribery scandal threw the planning off track. But Santorum brought up the Olympics to swing back at Romney's assertion that the former Pennsylvania senator was "a big proponent of earmarks" during his days in Congress.
Speaking sarcastically, Santorum said that Romney "heroically bailed out the Salt Lake Olympic Games — by heroically going to Congress and asking them to bail out the Salt Lake Olympic Games. In an earmark!"
A Romney campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, issued a statement responding to Santorum's attack. "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot," she said. "There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post-9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo."
Later, addressing about 600 people at the Christian Alliance, Santorum spoke extensively about the role of faith in American public life and about his opposition to abortion. He also brought up education.
Santorum often speaks about how he and his wife home-school their children. He devotes a chapter to it in his book, "It Takes a Family," acknowledging that he is "something of a salesman for home schooling and for cyber-schooling," but conceding that it is not for everyone.
On Saturday, he went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.
In the nation's past, he said, "Most presidents home-schooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.
"Yes, the government can help, but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic."
(Aside from schools for the children of military personnel, the federal government does not actually operate schools. Most U.S. schools are supported primarily by state or local funding, or a combination of the two.)
Santorum said the public education system was an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, "when people came off the farms where they did home school or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools."
Romney, meanwhile, returned to Utah to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Salt Lake City Olympics.
"These games will always be about the greatness of the people of this great land. They will always hold a place in my heart — and I believe your heart — that will never be erased," Romney told thousands gathered Saturday night at a Stars on Ice celebration of the anniversary, featuring famous skaters such as gold medal winners Sarah Hughes, Jamie Salé and David Pelletier. "I love you. I love the experience we shared together."
He shared a story he often tells on the campaign trail about speed skater Derek Parra, who after winning gold and silver medals told Romney that the most moving experience of the games was carrying into the stadium the torn, burned flag that had flown above the World Trade Center.
Earlier, Romney thanked people who worked on the games' organizing committee at a private reception nearby.
"These were the most inspirational games I have ever seen," he told a few hundred people gathered in a restored historic train station lobby. He called out various teams that worked on providing food, decorating the city, finding entertainment and doing other work that made the games a financial and sporting success.
"There's power in unity," Romney said. "We came together as a group of people, not caring about who got credit but caring about putting on the best games in the history" of the Olympics.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
seema.mehta@latimes.com
Landsberg reported from Columbus and Mehta from Salt Lake City.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-race-20120219,0,2831889.story [with comments]
===
Santorum defends remarks on Obama's faith
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," defends his remarks about President Obama's faith.
(Chris Usher, CBS News / February 19, 2012)
The Republican candidate says the president has 'a worldview that elevates the Earth above man,' mentioning the global warming debate. All the GOP contenders will meet Wednesday in a debate.
By Mitchell Landsberg and Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2012, 10:25 p.m.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum denied Sunday that he had questioned President Obama's Christian faith, but said the president held an environmental belief "that elevates the Earth above man."
Santorum was quoted Saturday as telling an audience in Ohio that although he accepted the president's Christianity, he believed Obama adhered to "some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."
Asked about that statement Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," Santorum framed the issue as a disagreement over global warming and how "radical environmentalists" care for the Earth.
"I accept the fact that the president's a Christian," he said. "I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man, and says that, you know, we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the Earth by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, like for example that politicization of the whole global warming debate, this is just all an attempt to centralize power, to give more power to the government."
He added: "I'm talking about the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth and should have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it."
An Obama campaign advisor told ABC's "This Week" that the Republican candidate went "well over the line" in his comments about the president's theology. Robert Gibbs, a former White House spokesman, said it was time "to get rid of this mind-set in our politics that, if we disagree, we have to question character and faith."
A Santorum rival,Rep. Ron Paulof Texas, also leveled criticism at the former Pennsylvania senator and said he doubted that Santorum could defeat Obama.
"His voting record is ... from my viewpoint, an atrocious voting record — how liberal he's been in all the things he's voted for over the many years he was in the Senate and in the House," Paul said onCNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley.
A third GOP candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, used his Sunday talk show appearance to defend casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife has contributed $11 million to an independent political committee backing Gingrich. Gingrich said Adelson helped his candidacy offset millions of dollars in attack ads from Mitt Romney and his allies.
"Sheldon Adelson is desperately worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon and he is desperately worried about the survival of Israel, and I am the strongest candidate on foreign policy and the strongest candidate on national security," Gingrich told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace.
Last month, Gingrich called on Santorum to drop out of the race so that voters could consolidate behind a Romney alternative. But he rebuffed Wallace's question about whether he should do the same, now that Santorum is leading him in the polls.
"I think you should have played Rick's answer, which I now agree with ... which was no," he told Wallace.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney had no public events Sunday. All four candidates will meet in a debate Wednesday in Arizona.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
melanie.mason@latimes.com
Times staff writer Maeve Reston contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-race-20120220,0,2373129.story [with comments]
===
Santorum uses Hitler analogy to describe Obama
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday likened the upcoming U.S. election to World War II.
While the candidate’s comments to a packed First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia were somewhat vague, NBC news noted [ http://www.kplctv.com/story/16972416/santorums-controversial-comments-meet-criticism ] that he “seemed to compare President [Barack] Obama to [Adolf] Hitler.”
The former Pennsylvania senator told his supporters that this election was like World War II, “where our closest ally, Britain, was being bombed and leveled.”
“And America sat from 1940 when France fell to December of ’41 and did almost nothing,” he explained. “Why? Because we’re a hopeful people. We think, ‘You know it will get better. Yeah, I mean, he’s a nice guy. It won’t be near as bad as what we think. You know, this will be OK. You know, maybe he’s not the best guy.’ After a while, you found out some things about this guy over in Europe and maybe he’s not so good of a guy after all. But you know what? ‘Why do we need to be involved? We’ll just take care of our own problems, just get our families off to work and our kids off to school and we’ll be OK.’”
The candidate added: “Sometimes, sometimes it’s not OK.”
As BuzzFeed pointed out [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/senate-democrats-are-like-hitler-santorum-said ] earlier this year, it’s not the first time Santorum has compared his opponents to Adolf Hitler.
During a 2005 speech on the Senate floor, the then-senator blasted Senate Democrats for complaining that Republicans were trying to stop them from filibustering President George W. Bush’s judicial appointees.
“It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942: ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine,’” he said.
Over the weekend, Santorum also said that Obama’s theology [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/19/santorum-obama-a-christian-but-theology-not-based-on-the-bible/ ] was not “based on the Bible.” He later clarified that he wasn’t questioning if the president was a Christian.
Watch this video from CBS’s This Morning, broadcast Feb. 20, 2012.
[video embedded]
Copyright 2012 The Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/20/santorum-uses-hitler-analogy-to-describe-obama/ [with comments]
===
Santorum Compares Obama To Hitler, Immediately Denies Comparing Obama To Hitler
by Wonkette Jr.
1:19 pm February 20, 2012
The wonderful man we are dearly hoping becomes the GOP nominee for president has now joined the rest of the right-wing Internet in comparing President Barack Obama to Nazi Germany mastermind Adolf Hitler. CBS News reports [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57381329-503544/santorum-denies-comparing-obama-to-hitler/ ]:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum flatly rejected suggestions that he likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler Sunday when he used an analogy comparing the 2012 election to the buildup to World War II.
“No, of course not,” Santorum said dismissively when asked by a National Journal-CBS News reporter whether he was comparing the two. “The World War II metaphor is one I’ve used 100 times in my career,” he insisted.
Once you compare Obama to Hitler a hundred times, it has magically never happened!
©2012 Wonkette Media LLC
http://wonkette.com/464206/santorum-compares-obama-to-hitler-immediately-denies-comparing-obama-to-hitler [with comments]
===
Santorum denies Hitler-Obama comparison
Published on Feb 20, 2012 by CNN
Sen. Rick Santorum says he has not compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsitF8Zsj-A
===
For Santorum voters, he's a candidate like them
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is pictured as he appears on ''Face the Nation'' from a remote location in Sterling, Virginia February 19, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Chris Usher/CBS News/Handout
(Reuters) - Sporting his signature sweater vest and telling stories of his coal miner grandfather, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has struck a chord in the Rust Belt that is helping propel his once long-shot candidacy.
Although he is a millionaire, Santorum has found a common touch that has helped put him atop opinion polls in the industrial states of Michigan and Ohio and raised serious doubts about whether longtime front-runner Mitt Romney can win the Republican nomination to take on President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.
Santorum's portrayal of himself as the blue-collar Republican has managed to overshadow Romney's jobs message in a part of the country troubled by unemployment.
In conversations with nearly a dozen voters preparing to cast ballots for the former Pennsylvania senator in the Ohio and Michigan primaries, not one person volunteered that Santorum was the best candidate to revive American industry.
Instead, voters said they were coming to Santorum's side because his everyman style and Christian faith reminded them of themselves.
"He's basically down-to-earth," said Janice Thomas, 56, of Pickerington, Ohio, who is retired.
"Maybe I think he is more like me," said David Diyani, 58, a pastor at the Vineyard Church in Etna, Ohio. "I feel like I can relate to him."
Santorum's life, though, is far from ordinary.
He spent 12 years in the Senate, known as the "world's most exclusive club," and earned degrees in law and business. He purchased a luxury Audi sedan and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars as a consultant in recent years. Santorum's 2010 salary - $923,000 - placed him squarely within the top 1 percent of income earners in America.
Yet he can still draw a sharp contrast to Romney, a former Massachusetts governor whose fortune is estimated at up to $270 million and who often makes gaffes that show a lack of familiarity with ordinary Americans' struggles.
"I do my own taxes," Santorum said at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. "Heck, Romney paid half the taxes I did. He doesn't do his own taxes. Maybe I should hire an accountant in the future."
Santorum's previous criticism of the government bailout of the auto industry in 2009 might be a problem in Michigan where millions of people rely on the car companies. But Romney was a more vocal opponent of the rescue, leaving his rival's opposition to it largely overlooked.
A Detroit News poll, released last week, showed Santorum leading Romney 34 percent to 30 percent in Michigan, the state where Romney was born and where his father was governor. A Quinnipiac poll had Santorum leading Romney 36 percent to 29 percent in Ohio. Michigan's primary is on February 28 and Ohio votes on March 6.
GINGRICH DEFECTORS
Part of the Santorum surge can be accounted for by disaffected supporters of Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I decided to support him three weeks ago. Before that, I was for Gingrich," said Steve Izev, 34, of Westerville, Ohio. "The more popular he got, the more I liked him."
Santorum's rise in the polls is also fueled by the same phenomenon that successively lifted Texas Governor Rick Perry, former pizza magnate Herman Cain, and Gingrich to the front of the pack: He is not Romney.
In a Pew Research Center poll released last Monday, 50 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents nationwide said Romney was not a strong conservative.
"They are the 'anybody-but-Romney' people. They are the 'un-Romney' people," said Bill Ballenger, editor of the "Inside Michigan Politics" newsletter. "There is no reason in Michigan that they should be for Santorum. They don't really know who he is really."
A political climate featuring renewed debate over religious freedom, contraception and gay rights has benefited the devoutly
Catholic Santorum among evangelical Republicans.
In the Inside Michigan Poll, Michigan voters who said social issues were most important to them chose Santorum over Romney by 64 percent to 19 percent.
Faith is never far from the Santorum campaign. At a phone bank for Santorum in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the Ten Commandments were nailed to the wall. Paintings of Jesus and Mary hung in a back room.
Supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement praise Santorum for his frequent references to the U.S. Constitution. Santorum campaigns with a pocket-sized version that he removes from his coat for emphasis on the campaign trail.
In a MRG/Inside Michigan Poll released on Wednesday, Santorum bettered Romney among Tea Party supporters by 51 percent to 22 percent.
Female voters are the most resistant to Santorum. In Michigan polls, where Santorum leads Romney among a number of groups, the two are neck and neck in support among women.
In recent weeks, Santorum has drawn controversy with comments about working women and women in the military.
On the campaign trail, Santorum stokes voters' outrage that they are underappreciated by people in power.
"You are not being talked to as adults," Santorum told a Tea Party rally in Columbus on Saturday. "You are being treated as mindless, fly-over-country rubes who don't need to know the truth."
"We used to be called the Silent Majority," said Terry McGiffin, 69, a retired management trainer from Westerville, Ohio, describing Santorum's supporters.
Many supporters confess a lack of familiarity with Santorum's policy prescriptions but say they find him to be the Republican field's most likable entrant.
"I don't know a lot about him," said Gary Henson, 32, the owner of a medical supply company in Columbus. "I like his demeanor. I like his personality."
(Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/20/us-usa-campaign-santorum-idUSTRE81H0M220120220 [with comments]
===
10 Outrageous Things Rick Santorum Has Said
Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign stop Sunday at a church in Cumming, Ga., Eric Gay
AP Photos
As Rick Santorum enjoys a surge over Mitt Romney in national polls, The Daily Beast rounds up some of his craziest statements.
by The Daily Beast Feb 20, 2012 10:32 AM EST
There are politicians who make gaffes, and then there’s Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential contender has gained respect from some conservatives [ ] for what they see as a politician sticking to his guns, but others think he’s just a few Knights Templar short of a holy war. From presidential prostrations to medieval aggression, The Daily Beast rounds up Santorum’s kookiest utterances.
1. Canine Lovin’
This one has followed Santorum for nearly a decade. In a 2003 interview with The Associated Press, Santorum argued that if the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws and allowed people to perform homosexual acts in their own homes, thousands of years of civilization would go out the window. Marriage as an institution that exists only between a man and a woman must be upheld, he said. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality,” Santorum said [ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm ]. “That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”
2. America’s Trojan Horse
In a freewheeling interview [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690&feature=player_embedded#! ] with conservative blog CaffeinatedThoughts.com last October, Candidate Rick spent a good deal of time rhapsodizing about what President Rick would do about contraception and sexual ethics. “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” Santorum said. “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK; contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
3. Penny for His Thoughts
At a January campaign stop in Iowa, Santorum took on entitlement reform. He took criticism for his remarks [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57350990-503544/santorum-targets-blacks-in-entitlement-reform/ ] when he told a monochromatic Iowa audience, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn money.”
4. Face Plant
In an appearance on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show in March 2010, Santorum was asked [ http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=5082461 ] whether President Obama should delay a trip abroad or stay in Washington and hash out a resolution to the debate over health-care reform. Brushing aside the health-care issue, Santorum said, “I think the Democrats are actually worried he [Obama] may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.”
5. Kissing Kin
Returning to the topic of the Supreme Court and sodomy laws, Santorum wrote in a 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer column that “the latest distressing news came last week in California. The state Supreme Court there ruled, 4-3, that same-sex couples can marry.” Santorum went on to say, “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?”
6. Turf Wars
At another Iowa campaign stop in November, Santorum engaged an earnest young voter [ http://blogs.reuters.com/political-theater/2011/11/22/rick-santorum-claims-everyone-who-lives-in-the-west-bank-is-israeli/ ] on the issue of Israeli control of the West Bank. “If they want to negotiate with Israelis, and all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians. There is no ‘Palestinian,’” Santorum said. “This is Israeli land.”
The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rick-santorums-claim-that-no-palestinian-lives-on-the-west-bank/2012/01/04/gIQAcxsIbP_blog.html ] noted that the comment was reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”
7. Materfamilias
Blame it on mom. It’s hapless single mothers who necessitate the welfare state, Santorum said in a radio interview [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/rick-santorum-single-mothers_n_1017859.html ] in October 2011. And the Republican solution is to get more people hitched, stat. “Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: it is single mothers who run a household,” Santorum said. “Why? Because it’s so tough economically that they look to the government for help, and therefore they’re going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two-parent families, you eliminate that desire for government.”
8. Francophile? Non.
In Santorum’s mind, the relationship between France and America isn’t a long and glorious one going back to the Marquis de Lafayette and further. Nope. We landed at Normandy, and now they owe us. In another Philadelphia Inquirer column in 2009, Santorum wrote: “Watching President Obama apologize last week for America’s arrogance—before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans—helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions.”
9. Choosing His Battles
In a February 2004 article in The Morning Call, an Allentown, Pa., newspaper, Santorum (cited in the article as “the Senate’s No. 3 GOP leader”) said gay marriage “is an issue just like 9/11. We didn’t decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?”
10. Deus Vult
Liberals have been fiddling with medieval history [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50054.html ], Santorum alleged at an appearance in Spartanburg, S.C., in February 2011. “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical,” Santorum said. “And that is what the perception is by the American left, who hates Christendom.”
Accessibiliity © 2012 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/20/10-outrageous-things-rick-santorum-has-said.html [with comments]
===
Rick Santorum’s 12 Most Offensive Statements
By Igor Volsky on Jun 6, 2011 at 9:10 am
This morning, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “We are ready to announce that we are going to be in this race and we’re in it to win.” But Santorum — who is possibly most famous for his “Google problem” — may have an uphill climb to the nomination. He currently polls in the single digits in the early primary states and has a long history of making offensive statements about gay people, African Americans, women, and Muslims. Below is a short recap of his record:
GAYS:
1. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be….If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.” [4/2003] [ http://articles.cnn.com/2003-04-23/politics/santorum.gays_1_santorum-traditional-heterosexual-relationships-homosexuality?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS ]
2. “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?” [5/22/2008] [ http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/22/santorum-gay/ ]
3. On repeal of DADT: “I’m worried when many people will stand up and say, ‘well whatever the Generals want.’ I’m not too sure that we haven’t indoctrinated the Officer Corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decisions.” [2/20/2010] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201002200008 ]
4. On gay adoption: “A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.” [5/3/2011] [ http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/05/03/177387/santorum-adoption-gay/ ]
5. On teaching history of gay Americans: “I certainly would not approve of [a bill moving through the California legislature compels the state to add gay history to the state education curriculum], but there’s a logical consequence to the courts injecting themselves in creating rights and people attaching their legislative ideas to those rights that in some respects could logically flow from that. So I’m not surprised.” [5/10/2011] [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/10/164976/santorum-gay-history/ ]
RACE:
6. “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people’.” [1/19/2011] [ http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/19/santorum-fetus/ ]
7. “Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American women and is not desirable among African-American males….I think [Obama] has to realize that flying to New York is…self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot, and a beer.” [6/2/2009] [ http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/02/santorum-obama-dating/ ]
WOMEN:
8. “In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to….The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness“. ['It Takes A Family,' 7/6/2005] [ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05187/533421.stm ]
ISLAM:
9. Santorum responded to the Pentagon’s decision rescind its invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at the upcoming National Day over his statement that Islam is “evil” by saying that Graham’s comment was “a reasonable statement at the time.” [3/23/2010] [ http://thinkprogress.org/default/2010/04/23/93454/santorum-graham-islam/ ]
10. “I think the Democrats are actually worried [Obama] may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.” [3/23/2010] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201004230034 ]
11. “The creeping Sharia throughout Europe and here in this country and in Canada. The Islamization of Europe that is already on the way and will visit these shores not too soon is a concern for us and something that we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being“. [2/28/2009] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200902280001 ]
12. “Now we have the Attorney General confirming to Osama bin Laden just bide your time and the effeminate and pampered Americans will cower away.” [2/28/2009] [ http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200902280001 ]
© 2011 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/06/237112/rick-santorums-top-12-most-offensive-statements/ [with comments]
===
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