STEUBENVILLE, Ohio - Portraying himself as a native son of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum Monday emphasized his heritage as the grandson of a coal miner and railed against environmental regulations that have diminished the coal industry in the region.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we need someone who understands, who comes from the coal fields, who comes from the steel mills, who understands what average working people in America need to be able to provide for themselves and their families," Santorum said to a crowd of about 500 people in the Democratic-leaning eastern edge of the state.
Santorum's claim to have come "from the coal fields" is a stretch - by two generations. He has never worked in a coal mine. His parents' professions were psychologist and nurse, and Santorum is a lawyer who has spent all of his adult life in politics.
But he frequently invokes his grandfather, who worked in the auto factories of Detroit and then the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania after he immigrated to the United States from Italy.
In his remarks Monday, Santorum went beyond his usual discussion of the importance of increasing domestic energy production to deliver a blistering attack on environmental activists. He said global warming claims are based on "phony studies," and that climate change science is little more than "political science."
His views are not "anti-science" as Democrats claim, Santorum said. "When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment," he said to applause, and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining.
Santorum also discussed religious faith and the importance of family at length, a popular topic for him in many of the Midwestern states he has visited recently. He accused President Obama of degrading the institution of marriage with provisions in his health care law.
"You realize that if you're married under Obamacare, you pay a lot more than if you're living together under Obamacare. A lot more. Thousands of dollars more, for the average American family who pay if you're married," he said. "If you divorced and live together, Obamacare gives you a break and they do this on other areas of the government. That's what the marriage penalty was all about, for years."
By Erik Wasson - 02/21/12 12:07 PM ET .. [my emphasis below] ..
President Obama's campaign on Tuesday said GOP rival Rick Santorum would have to essentially shut down the government or slash retiree benefits to match the president on deficit reduction.
It was part of the campaign's new attack strategy on Santorum and Mitt Romney, where they argue that, despite claiming to be budget hawks, the GOP presidential candidates favor tax cuts and new defense spending that would add trillions to the deficit over the next 10 years.
The attacks follow a week in which the White House played defense over its new 2013 budget, which the GOP says uses gimmicks and massive tax increases to claim $4 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years.
Campaign economist Jeffrey Liebman told reporters on a conference call Tuesday that Romney would add nearly $2 trillion to the government's deficits over 10 years and Santorum would add nearly twice that.
"To match the president on deficit reduction, Santorum would have to eliminate all defense and non-defense discretionary spending," Liebman said. Non-defense discretionary spending includes government "overhead" — salaries, office space, etc. Without it, the government would essentially shut down.
Lieberman said the only way to avoid that would be for Santorum to make deep cuts to retirement benefits for current seniors.
Santorum has vowed to cut spending by $5 trillion over five years, but these cuts do not make up for the tax cuts he proposes, according to the Obama campaign.
“Santorum is definitely operating in fantasyland,” said Liebman, a former deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget. “By far, these are the most unrealistic budget plans I have ever seen.”
The White House claims that by 2016 the president's budget will reduce the deficit to 3.4 percent of gross domestic product.
In that year, Romney's budget plan would lead to a deficit of 6 percent of GDP, Obama's campaign claims, and Santorum’s tax plan — without any spending cuts — would bring the deficit to 10 percent of GDP. To match Obama's 3.4 percent and have his tax cuts, Santorum would have to make "unrealistic" government-shuttering cuts, the campaign said.
The Romney campaign said Tuesday that Obama has no credibility to attack others on the deficit.
"President Obama is in no position to criticize Mitt Romney's proposals to cut taxes and restore fiscal responsibility. After all, this is the President who just proposed the largest tax increase in American history and has given us four straight trillion-dollar budget deficits,” spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.
“Middle-income Americans have been crushed by the Obama economy and millions of American workers have just given up looking for work. This was the president who told us that if he didn't fix the economy in three years, he'd be looking at a one term proposition. It's time to collect,” she added.
The Santorum campaign did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Republicans say that Obama’s $4 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years are an illusion.
That Obama reduction comes in part from including $800 billion in savings from the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, by counting $1 trillion in cuts already in law and by having $1.5 trillion in new taxes. The official Congressional Budget Office analysis of Obama's budget has yet to be released.
Santorum Is Dangerous .. [original emphasis, all below is mine] ..
Aug 12, 2009 7:05 PM EDT
In the sixth in a series of posts on the 2012 landscape, former Bush and McCain strategist Mark McKinnon says that despite former Senator Rick Santorum’s actions and extreme ideology, he and his foray into Iowa should be taken seriously.
Scott J. Ferrell, Congressional Quarterly / Getty Images
A Rick Santorum presidency would be very, very dangerous for America.
Unfortunately, he’s thinking about it. No matter what they say, assume that any politician who steps inside the borders of Iowa or New Hampshire has got the presidential itch. And Santorum just announced a series of Iowa visits to scratch himself before conservative activists.
Santorum represents, in my view, much of what is wrong the in the Republican Party. While I disagree with him on some fundamental issues, I am much more concerned with his lack of character.
Santorum is a strong neoconservative who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives and the Senate over a 16-year period and rose to the No. 3 leadership position among Republicans.
Santorum once grouped gay sex with incest, polygamy, and bestiality, and he believes consenting adults have no constitutional right to privacy when it comes to sexual behavior. He is a strong supporter of teaching intelligent design. He is anti-gay, anti-immigrant—supporting the most extreme anti-immigrant legislative proposals though he is the son of an Italian immigrant father—antiabortion, and anti-anything that smacks of progressive thinking, centrism, bipartisanship, or moderation in the Republican Party.
Santorum was one of only two senators who voted against Robert Gates to be secretary of Defense because Gates advocated talking to Iran and Syria, which Santorum said would be talking to “radical Islam” and would be a grievous error.
Santorum represents, in my view, much of what is wrong the in the Republican Party. While I disagree with him on some fundamental issues, I am much more concerned with his lack of character.
Here’s why.
Early in 2008, Santorum claimed a John McCain presidency would be “very, very dangerous for Republicans.” OK, he was entitled to support the candidate of his choice, but launching vicious frontal attacks on McCain that continued well after he received the nomination did nothing but hurt the GOP and its chances.
But that’s not the worst of it.
A friend of mine ran into Santorum at a conservative think tank event in Washington, DC, in January 2008 and asked him why he had been bashing McCain on Sean Hannity’s show. He replied he thought McCain would be a terrible president and that he would rather have Hillary Clinton as commander in chief.
Wait, there’s more.
Recalling that Santorum had once featured McCain at one of his fundraisers, my friend asked him how he squared his conscience if he thought McCain was so dangerous. His response?
“Because I wanted to win.”
Nice, huh? Win at all costs. Even if it means inviting a guy you think is “dangerous” to help you raise money for your race and then turn around and thank him by attacking him publicly when he needs your help. Or at least needs you to shut up.
Santorum’s view of conservatism departs from the libertarian tradition of Republican icons like Ronald Reagan.
Here’s Reagan in 1975:
“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism...The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”
And here’s Santorum in 2005:
“One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right...This whole idea of personal autonomy, well, I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.”
I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but beyond his ideology, some of Santorum’s behavior is just a little bizarre. For example, Santorum has six children. In 1996, he had son born prematurely who lived for only two hours. He and wife brought the child home and introduced the dead infant to the rest of their children as “your brother Gabriel” and slept with the body overnight.
Despite his actions and extreme ideology, and the fact that he was defeated in his bid for re-election by the widest margin of any incumbent senator since 1980, Rick Santorum should be taken seriously. He is articulate, focused, and a tenacious campaigner. And ideological conservatives love him. His base will be narrow but passionate. They will mobilize and they will vote. Especially in early primary states like Iowa and South Carolina.
And that means there’s one word that should come to mind when thinking about a Rick Santorum presidential candidacy: dangerous.
(So, it is with great reluctance that we add Santorum to our Top 10 list of likely GOP presidential contenders. The list isn’t what we want to happen, it’s just what we think might happen.)
1. Mitt Romney 2. Tim Pawlenty 3. John Thune 4. Mike Huckabee 5. Sarah Palin 6. Newt Gingrich 7. Haley Barbour 8. Rick Santorum 9. Bobby Jindal 10. Mitch Daniels (Long shot: Eric Cantor)
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, causes, and individuals, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono.
Santorum: Obama is ill-intentioned power grabber who undermines churches, promotes false fears
By Associated Press, Published: February 21, 2012
PHOENIX — A surging Rick Santorum is making increasingly harsh remarks about President Barack Obama, questioning not just the president’s competence but his motives and even his Christian values.
Mitt Romney also is sharpening his anti-Obama rhetoric. He said Tuesday the president governs with “a secular agenda” that hurts religious freedom. In general, however, the former Massachusetts governor has not seriously challenged Obama’s motives, often saying the president is decent but inept.
But Santorum and Newt Gingrich have heightened their claims that Obama’s intentions are not always benign, ahead of Wednesday’s televised GOP presidential debate and next week’s primaries in Michigan and Arizona.
Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who suddenly is threatening Romney in his native state of Michigan, says Obama cares only about power, not the “interests of people.” He says “Obamacare,” the health care overhaul Obama enacted, includes a “hidden message” about the president’s disregard for impaired fetuses, which might be aborted.
Santorum even seemed to compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, although he denies trying to do so.
Santorum’s remarks have gotten only scattered attention because he weaves them into long, sometimes rambling speeches. Romney’s team is monitoring Santorum’s comments, privately suggesting they could hurt him in a general election.
But it’s difficult for Romney to openly criticize Santorum on these points because Romney already has trouble appealing to the party’s socially conservative base. Santorum’s remarks could come up in Wednesday’s debate in Mesa, Ariz., sponsored by CNN.
Gingrich, campaigning Monday in Oklahoma, called Obama “the most dangerous president in modern American history.” Gingrich said the administration’s “willful dishonesty” about alleged terrorists’ motives threatens the country.
Gingrich has long been known for over-the-top rhetoric, and Santorum’s rapid rise in the polls has drawn much of the campaign’s focus away from the former House speaker.
Some of Santorum’s remarks echo attacks on Obama during the 2008 presidential race, when critics portrayed him as a mysterious politician with hidden motives and questionable allegiance to the United States. More recent examples include:
—Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, Santorum criticized Obama for requiring health insurance plans to cover prenatal testing. He said such tests lead to “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.”
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said “prenatal screenings are essential to promote the health of both the mother and baby and to ensure safe deliveries.”
—On Monday in Steubenville, Ohio, Santorum said Obama “talks about how he’s going to help manufacturing, after he systematically destroyed it. You pick any area. Financial services. One after another, where he has this ideology of government-centralized control. Not worried about the interests of people. He’s worried about the interest of power so he can dictate to people what he believes is best.”
Independent analysts say U.S. manufacturing was in steep decline before Obama took office in 2009. Many economists credit Obama’s stimulus packages with keeping the job losses from being considerably worse.
—At the same Ohio event, Santorum said Obama and his fellow Democrats have raised unfounded fears about hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which pressurized fluids are pumped into the ground to extract natural gas. Santorum said Obama wants to unfairly regulate fracking “as if this is some new technology out there that we don’t know anything about, and we have to be worried about.” Santorum said the administration tells Americans, “Ooh, we’ve got to be scared, we’ve got to be scared of this technology that’s producing the cheapest natural gas and oil....Why? So we can get your dollars, turn it to politicians who can win elections so they can control your lives.”
—Also in Steubenville, Santorum said Obama encourages a trend in which the church, religious-affiliated colleges and civic institutions grow weaker while government grows stronger.
“We all know that one of the ways that government has been able to accumulate power is to do so by weakening the institutions that people rely upon,” he said. “When they can rely upon them, these stable, mediating institutions in our culture, they don’t need government.”
“That’s why it’s not surprising to see the president’s assault on, first, charities,” Santorum said. “You recall one of his first tax proposals was to limit charitable deductions — charitable deductions to those mediating institutions,” which include colleges, churches and civic organizations.
—Speaking Sunday at First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Ga., Santorum said people who shrug off troubling signs about Obama are like those Americans who ignored the growing fascist menace in Europe before World War II. “Your country needs you. It’s not as clear a challenge,” Santorum said. “Obviously, World War II was pretty obvious. At some point, they knew. But remember, the Greatest Generation, for a year and a half, sat on the sidelines while Europe was under darkness, where our closest ally, Britain, was being bombed and leveled, while Japan was spreading its cancer all throughout Southeast Asia. America sat from 1940, when France fell, to December of ‘41, and did almost nothing.
“Why? Because we’re a hopeful people. We think, ‘Well, you know, he’ll get better. You know, he’s a nice guy. I mean, it won’t be near as bad as what we think. This will be OK.’ Oh yeah, maybe he’s not the best guy, and after a while, you found out things about this guy over in Europe, and he’s not so good of a guy after all.”
Asked by a reporter Monday if he was comparing Obama to Hitler, Santorum said “No, of course not.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney declined Tuesday to get drawn into a point-by-point rebuttal of Santorum’s comments. He said Obama “is focused on his job as president, getting this country moving in the right direction, ensuring that the recovery, which is under way, continues forward.”
Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt in Michigan and Ben Feller in Washington contributed to this report.
'You know… I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil,' Rick Santorum said. AP Photo
By JUANA SUMMERS | 2/21/12 11:02 PM EST
PHOENIX — Rick Santorum said Tuesday that he will “defend everything I’m saying” as 2008 comments he made about Satan having his “sights on” the United States drew renewed fire.
Santorum told roughly 200 supporters at a rally here that when candidates veer from “very structured, very ordered events,” voters believe they have to “worry about everything he says.”
“No, you don’t, because I’ll defend everything I’ll say,” Santorum told the applauding crowd, pledging to “tell you the truth about what’s going on in this country.”
Santorum didn’t specifically mention the four-year-old speech from Ave Maria University in Florida, from which the Satan comments came, or a number of other statements on the campaign trail that have raised eyebrows in recent days, including remarks that some say called into question President Barack Obama’s Christian faith. Questions have also arisen over comments Santorum made that appeared to compare the Obama presidency to the rise of Nazism before World War II and remarks about prenatal testing.
Asked about the Ave Maria speech by reporters following the Phoenix rally, Santorum called the question “a joke” and “absurd.”
“You know … I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil. I think if somehow or another because you’re a person of faith you believe in good and evil is a disqualifier for president, we’re going to have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president,” Santorum said.
Santorum said questioning whether he believed Satan was attacking America was “not relevant.”
“Look, guys, these are questions that are not relevant to what’s — what’s being discussed in America today. What we’re talking about in America today is trying to get America growing. That’s what my speeches are about, that’s what we’re going to talk about in this campaign,” Santorum said.
“If they want to dig up old speeches of talking to [a] religious group, they can go ahead and do so, but I’m going to stay on message and I’m going to talk about things that Americans want to talk about, which is creating jobs, making our country more secure, and yeah, taking on the forces around his world who want to do harm to America, and you bet I will take them on.”
While Santorum’s past remarks are facing renewed scrutiny now, they aren’t atypical for him. The former Pennsylvania senator often paints a portrait of an America in peril, led by a president who does not believe in American exceptionalism and greatness.
The Satan remarks re-emerged Tuesday on the political landscape thanks to a banner headline on the Drudge Report, with quotes from the 2008 speech but no link to a news article. The headline was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of Santorum at a pulpit with a cross on it.
In Phoenix, Santorum stuck to his traditional stump speech — embracing the values of “small-town America” and promoting the rebirth of U.S. manufacturing — but he seemed miffed about the reaction to the use of terms like good and evil from his 2008 speech.
“Ronald Reagan did it. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire and the media went wild,” he said. “How dare you, how dare you ascribe terms like good and evil to regimes? Because Ronald Reagan told the truth, he didn’t sugarcoat it. He went out and called it the way it was. He went out and promoted the values of our country.”
“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’s been the case for now almost 200 years, once America’s pre-eminence 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 away 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…
Let’s think back to what America was like almost 200 years ago. Slavery was legal, indeed enshrined in our Constitution by our Founding Fathers. The federal government was forcibly removing American Indians from their lands, leading to thousands of deaths. Women couldn’t vote and were limited in their rights to own property. And yet, Santorum sees Satan wielding more influence and having more success in America today than he did then.
The issue is not that Santorum favors slavery or Indian removal—if prompted, I’m sure he would agree strongly that these were great evils. But how does somebody look at the history of American society and see a country that was more Godly under Andrew Jackson than it is today? The answer is by focusing only on the rights and treatment of white, Christian men. When some conservatives and libertarians make paeans to a lost period of American greatness, they are treating the perspectives of women and minorities as if they don’t exist, or don’t count.
Two years ago, David Boaz wrote a great piece for Reason called “Up from Slavery [ http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/06/up-from-slavery/singlepage ].” You should read the whole thing, but the subhead is a good summary: “There’s no such thing as a golden age of lost liberty.” Of course, Boaz is a libertarian and Santorum is not, but the distinction shouldn’t matter here: both Boaz and Santorum subscribe to value systems that should treat slavery and Indian removal as two of the greatest injustices in American history.
By contending that America has fallen from grace relative to 200 years ago, Santorum shows a major blind spot for injustices committed against out-groups. That, not his take on mainline Protestants, is the really troubling component of his remarks at Ave Maria.
Copyright 2012 Forbes.com LLC™ (emphasis in original)
In 2008, Rick Santorum gave a talk .. http://mrctv.org/audio/santorum-2008-satan-systematically-destroying-america .. at Ave Maria University about Satan’s efforts to undermine America. A lot of attention has focused on Santorum’s comments on mainline Protestant churches—but that’s not the really notable part of this speech. Here’s how Santorum opened his discussion of Satan in America (emphasis mine):
"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’s been the case for now almost 200 years, once America’s pre-eminence 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 away 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…"
Let’s think back to what America was like almost 200 years ago. Slavery was legal, indeed enshrined in our Constitution by our Founding Fathers. The federal government was forcibly removing American Indians from their lands, leading to thousands of deaths. Women couldn’t vote and were limited in their rights to own property. And yet, Santorum sees Satan wielding more influence and having more success in America today than he did then.
The issue is not that Santorum favors slavery or Indian removal—if prompted, I’m sure he would agree strongly that these were great evils. But how does somebody look at the history of American society and see a country that was more Godly under Andrew Jackson than it is today? The answer is by focusing only on the rights and treatment of white, Christian men. When some conservatives and libertarians make paeans to a lost period of American greatness, they are treating the perspectives of women and minorities as if they don’t exist, or don’t count.
Two years ago, David Boaz wrote a great piece for Reason called “Up from Slavery.” .. http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/06/up-from-slavery/singlepage .. You should read the whole thing, but the subhead is a good summary: “There’s no such thing as a golden age of lost liberty.” Of course, Boaz is a libertarian and Santorum is not, but the distinction shouldn’t matter here: both Boaz and Santorum subscribe to value systems that should treat slavery and Indian removal as two of the greatest injustices in American history.
By contending that America has fallen from grace relative to 200 years ago, Santorum shows major blind spot for injustices committed against out-groups. That, not his take on mainline Protestants, is the really troubling component of his remarks at Ave Maria.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
