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Joan Walsh EVISCERATES "Surging Rick" and his other GOP superstar pals
Rick Santorum’s best week ever
The new darling of the Iowa GOP is perfect for the state's Christian right, but not for a national campaign
By Joan Walsh
The only real shock in Rick Santorum’s late Iowa surge is that it didn’t happen sooner. He’s the perfect candidate for Iowa Christian conservatives, even if it took them a long time to see it. First they flirted with gaffe-prone religious zealot Michele Bachmann, who confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy and insisted the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation. Then came a brief dalliance with the bumbling right-wing panderer Rick Perry, whose terrible campaign, given the high expectations and deep pockets of his wealthy supporters, has been 2012′s biggest surprise. They drifted for a while to womanizing huckster Herman Cain, a candidate so unserious about his right-wing credentials that he claimed to be anti-abortion while insisting the decision had to be a woman’s “choice.” Just before Santorum, Iowa’s Christian conservatives embraced the flip-flopping serial adulterer Newt Gingrich, until they remembered who he was.
It had to irk Santorum, watching Iowa Christian conservatives date most of his rivals before settling down with him. By contrast with most of the GOP field, Santorum is the real deal, a dull, home-schooling culture-warrior who likes to brag about fathering seven kids, as though morality can be measured in offspring. He staked his entire campaign on Iowa, setting up shop there, convinced that his unapologetic Christian political pitch is perfect for the state. He’s this year’s Mike Huckabee, the 2008 Iowa winner, albeit without the sense of humor or guitar. But whether Santorum finishes second, third or even first on Tuesday, he’s already had his best week ever. This campaign can’t go national.
Pennsylvania’s former senator has been out of politics for six years, since he was trounced by Bob Casey in 2006. Since then he’s lived off wingnut welfare, the gravy train funded by right wing corporate philanthropists to make sure defeated GOP politicians never go hungry. He’s had a perch as a “senior fellow” at the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center, funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers, among others. Until now, reporters have barely bothered to cover Santorum’s events, since he’s spent most of the year in the single digits in the polls. But now that he’s in Iowa’s top tier, he’s getting more attention, and it’s not going to help him become a national candidate.
Today in Iowa, the man who’s lived on wingnut welfare promised to eradicate our already miserly government welfare programs, with a peculiar racial twist. After a spiel about the growth of Medicaid, he dropped a bizarre non-sequitur: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money,” he told a crowd. “I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families,” he added. “The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/02/rick_santorums_best_week_ever/
The new darling of the Iowa GOP is perfect for the state's Christian right, but not for a national campaign
By Joan Walsh
The only real shock in Rick Santorum’s late Iowa surge is that it didn’t happen sooner. He’s the perfect candidate for Iowa Christian conservatives, even if it took them a long time to see it. First they flirted with gaffe-prone religious zealot Michele Bachmann, who confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy and insisted the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation. Then came a brief dalliance with the bumbling right-wing panderer Rick Perry, whose terrible campaign, given the high expectations and deep pockets of his wealthy supporters, has been 2012′s biggest surprise. They drifted for a while to womanizing huckster Herman Cain, a candidate so unserious about his right-wing credentials that he claimed to be anti-abortion while insisting the decision had to be a woman’s “choice.” Just before Santorum, Iowa’s Christian conservatives embraced the flip-flopping serial adulterer Newt Gingrich, until they remembered who he was.
It had to irk Santorum, watching Iowa Christian conservatives date most of his rivals before settling down with him. By contrast with most of the GOP field, Santorum is the real deal, a dull, home-schooling culture-warrior who likes to brag about fathering seven kids, as though morality can be measured in offspring. He staked his entire campaign on Iowa, setting up shop there, convinced that his unapologetic Christian political pitch is perfect for the state. He’s this year’s Mike Huckabee, the 2008 Iowa winner, albeit without the sense of humor or guitar. But whether Santorum finishes second, third or even first on Tuesday, he’s already had his best week ever. This campaign can’t go national.
Pennsylvania’s former senator has been out of politics for six years, since he was trounced by Bob Casey in 2006. Since then he’s lived off wingnut welfare, the gravy train funded by right wing corporate philanthropists to make sure defeated GOP politicians never go hungry. He’s had a perch as a “senior fellow” at the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center, funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers, among others. Until now, reporters have barely bothered to cover Santorum’s events, since he’s spent most of the year in the single digits in the polls. But now that he’s in Iowa’s top tier, he’s getting more attention, and it’s not going to help him become a national candidate.
Today in Iowa, the man who’s lived on wingnut welfare promised to eradicate our already miserly government welfare programs, with a peculiar racial twist. After a spiel about the growth of Medicaid, he dropped a bizarre non-sequitur: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money,” he told a crowd. “I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families,” he added. “The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/02/rick_santorums_best_week_ever/
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