Posted on 03/29/2005 6:40:35 AM PST by Conservative Goddess
Some very smart people believe that U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is poised to become ex- Senator Santorum, a casualty of his scheduled re-election contest next year with State Treasurer Bob Casey.
....
In fact, a close look at the record suggests that his confrontational style and conservative rhetoric conceals more than it reveals. Too much attention has been spent on Santorum the cultural ideologue and not enough on his pragmatism and political opportunism; inside this raging bull of a conservative is a pragmatist for whom getting re-elected always trumps ideology, which may not make him any different than other politicians.
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The independent and much respected National Journal’s rating system cited here is probably the most highly regarded measure of its kind. What its analysis reveals is that Pennsylvania’s junior senator consistently shifts toward the center in those years just before his reelection. Santorum may continue to talk like a conservative, but he’s voting like a pragmatist. Last year, for example, according to the Journal, Santorum was actually narrowly left of the Republican center, with his votes placing him closer to Arlen Specter than to his more conservative colleagues.
Last year was not the only year he moved left. He did the same in the run up to his 2000 re-election. The year before the election, he supported a decidedly un-conservative sales tax hike in 11 western Pennsylvania counties to build new sport stadiums in Pittsburgh, campaigned for pro choice Christy Todd Whitman, and supported increasing the minimum wage. In 2000, he supported federal funding for several Pennsylvania projects, including money for aquatic habitat. He also fought to save the health care benefits of 560, 000 Pennsylvanians who participated in the Medicare+Choice program. Most revealing of all, he backed off his commitment for the 1997-balanced budget act.
Similarly, this election cycle, Santorum is showing renewed interest in transportation and other Pennsylvania pork barrel appropriations. Indeed, he has now become a key player in bringing the bacon back home. He has also held high profile press conferences with John Kerry promoting a measure that would accommodate workers’ religious practices and with Hillary Clinton for money to study the effects of TV viewing, Internet and other media on children. And he is now rethinking his position in favor of capital punishment.
Santorum even now supports Clinton’s Americorps program that he once ridiculed as a colossal waste of taxpayer’s money for kids to sit around campfires singing kum ba yah.
His conservative talk and moderate walk were on display recently in key congressional budget votes. Initially, the “conservative” Santorum voted against a variety of Senate initiatives to restore budget cuts by the House--from Medicaid to Homeland Security grants, to education, and even Amtrak funding. But then on cue, the “moderate” Santorum, voted with the majority, 51 to 49, on final passage to restore the cuts to education, Medicaid, and the other domestic programs he had previously not supported.
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But this focus on Santorum’s high profile rhetoric has been myopic, causing his adversaries to miss much that is important. In particular, insufficient attention has been paid to Santorum’s unflagging work at his party’s grass roots; how he’s established comprehensive constituency services; how he’s worked tirelessly for Republicans--ask Arlen Specter about this--and how he has joined Specter in the Pennsylvania pork brigade. And far too little notice has been given to how he has blended his conservative zealotry with political pragmatism.
Maybe Democrats will learn the lesson taught here. Maybe they will learn not to underestimate Santorum. Maybe they will learn to watch what he does more closely than what he says. Maybe they will learn to take him less seriously as an ideologue and more seriously as a politician. And maybe they will finally defeat him next year. Maybe!
Your arguments are getting pretty weak when you start picking on spelling. No, she's not a brit.
I think that you are an idiot.
You refuse to do anything but attack CG.
Read the article. Dispute the facts in the article.
You silly name calling is quite ignorant and childish.
Try to formulate an intelligent objection rather than a personal attack. From what I can see, your 'born on' date didn't imbue you with anything special so you shouldn't judge someone by their newness. We were all new at one time.
Looks like you didn't get your share.
What about the votes in the posted article?
What about the relative position to his fellow R's?
If I took the time, I could probably find selected votes to make Ted Kennedy look right on the issues.
Why do you want to ignore these votes? Why is the ACU the only ones to be considered?
Show me the post where I called Santorum a RINO.
I said that his votes are not what you'd expect of the man known as a strong conservative.
Do you not see and understand the difference?
Why are you comfortable with that difference?
Why do you want to ignore the truth?
I know that you will not discuss the article. You and your ilk prefer to just attack the poster. That's okay too. It quite instructive to anyone reading the thread.
Hillary is a socialist. Socialists lie.
Why do you believe Santorum's electioneering and posturing is more indicative of his true self than his solid, over-time conservative ACU record?
Because of Ricky's recent action -- betraying the causes he believes in to advance himself -- all of his words and deeds are getting scrutiny. And it's been discovered that his votes ARE matching his centrist/moderate/leftish words.
Do you not find any of his votes disconcerting? Why?
Asked and answered several times with explanations.
Try this . . .
Read the article. Read the thread. That way you'll catch up to what's going on.
"You have to think large."
SD,
You are putting what's good for Santorum ahead of what's right and what's good for the country. They are NOT the same thing.
You act as though the only way to get money is thru the party. If Santorum had backed principle, not only would he have had the undying support of his constituents, he would have had an ally in the Senate with Toomey. It would have also taught a very valuable lesson that loyalty to principle works on a lot of levels.
What you are seeing now is that betrayal is costly. Because not only is Rick not likely to rise higher within the party anyway, he will have a hard time retaining his seat, if he does. He made a serious political miscalculation and he is either too arrogant or too stupid to realize it and correct it.
Can't answer a direct question, huh?
Figures.
Ahah! And therein lies the rub. We may not be big enough to win, but we are too big to ignore if he wants to win. IOW, he can't win without us even if he throws out all of his purported values and panders shamelessly.
Yep, that's the problem. We can agree on that. I say that you take the hit early and replace him in the primary. You seem to think that it is better to let him continue to do damage.
Do you buy an ice cream cone for your child when he misbehaves? No, because you don't want to reward the bad behavior and because you don't want his siblings to learn the wrong lesson. Politicians are no different from children. When they misbehave, they must be punished to learn their lessons and stop the bad behavior
Asked and answered.
Next.
I am quite familiar with the ACU ratings.
Did you look at the issues in the article which paint quite a different picture?
PA has a Democrat majority. It does not have a liberal majority. Santorum WON as a brash, flaming conservative. Ronald Reagan WON twice as an unabashed conservative. Toomey RAN as an unabashed conservative and was just one Santorum/Bush sellout or cavein from winning.
You are worthy of being ignored but I do have a life and responsibilities.
You can call it posturing. You can live in any kind of fantasy world that you like, but backtracking to vote against spending cuts is not posturing. Backing a pro death SJC chairman is not posturing.
But if you want me to buy into your 'posturing' fantasy, what does that say about him? That the ideas that he has claimed as his own aren't really worth defending? Leadership is bringing voters to your side by demonstrating the value of your ideas. What does it say for a man that he thinks that people are too stupid to realize that he is lying to them while he panders for his votes?
C'mon, you oughta know the answer to that one. You are proof that he can get away with it.
You can keep on beliveing that Santorum could buck his party and his president and somehow continue winning with the support only of the far right you mislabel "constituents." I'll deal with reality. You can only say "asked and answered" to my very real questions about political reality cause you have no answers.
In your dream world perhaps a man can run as a maverick right winger who bucks his party and all the people love him and shower him with money and the media all worship him, but I understand Rick is running for senator from Pennsylvania, not Oz.
Just to be clear once again, you ideologues wish to crucify Santorum for having the audacity to support fellow incumbent members of his own party.
SD
It makes him both a pragmatist and a politician. Did you think you were voting for a pope?
Do you even live in PA? If you did, you would know how the media would play a senator standing strongly on the conservative position that minimum wage laws are counter productive and are signs of superficial thinking. I can imagine what would happen if Rick took a principled stand and went on TV and said "Anyone who thinks raising the minimum wage is a solution for PA's problems is an economic idiot."
You would rather have your ears tickled than accept that a certain amount of pandering is necessary in order to win elections. You can call me names all you like if it makes you feel better.
SD
Apart from wanting to be sure that the Dems don't have any gains in the Senate, I don't have much stake in PA politics. I was simply pointing out that the tactic that CG was using was a rhetorical trick: making good the enemy of the perfect. It is a logical fallacy, regardless of the pros and cons of the argument it is employed to support.
Sloppy arguments do not advance any causes. If CG wants to argue to withhold votes from Santorum, she needs a better supporting reason than that he isn't ideologically pure enough. That is arguing for demolishing a building because you don't like the carpet. Meanwhile, your opponent wants to build a landfill on the building site.
You actually asked at least four questions, which would you like me to answer? So, your proposal is to get revenge on Santorum and Spectre by electing a Democrat. I say brilliant, that will really show em. If Congress is liberal, it will really be Conservative because there will not be any false Conservatives in congress. I see it now, I have missed it this whole time, but I see it now.
Look, politics are not perfect. Do I like that Santorum supported Spectre. . NO!!! Do I always like his votes. . .HELL NO!!! But, the choice I have to make is whether I will like Santorum's votes and stances more than I will like Casey's (who will be heholden to Fat Eddie and the Sentae Libs). It is not much of a choice, but one nonetheless.
Politics and idealism rarely blend very well. They leave us with less than palatable choices. I did not support everything Bush did in his first term, but you can bet your arse I voted for him over Kerry.
I voted for Bush over Kerry, not because I agreed with everything Bush did, but because Kerry would have been awful.
The Senate race is decidedly different. Santorum is but one of a hundred. We can afford to lose him, and he must be held to account for his betrayal of his professed principles. For more than a decade, he shamelessly promoted himself as staunchly pro-life, but when he had a chance to indirectly influence the composition of the SCOTUS, he allowed Arlen to ascend. That is unexcusable.
What, in your view, is the appropriate way to deal with behavior which is in direct contravention of his proferred principle? Vote for him anyway? Thank him for representing the views of his base only when convenient? Nah...I can't do it. I'm not going to grovel at his feet and rubber stamp my ballot.
He's one of a hundred, and contrary to popular belief, ousting him will not weaken the party...on the contrary, the others will take note, and be far less inclined to sell out principle, sell out their core constituents. It's the political equivalent of Tough Love....hurts for a while, but delivers long lasting results.
Qute: "He's one of a hundred, and contrary to popular belief, ousting him will not weaken the party...on the contrary, the others will take note, and be far less inclined to sell out principle, sell out their core constituents. It's the political equivalent of Tough Love....hurts for a while, but delivers long lasting results."
Oh, OK, so when the President fails to get Tax Reform through the congress by ONE vote, its only one in a hundred. When the fillibustering of judicial nominees can't be ended because of ONE vote, its only one in a hundred and on and on and on and on aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand ooooooooonnnnnn!!! Hey, its tough love, but then again, shooting ones' self in the foot usually is.
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