Posted on 01/13/2012 9:39:30 PM PST by Steelfish
January 13, 2012 Gingrich and Santorum Vie to Be the Conservative of Choice By RICHARD A. OPPEL JR.
DUNCAN, S.C. — Conventional wisdom dictates that for either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum to vault past Mitt Romney and win the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21, they must handily win the vote of upstate social conservatives, like the ones who packed a high school lunchroom here Friday night. But if the reactions of the 500 or so people here were any indication, these voters remain split.
Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, asked the crowd to vote for him because he is the only candidate, he suggested, who can both outperform President Obama in a debate and provide a clear enough conservative break with Mr. Obama’s policies, making him a safer choice to win the general election.
“If Barack Obama, with the disaster he has been, can get re-elected, the level of radicalism he will impose in his second term will be beyond anything you can imagine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Defeating him is central to everything we are doing.”
He added that if he won both this state and Florida’s primary at the end of the month, he would have the momentum he needed to win the nomination. And in what seemed to be a veiled swipe at the front-runner, Mr. Romney, he warned that conservatives might split their vote. If that happens, he said to applause, “we are going to stumble into nominating somebody that 95 percent of the people in this room are going to be very uncomfortable with.”
Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, likened himself to Ronald Reagan, and called on voters to make him the winner of their primary, as they did for Mr. Reagan in 1980.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
How special. Your Marxist sourced opinion pieces on Newt are certainly one’s I take to the bank, and love the abortion one, from 1995! NINETEEN-NINETY-FIVE! More please. I’m dyin’ here. LOL!!!
Newt’s flip-flop record and Rick’s steadiness? What universe are you living in?
Is Rick for or against Free Trade? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against Right-To-Work? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against deficit spending? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against TARP? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against Affirmative Action? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against School Choice? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against farm subsidies? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against Campaign Finance Reform? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is Rick for or against minimum wage increases? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Is he for or against the Federal government seizing private land? What does his voting record say? What does his rhetoric say?
Rick’s list of flip-flop is MILES long. He is also for big, BIG, B-I-G Government:
- Voted for Perscription Drug Benefit mandate.
- Endorsed Arlen Spector.
- Agreed with Newt on illegal immigration when Newt mentioned his limited amnesty.
- Voted for the Gun Manufacturers Liability Act of 1994 prohibiting the sale of hand guns with safety devices.
- Voted against Death Tax repeal in 2003.
- Voted for the federal regulation of farms requiring that large farms construct animal waste treatment facilities.
- Voted for Bushs’ No Child Left Behind and other national testing initiatives.
- Voted for afirmative action (later voted against it).
- Voted for Minimum Wage increases (Flipped on this several times).
- Voted for federal funds for military operations in Bosnia.
- Voted to cut Trident II D-5 missles several times.
- Voted against the elimiation of the National Endowment for the Arts funding numerous times.
- Voted to seize private property to designate 7 million acres of Cal. desert as a wilderness area.
- Voted against the first amendment and for lobbying restrictions and regulations.
- Voted for the Motor Voter law several times.
- Voted to limit Striker Replacement of union thugs.
- Voted on the FY 94 Clinton budget, which contained at that time the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
- Voted against SDI several times.
- Voted against Hunter amendment that sought to require the Defense Department to ask individuals entering the armed forces if they are homosexuals. (He later switched to the more conservative position on this).
- Voted against school choice early in his career. (He later switched to the more conservative position on this).
- Voted against both the 1991, 1992 spending freeze and voted for numerous large Bush II Budgets.
- Voted for tabaco tax increases (1998).
- Voted against the exemption of banks with assets of less than $250 million from the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (1998).
- Voted for the Chemical Weapons Treaty of 1997 that the ACU said, “violated U.S. constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, ceded U.S. national sovereignty to international agencies, and threatened U.S. defense forces”.
- Voted for Kassenbaum amendment to the Ryan White Reauthorization which allowed for funds to be used to promote homosexuality or intravenous drug use.
- Voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere.
- Voted to continue funding the Bridge to Nowhere rather than send the money to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
- Sponsored a bill to extend milk subsidies in 2005, which he claimed he did to “save countless Pennsylvania dairy farmers.”
Some additional points from here:
- A prolific supporter of earmarks, having requested billions of dollars for pork projects in Pennsylvania while he was in Congress. Perhaps recognizing the sign of the times, Santorum finally reversed his position in 2010, saying that he was opposed to them , but one must remain skeptical about his sincerity. As recently as 2009, he said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”
- An examination of his scores in the NTU rating of Congress shows that Santorum compiled a very strong record on taxes and spending in the first four years of each of his two Senate terms, then a sharp swing to below the Senate Republican average in the Congress before his reelection campaign.
- In the 2003-2004 session of Congress, Santorum sponsored or cosponsored 51 bills to increase spending, and failed to sponsor or co-sponsor even one spending cut proposal. In his last Congress (2005-2006), he had one of the biggest spending agendas of any Republican — sponsoring more spending increases than Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Lincoln Chafee and Thad Cochran or Democrats Herb Kohl, Evan Bayh and Ron Wyden.
- Santorum also supported raising congressional pay at least three times, in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
- He voted NO on raising the minimum wage in 1995 and 2005. But on the same day he voted NO in 2005, he sponsored an amendment that would increase the minimum wage, which he later boasted about to skeptical voters in a 2006 campaign brochure he released called “50 Things You Didn’t Know About Rick Santorum.”
- In the same “50 Things” campaign brochure, Santorum boasts about sponsoring a bill to regulate “price gouging and unfair pricing by the big oil companies.” This contradicts his opposition to a “windfall profits tax” that Democrats tried to impose on oil companies in 2005. He also voted YES on Sarbanes-Oxley, which was an overreaching bill that tried to tighten accounting regulations following the Enron scandal.
Newtie wants to run on his “conservative record” from the 80’s upon Reagan’s coat-tails, yet were not supposed to pay attention to anything he’s done since leaving office in disgrace. But keep thinking it was those “nasty ads” that causes Newt to be unable to connect to values voters....that’ll win the day!
Santorum isn’t going to win this nomination and is only dividing the conservative vote.
Now, as I was saying....back to that Cynthia McKinney support. Is she a Constitutionalist too?
Yes, and when Romney wins the nomination you Santorum guys will sit there with a large grin on your faces.
BookMarking
Thanks for the information.
May God guide our course.
Tatt
On your laundry list, including abortion, Newt is Catholic. He said tonight he would press for “personhood” from conception. He has said the same on other occasions. Your opposition research of 1995 is just so, well, so
“yesterday”, to the extreme. He calls spades on Obama, as a Saul Alinsky radical. Works for me. Santorum can’t even take on Romney, nevermind Obama.
*Yawn* I know a conservative stands in the way of “your guy” who’s been running in the back of the pack. The ONLY way Newt wins is with Santorum out. You’ve made that abundantly clear. I know how upsetting it must be to have Santorum making steady gains even when Newties join the Paultards, Mittwits, and DNC media to take him out of the race.
Does Newt take a public stand to advocate for Pro-life? Nope, he’s too busy lobbying for all the things Obama supports...Gorebull warming, Tarp, Single Payer Government-mandated healthcare, Ethanol subsidies and kissing up to the likes of Pelosi, Hillary, Jean-Fraud Kerry, or the race-baiting poverty pimp Al Sharpton.
Let’s let the clean family man win for a change.
Yeah, would it kill us to have a man trustworthy enough by his wife and kids as President?
LOL...thanks for acknowleging that Newt is certainly the chameleon in the race!
At least Santorum was able to get on the ballot in his home state...
When isn’t it the clean family man? Obama, Bush, HW Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon.
I’m playing with a new theory, comparing 2012 to 2008. Previously, I have equated Romney 2012 with McCain 2008.
Now I’ve decided that Romney 2012 is Romney 2008, only 4 years better at politics.
In my new theory, Gingrich is McCain, who wallowed in single-digits until December, and then came on strong.
Perry plays the part of Fred Thompson, friend of McCain, who some think entered the race to draw votes away from other conservatives, holding the place for McCain to come back.
If so, in 2012 Perry was the man who entered the race simply because Gingrich wasn’t doing well. In this conjecture, the two are friends (we know they are, and Gingrich wrote the forward for the Perry book). Since Gingrich had no money, Perry picked up many of Gingrich’s people (he did), and the thought was either Perry survives, or he holds off others long enough for Gingrich.
If this theory is true, then Perry is going to South Carolina for the same reason Huckabee claims Thompson did, even when Thompson was clearly done — because Gingrich needs Perry to pull some evangelicals from Santorum, who is clearly the 2012 version of Huckabee — a strong social conservative, a bit of a big-government conservative, a bit compassionate conservative, who came on strong and shocked people in Iowa.
So Perry, like Thompson, holds off Santorum long enough for Gingrich to squeak by. And Romney is Romney, pulling a solid but not majority vote, destined to do well, but never end up with enough delegates to win because he’ll never get the majority.
At some point, we might even expect Santorum to stay on just to stop Romney. Like Huckabee did for McCain in 2008.
Anyway, I’m not saying this is how it has to be, or that there was a real effort made by candidates — it’s just a bit odd how the parallels seem to work.
What A Big Government Conservative Looks Like
NEA
Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.
Bankruptcy
Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Defense and Foreign Policy
Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.
Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.
Voted for the START II Treaty.
Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
Voted to ban anti-personnel landmines.
Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same pay raises as uniformed military.
Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyrannical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea.
Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.
Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.
Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program.
Nominations
Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture).
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge.
Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN.
Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge.
Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit.
Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge.
Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge.
Voted for James Brady to be District Judge.
Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act.
Voted against repeal of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages.
Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor.
Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding.
Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Voted for Job Corps funding.
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization.
Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here.
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
Voted to exempt IRS union representatives from criminal ethics laws.
Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.
Guns
Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device.
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18.
Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.
Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.
Reform
Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
Voted twice for a Congressional pay raise.
Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapists, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
Voted for a McCain amendment to require state and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.
Immigration
Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators.
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens.
Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to the earnings of their sponsors.
Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.
Taxes
Voted against a flat tax.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
Voted twice for internet taxes.
Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.
Welfare
Voted against food stamp reform.
Voted against Medicaid reform.
Voted against TANF reform.
Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion.
Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.
Waste
Sponsored an amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million.
Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA).
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion.
Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million.
Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL).
Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry.
Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation.
Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%.
Voted against transferring $20 million from AmeriCorps to veterans.
Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.
Spending and Entitlements
Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.
Health Care
Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
Voted against allowing consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.
Education
Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing.
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.
Energy
Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.
You forgot to post your list to Jim Robinson.
It was his essay I suggested you to top.
Fascinating comparison. And close. Santorum is more genuine than Huckabee, though. His kids haven’t killed puppies and he hasn’t written a lying book about his personal transformation like the Huckster. Santorum wouldn’t lie if a cross were in his Christmas ad, either. He’d appreciate it, rather than mock viewers like Huck did.
And Santorum would never dress his obese family, if he had an obese family, all in horizontal stripes, be choking the dog, and take a Christmas photo of it all.
Newt was Pro-Life when Santorum was in diapers. He has CONSTANTLY advocated for Life, and still does.
Are you really going to bring up Hillary? Do we all need to remind you of Rick’s big government achievements with Mrs. Clinton?
TARP, Subsidies, Health Mandate? You’ve just listed three things Rick ALSO did!!!!!! How about Medicare Part D, the largest entitlement program created in our lifetimes?
And what the heck do you mean steady gains? Do you even pay attention to what’s going on out there? He’s been steadily falling since his bump right after Iowa. He’s running in third or fourth place nationally and in SC, depending on the poll. He got nothing from Iowa in NH, nothing.
All he can do is give Mitt the nomination. That’s the ONLY thing he can do. Why do we have to go through this every stinking election cycle? Huckabee, Robertson, Gramm, Santorum, Keyes, Alexander.............everyone thinks their upstart gets to ride a bump in Iowa to the Presidency. It never happens, and never will.
Look at all of the polls in the last few days. It’s a two-man race in SC. Why is it that the Santorum backers could simply care less if Romney locks-up the nomination next Saturday? Why are you all so okay with that?
While I don’t have the quote at my fingertips at the moment, I’m partial to Jim’s description of Newt last November....Something to the effect of great debater buth otherwise a “phony”. Everything I read regarding Newt since then (other than his myth-building campaign spin) has reinforced that description.
It's that US Senate influence.
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