Posted on 03/17/2012 11:01:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
IN THE SUMMER OF 1989, Rick Santorum and a fellow associate at the Pittsburgh law firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart left work to drive to Three Rivers Stadium for the firm's annual softball game. Sitting behind the wheel, Santorum popped in a tape, and on came the reedy voice of a man lecturing as if to a classroom.
“Listen,” Santorum said. “Newt Gingrich.”
“Who the hell is Newt Gingrich?” the co-worker asked.
Santorum explained that Gingrich was a congressman from Georgia, and that he was the guy to listen to if you were considering a future in politics. “At the time,” says the co-worker, “I had no idea that was something Rick was interested in.” As it turned out, Santorum was already telling people he was running for Congress in the upcoming election. The tape was something he had ordered from GOPAC, Gingrich's political action committee, full of do-it-yourself campaign tips for aspiring candidates.
In recent years, of course, Gingrich's tutelage of Santorum has taken on a much more direct nature. Last September, Santorum, at 37 a Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, managed the Senate floor debate as it passed its welfare bill, all the while working closely with Gingrich, now speaker of the House of Representatives and the country's most powerful Republican. Santorum, who prior to his election to the Senate last year served two terms in the House with Gingrich, is in fact known on Capitol Hill as Gingrich's protégé and his point man in the Senate. The two meet weekly for early-morning swims at the House gym.
Much of Santorum's record, thus far, has been a series of tantrums. More than a dozen times in his first few months in the Senate, Santorum took to the floor to trash Bill Clinton for not drafting a balanced-budget proposal...
(Excerpt) Read more at phillymag.com ...
More than any other candidate running. A man that won't run away from defending his beliefs on contraception isn't going to lie about his position on abortion.
This the sort of idiocy that has been flung at every Romney challenger and has ended up paving the way for him to be the nominee. It's sickening.
I belong to the stupid party. I wish I could afford the luxury of voting none of the above in this primary.
This is unadulterated garbage, Rats poison taken from sources not quite dissimilar from MoveOn, Huff PO and other anti-Santorum sites funded by Romney and his hit teams. If Santorum s pro-abortion, then for heaven’s sake go to the Congressional Record and find a speech, a statement, or even a (mis)statement to his effect. But not post this kind of hit piece trash at a time when on a shoe-string budget he’s beaten Romney in key states, deep-sixed Gingrich’s “southern strategy” and is now within striking distance of creating a major upset in IL and taking Romney down.
Rick by his own quotes is the new flim flam man. What a resume.
Look into Rick on days of course when he is not campaigning and it’s all hollow, and what isn’t hollow is simply theater. That means it’s a campaign day. (For the people don’t cha know.) (The conservative ones.)
It just took the Philadelphia article seven pages to say what we have been saying in single posted comments from the first time he tried to be Bachmann and long before.
Interesting article 2ndDV. Thanks for posting.
Beating up on Lawyer Ricky is a waste of time given the fact the electorate is so emotions and feelings oriented that they elected Barry.
Lawyer Ricky worked his entire life to cultivate the same mindset and ultimately the same "flexible" values as the other lawyers in the Senate so that's what will come out sooner or later. Today, he's solidly for what Little Ricky says he deeply believes. Today, he may even deeply believe what he says he believes. Once he's actually the candidate, though, well then he has to concern himself with, "all the people" because if elected, he'll have to represent, "all the people".
Lawyer Ricky will do whatever the polls and strategists say Lawyer Ricky should do in order first to get the nomination (or be the VP which is what I think his goal is) and second, to win the election if he is the nominee. People have no problem supporting and voting for those who went to law school to become professional chameleons then whine "their candidate" changing tunes once they're in office.
Sooner or later people need to wake up and stop pretending they're shocked that the professional prostitute they supported acts just like a prostitute once they're in office.
JMHO
Wow! Milt has a time machine and went back to 1995 to plant an article against Ricky? Impressive! Maybe he could get you an earlier “born on” date at FR so we’ll take you a little more seriously. Can’t hurt to ask!
Of the three left, which one doesn’t fit that description. Newt, the big government, pro-amnesty, Nancy Pelosi loving, ACORN endorsing, influence peddler certainly seems to have flexible convictions..
Remind us all of Senator Rick Santorum’s accomplishments. We’d be here all night listing Speaker Gingrich’s.
Oh wow...just finished reading that and so glad to see what I’ve been saying about Santorum was certainly expressed there.
It’s all about his next move up the later, and he doesn’t have any convictions about what he presents because they aren’t his own........obviouslyboviously people along his track arrived at the same conclusion. He rides waves others create for him because he cannot create his own.
This guy is becoming a regular gaffe machine. As if we didn’t have enough of them near the top of the food chain already. Sheeesh....
>> Rick Santorum: “I Was Basically Pro-Choice All My Life, Until I Ran for Congress”
It’s not uncommon for Conservative Democrats to shed their Pro-Abort views. It’s good that Rick has embraced Life. He’s not the first.
Hasn’t little Ricky said to the public that he has been pro-life his entire life?
Wow, this writer makes Rick out to be a drooling idiot without a thought in his head. And everyone spreading this tripe about Santorum is unnamed. No source to query. The writer himself is a strange one. Some of his other articles make their subjects out to be less than they are too. Maybe he is I secure and gets his jollies making other people look stupid.
excerpt:
“Santorum’s biggest political challenge came in 2004. He claimed victory again but he lost on principle when he supported Sen. Specter for re-election over ideological soulmate Pat Toomey, then the Lehigh Valley congressman. To Santorum’s base, however, it was a deep betrayal. The wound remains open.
Many are quick to argue that Santorum had no choice. After all, he was (and is) the Republican Conference chairman. It’s the No. 3 Senate leadership post. One of the post’s primary jobs is to make sure incumbent GOP senators get re-elected.
But we always have choices. Had Santorum chosen principle over politics — or more accurately, principle over power — Mr. Toomey would have ousted Specter in last April’s primary and easily beaten Joe Hoeffel in November.
That didn’t happen because Santorum was not about to give up his chance for greater power: to succeed Bill Frist as Senate majority leader in 2007.
Santorum blew one opportunity — albeit the long shot of a dark horse — when he failed to accurately assess how damaged then-Majority Leader Trent Lott was in the Strom Thurmond affair of 2002 and began courting support far too late to matter.
Had Santorum supported Toomey, he not only would have lost his leadership post but, automatically, any chance of succeeding the departing Mr. Frist. As political irony goes, his loyalty to the leadership post — to the power base — paid a lousy dividend; Santorum doesn’t have the votes to succeed Frist.”
Read more: The problem with Rick Santorum - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_317352.html
Once again you Santorum supporters can close your eyes just like the Obama supporters did and refuse to see the facts all you want but that isn't going to change the facts....and the many who do know just what Santorum is made of.
If it weren't for Newt, even today, and in this race, Rick would have been history long ago. Good grief you don't have to even believe the article but look at what he's been saying and doing since he first started and it matches up with the article perfectly.
>> This guy is becoming a regular gaffe machine.
I cannot get a grasp of Rick’s vision. All I see is hype and a gullible constituency.
I read this story before. Thanks for sharing here with us. Santorum owes Newt Gingrich a lot. Santorum didn't like even the Young Reagan group while in college (he thought they were too far right)- he did a lot of things to advance his goals, working with Newt. I just don't see how Santorum could run one negative ad on Newt furthermore, saying anything critical of him as he does. Santorum should not throw up to Romney that he was pro-life then was pro choice.
In this summary, Rick was quoted to be pro choice until he read science literature and part for his religious view made he change his mind since he was entering in politics, I suspect. He is not the saint that his followers make him out to be. Rick is One lucky dude/he has missed most of the negative ads from Romney in the beginning of this primary to where he look like he was above the arguing. He has played the people and uses the media to his advantage. His slips ups and arguing over social issues seems to nearly always get a pass. I really don't think he should throw off on Romney ( Romneycare, yes) but some of the other things, no. Because Rick Santorum was no pure conservative until he was introduced to a Newt Gingrich's tutorial. Either you are for pro life for conviction or not. ( Sorry if that seems harsh but he has made this a center piece of who he has always been)
Well without one of his own to be sure. And that's the Rick people that know him see him as......but it won't matter to his supporters because they see him thru the same eyes Obama supporters saw him.....just kept on putting their heads in the sand.
I am from Pa. and I will certainly vouge for what's stated in this article. ...and I am a Christian. But not every Christian gets behind a candidate just because he uses all the religious verbage he can to attract them, anymore than a Christian will give ear to TV Evangelists. They know the difference between authentic and the real thing.
Same here. I haven't been able to get a read on the guy since he first stepped into the running. I have no idea why he's running for president, and no idea what his central message is.
Now, if the man can't reach a confirmed political junkie like me, he's not really saying a whole lot, and is in this for ulterior reasons of his own.
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