While I like Santorum, how and why did he lose his last re-election bid by the highest % in history (19)? If his own state won’t vote for him, why would the rest of the country?
What am I missing here?
Rick lost PA because Bob Casey ran on his fathers name and he touted himself as a center of the road deomcrat. If you watched the debates, Rick cleaned casey,s clock. It was embrassing to watch how stupid Bob looked.
Also a lot of conservatives stayed home because Rick supported Arlen Spector.
And The Bush backlash. Mother Teresa woud have lost in PA that election if she had a R after her name
Valid question. I'm going to try to answer, but I'm speaking purely as an individual and am pinging people who may be able to give an official answer.
I remember the 2006 campaign. People in the conservative movement were saying that Santorum was simply irreplaceable and had to be kept in office. Now, six years later, “he was the go-to guy” comments are being made and I think that explains the attitude back then of why people wanted to keep him.
There may have been other views being voiced by conservatives back then, but they weren't loud — and that's what would be expected. When conservatives are unhappy with a candidate in the general election, they usually stay quiet and vote with their feet and their unopened wallets.
The fact is that 2006 was an “anno horribilis” for Republicans. Mitt Romney saw the handwriting on the wall and decided not to run for re-election. Some Republicans followed Romney's lead and left office, creating open seats with no incumbent advantage, others were well on the way to losing, and the national GOP and the big national donors had to prioritize. Santorum, running against a pro-life Democrat son of a pro-life Democrat governor who had been publicly “dissed” by the national Democratic Party, made a difficult target to defend. Many people who usually voted pro-life but were Democrats felt they could safely vote for his opponent.
The end result is what might have been a close loss or a narrow victory with adequate funding against a liberal Democrat opponent turned into a rout because the Republicans poured their money into races where they thought the Republican had a better chance, and voters felt they could safely vote for the Democrat because he wasn't all that different on the social issues that were Santorum’s strength.
In other words, Casey did the same thing that Mitt Romney did: try to become as much like your opponent as possible on social issues so your differences on other factors get front-and-center attention. It worked for Romney in Massachusetts, it worked for Casey in Pennsylvania, and it can work with any candidate who is willing to compromise core principles to accommodate himself to the polls.
That's not Santorum.