My understanding is that a two-term US senator has to really work at getting blown out of his third election, i.e. it isn’t basically easy to do.
Yes, Jesse Helms had to work really hard to defeat Jim Hunt in 1984 for his third term and managed to do so by not backing down on his conservative principles. There’s even a book about that race. Thus far, has anyone written about Santorum-Casey; I understand Santorum tried to downplay his conservatism in that 2006 race. But I’m still for Saint Rick. I think he would be excellent in the office but don’t think he will ever get close to winning.
>>My understanding is that a two-term US senator has to really work at getting blown out of his third election, i.e. it isn’t basically easy to do.<<
You’re right. It was really tough. By November 2006 the vast majority of the voters, liberal and conservative both, were against pursuing the Iraq war. Only President Bush and a few supporters held strong, with Bush finally approving the surge, against nearly all advice, but that finally settled the fighting in our favor.
And one of his supporters at the time, Rick Santorum, who stood by both his principles and his President, paid for it dearly, losing by double digits as even Republicans deserted him.
He stuck by his principles and lost. Romney changes his principles regularly to avoid the same fate. I’ll take Santorum’s approach any day. And he’ll make a far better President because of it.
Not so hard when you have Karl Rove and GW helping by losing the house and Senate in one fell swoop, and ushered in the won. Throw the bums out is easier when you have a disaster in the making.
The last time I checked Pennsylvania was a BLUE state when Rick won both of his Senate elections, which was and is not an easy thing to do. Can you name any social conservative that has done that in the past 20 years? With the exception of Fitzgerald in Illinois and Smith in Oregon I can’t think of any others. And I’m sure that both of them would have lost too if they had chosen to run for re-election. And don’t mention Snowe and Collins in Maine—they are not social conservatives. I guess you think it takes hard work for a conservative to run in Oklahoma and Mississippi and get re-elected every time just like it took Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. Or better yet, why don’t YOU run for Senate in Pennsylvania and see how all of your hard work pays off!
“My understanding is that a two-term US senator has to really work at getting blown out of his third election, i.e. it isn’t basically easy to do.”
Yeah. Here is how I see it. Rick lost his last election and since all he knows what to do is be a politician, he decided to go for broke and run for the big prize.
He might be lucky or at least get his name out there.
If not win the thing, he knew that who ever is the nominee will need a VP and a VP from Pennsylvania adds to the count.
Could he be booking to be the Romulian VP.