Rick Santorum leads an exemplary family moral life. And I think it is for just that reason that homosexual PAC's (there are four or five that concentrate on adversary support against family-values candidates at the state and municipal levels, trying to cut future Ronald Reagans off at the knees) went after him bigtime.
He was also jobbed IMHO by Karl Rove. I mean jobbed, as in Christine O'Donnell and other Tea Party candidates Rove karate-chopped last year.
I suspect that Rove is at the vortex of the GOProud phenomenon (before GOProud, there was RUC, the Republican Unity Coalition, call it PFLAG for Republicans built around some longtime Bush family associates and allies, that broke apart when Bush 43 endorsed DOMA), and that he really, truly wants the Loggies' money in the mix.
Keep in mind that Ken Mehlman and many Bush appointees were out and gay -- Mehlman after he left the RNC, I grant you. But Dubya appointed a hell of a lot of gays, and he was doing a lot of pattyfingers with the Loggies under the table in 2000, even as the Christian Coalition were being treated to box lunch and speeches from Rove in lieu of Bush, who was across town dining with the Loggies, with Mary Matalin doing his advance with them and telling them how much thinking Republicans, in the name of fairness, supported same-sex marriage. Smoke that for a while, while we listen to Adam Nagourney of The New York Times, just a month or two ago, telling Charlie Rose that gay money in politics is huge now, in both parties (and Nagourney would know -- most of his colleagues at the Times are gay and arrogantly so).
What did Rove say about Santorum?
The WA state GOP is a mess. We are having Rove speak at an upcoming event. We had Romney last year at our convention (he cried, wiping a tear from his eye like Clinton). Then after the convention, when the state GOP chairman was defeated, he took a job as a lobbyist for the SEIU.
Yep.
But none of these behind-the-scenes shenanigans are determinative. What I mean is: these attacks by the Loggie underminers are unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean they are unwinnable.
I have not been a Santorum supporter, though I’ve always liked the man as much as he was on my radar screen.
However, the Romney/Perry offering isn’t working — at least not very well — for the base, for different reasons. Since the point of a robust primary is to shake this stuff out, seems to me it’s worth pushing back a little on the assumption sometimes out there that we only have Romney and Perry from which to choose.
It’s true we may very well end up with either Romney or Perry as the GOP nominee, which I will be the first in line to vote for in the general.
But in the meantime, before the first primary vote has even been taken, I don’t think there should be a rush to proceed as though we only have two viable candidates.
Clearly, Romney & Perry are the top tier right now. But it’s early — unless a lot of primary voters think it isn’t!