Voting in favor of the Bridge to Nowhere and billions in earmarks is fiscally conservative?
They all vote for earmarks and I don't agree with every vote of any politician. However, he had a 96% from ACU his last year in Congress, the same as DeMint (who I really want to be our next president), and a 87% lifetime rating. He was also always given high marks by the National Taxpayers Union.
At least relative to the rest of Congress, he was a fiscal conservative.
Rick was asked about such by Gregory and didn't back down. The Big Journalism clip sourced above didn't include that segment. The full (22 minute) MTP interview is up now and is worth viewing if you want to see Santorum handle a hostile environment. Watch his answer and see what you think of it. My poor paraphrase would be he said Congress was elected to supervise spending and they could either act on that responsibility or abdicate it to the unelected bureaucrats. He also admitted the process has become more broken with time.
Santorum also addressed the lack of endorsement issue, claiming he hadn't asked a single former Senate colleague for one. Amongst other reasons humbly said he didn't think it was proper to ask for one when he was at 3% in the polls, that he first had to earn the right to ask. And he also discussed his late endorsement of Romney in '08 and described his reasoning then.
Don't take my word for it. See and judge for yourself. I'd encourage the same for any Freeper in an early voting state. He may not be as smooth as Reagan... or Palin. But IMHO he defends conservative positions across a broad spectrum against liberal media attack here better than I can recall any of 'our' Presidential nominees since the Gipper himself. He doesn't back down.
Unlike all of Obama's pre-Presidential opponents he doesn't have any divorce to unseal for dirt. He can't convincingly be lampooned as George Bush's third term. He's not a rich man, so can't be attacked as such. He never was for ObamaCare or any form of healthcare mandate. What's left for Obama's options to attack him in a general? The Democrats can't run Obama as the pro-life son of a favorite old governor as they ran Casey against Rick in '06. All I can see it attacking Santorum on the issues. And if Santorum can do as well in the fall as he did today Obama would be in deep trouble. And regarding the money issue I suspect Rick Santorum can run a Presidential campaign without money better than Obama has run the country without money. And close his deficit faster!
Compared to frauds like Mitt Romneycare and Ricardo "you don't have a heart" Perry, yes. It's a weak field and Santorum is the best of the lot. You could probably make a good case that Ron Paul's record is more "fiscally conservative" (although Paul also inserts zillions for earmarks in a bill and then casts a token "nay" vote on the bill, knowing it will pass anyway and he'll get his pork). However, Ron Paul is a nut on lots of other issues so that rules him out. As much as I'd like an ideal Congressman who doesn't take earmarks and voted against the Bridge to Nowhere, there aren't many in office and none that are running for President. Santorum has flaws but he's far better than the other phony "conservative" saviors. I doubt he's going to cut global warming ads with Nancy Pelosi any time soon. And at least he had the guts to oppose TARP, that's far better than most GOP "fiscal conservatives" in office now.