Flashback: Rick Santorum Campaigns for Mitt Romney in Missouri (Strange Bedfellows?)

Gateway Pundit ^ | 1/4/2012 | Jim Hoft

[JediJones]

Rick Santorum attended a rally for Mitt Romney in St. Louis in 2008.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., threw his support this morning to Mitt Romney for president. Santorum’s endorsement was sought by all of the Republican candidates in the past year.

“In a few short days, Republicans from across this country will decide more than their party’s nominee,” Santorum says in a statement released by the Romney campaign. “They will decide the very future of our party and the conservative coalition that Ronald Reagan built. Conservatives can no longer afford to stand on the sidelines in this election, and Gov. Romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles that we hold dear.”

[JediJones]

First Specter, then Romney. Rick sure can pick. Something tells me we'll see this endorsement replayed in a Romney Super Whack Pac ad.

[OrangeHoof]

Even Rush backed Romney for awhile in 2008...but that’s because the race was between McCain, Romney and Huckabee. I remember in 2008 there were a lot of people who saw Romney then as the “most conservative”. It’s not that Romney or Santorum have changed. It’s that the field has changed.

[parksstp]

Here we go, as expected.

CO went 61% for Romney in 2008. In fact, just about every caucus state in 2008 went to Romney. You know why? Because Romney was perceived as the more conservative candidate compared to John McCain and Mike Huckabee. And it wasn’t just Santorum at the time that was helping Romney. It was Rush, Levin (he wrote a letter), and just about every other conservative of note jumped on the Romney bandwagon in 08 in an effort to derail McCain.

But of course, why take things into context when we can just go smear Rick Santorum for doing what everyone else did in 2008 and use it against him in 2012. Times have changed. Unlike 2008, there are/were actual conservatives in the race, so no need to settle for Moderate Mitt. This is precisely why Romney did so poorly last night: the conservatives that voted for him in 2008 have better options this time around.

As for Spector, it’s already been pointed out that the one area of influence he had was getting nominees for SCOTUS a Senate Hearing, and enabling Roberts and Alito to make the Bench. Also, it would have probably been difficult to run a Senate reelection campaign without any money, which is exactly what would have happened had Santorum endorsed Toomey. But then again, maybe Rick had knowledge of where Toomey stood on DADT.

[Tennessee Nana]

Gov. Romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles that we hold dear.”
__________________________________________

So did Rick not know that Romney had been busy “standing upo for” pro-abortion and pro-same sex marriage for years ???

[RasterMaster]

“Santorum, of the conservatives remaining, is the one with the least baggage in terms of abandoning conservatism at times over his career” - Rush Limbaugh, 02/07/2012

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/02/07/santorum_is_sneaking_up

[DoughtyOne]

You should know better than to run with this. If you don’t, please quit posting attacks on people, since you aren’t qualified to understand what is and what isn’t an infraction.

We were being saddled with John McCain in 2008. I am unaware of a worse Republican candidate in the history of the party, and that includes Nixon. You could make the case Hoover was, but he was an inept dingbat. He wasn’t consorting with the enemy of our nation by choice.

McCain, you know, George Soros, Terresa Heinz Kerry, and the Tides Foundation’ business partner...

You’re trashing a guy for supporting Romney against him?

John McCain has sold you out on every single issue you care about, at some point in time. I think he would have harmed our nation more than Obama has.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Dede Scuzzyfava

A liberal Republican, Scozzafava supports abortion and same-sex marriage. She also has strong ties to organized labor, something which is not common for most Republicans

[cripplecreek]

Republicans back republicans. Its been going on for 150 years or more.

Sarah Palin has backed a fair number of people I don’t care for but I don’t hate her for it.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Everybody campaigns for everybody else at some point in time. What’s the big deal? Most on this board supported Romney over McNuts in ‘08, as Mittens was THE conservative candidate. So, what’s the big deal?

[Vigilanteman]

Exactly. We're all supposed to stampede over to Newt because Newt has always been for himself alone. < / sarcasm>

Seven reasons for Rick Santorum

1. Who has won the most states without the benefit of their own money, last election's organization or a billionaire casino sugar daddy?
   
2. Who is everybody's second choice when he isn't their first?
   
3. Who can get both the Romney people and the Gingrich people, who hate each other, to vote for him?
   
4. Who has the best record on immigration?
   
5. Who has the best plan for repealing ObamaCare? And is the only GOP candidate who didn't help write or approve legislation which helped spawn this fiasco?
   
6. Who has the best plan for expanding the American economy and strengthening American families?
   
7. Who is the closest thing we have to the "generic Republican" which polls show consistently beating Obama and is most likely to make the election about Obama's sorry record rather than about himself?

[JediJones]

I have no problem with people endorsing the most conservative candidate who can win. In the case of local and regional races, that might sometimes be a very liberal candidate. It’s a judgment call. But I don’t agree with caving in to a liberal or moderate on the presidential level, because I believe a conservative can win at that level.

My main point here was making people aware of this now, because I would expect Romney or others are going to bring it up. Nothing wrong with getting the information out early. I think it’s something to be considered.

Frankly my understanding of the 2008 race, having not paid close attention to it, is that Romney was NOT more conservative than Huckabee or maybe even McCain. As far as I know, McCain was always staunchly conservative on social issues, which certainly at the time of that primary were the most important issues to me. My understanding is that the same spin we’re seeing now, the spin that tries to paint Newt as a liberal and Romney as a staunch conservative, was going on then. I dug up an Ann Coulter column from that era where she endorsed Romney and is basically saying the same stuff she says now about him while she trashes Thompson, Huckabee, etc. And I’ve seen articles saying Drudge had a Romney bias and used his site to smear Huckabee and others back then. My hunch is conservatives were snookered back then into believing Romney was more conservative than the other candidates, but that it wasn’t true then any more than it’s true now.

I believe Santorum has said he felt strategically that endorsing Romney was more likely to defeat McCain than endorsing Huckabee. I just don’t know if that’s true or not. But I do know back then even though I wasn’t following the primary closely, people were trying to sell me on Romney and I never bought it. I always thought he was worse than Thompson, Giuliani, McCain and Huckabee and my opinion of him then is no different than it is now, except I now know more about what he did in his business career.

[Huber]

Duh - Romney was better than McCain. Fortunately, we have better options and don’t have to make that choice in 2012.

[Mike Darancette]

First Specter, then Romney. Rick sure can pick.

If this is as bad as it gets .....

[newzjunkey]

I keep warning, Santorum is a creature of the establishment. He was the third ranking Senator in the GOP leadership.

Don't buy into his dog-and-pony show on marriage and life. Look to his record of opposing right-to-work, of supporting traitor Spector over Toomey in the primary, of his crony capitalism and intimate dealings with DeLay on lobbyists and his own post-Senate lobbying career, his embrace of federal solutions and belittlement of the 10th amendment, his defense of an interventionist foreign policy and more.

Santorum is an antithesis of the Tea Party.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Who did Gingrich endorse in the 2008 primary?

[CharlesWayneCT]

My main point here was making people aware of this now, because I would expect Romney or others are going to bring it up

I guess you missed it, but Romney brought this up a while ago, and used it in his own advertising.

[jwalsh07]

I never knew McCain had so many supporters here at FR in 2008,s primary. You could knock me over with a feather.

[ansel12]

McCain or Huckabee over Mitt Romney? You betcha, just as anyone in the mix is preferable to Mitt Romney this time.

Romney has never been the right answer.