Now putting the Newt and Santorum thing aside for a second, I find your response fascinating - and I mean mostly in a good way.
That you are an engineer makes a ton of sense - you are very literal and very much a B type personality on this forum. That such a person is somewhat off put or offended by someone like Newt is also very much predictable.
What is not predictable is that you meant anything humorous in your post. Santorum is a perfectly humorless person from all I can tell, and I have spoken with him one on one for quite a while as well as observed him for 20 years off and on.
Thus, when he takes a light dig - a very literal person without a sense of humor who has followers mostly the same - that humor is going to be lost on many. I sure did not see it.
I wouldn’t know if Santorum is humorous. I can’t judge whether I am humorous, as that is really in the mind of the recipient. I can only say I was attempting to answer in a somewhat humorous fashion, rather than an accusatory, or condescending, or malicious fashion.
I won’t agree or disagree with your assessment of my personality type — I may have multiple personalities, and compartmentalize based on the venue. :-)
I would actually expect I’d feel equally “put off” by Santorum as Newt; I simply haven’t observed Rick claiming as much credit for being so smart as I have Newt. I’ve actually thought I’d rather eat dinner with Newt than Rick, I think it would be a lot more fun.
I’m not really opposed to Newt, relative to Rick. Either would be fine with me; I simply at this moment see Rick having a less bumpy path to beat Romney than Newt, because of unfavorability and past history. But I don’t feel confident enough to actually urge people to drop Newt and support Rick; remember, I was nominally a Perry supporter, although I never felt comfortable enough with his chances either to urge others to support him.
Anyway, you caught me in one of my “stop needlessly antagonizing people” moods — of course when I’m in an “antagonizing” mood, it is always needful :-)