Free Republic

Rick Santorum is touting his promise to eliminate corporate taxes on manufacturers...[that's] coming under scrutiny from conservatives who are decrying it as thoroughly unconservative. ...[Santorum] added: “We need to have a manufacturing base in this economy. Why? Because of our national security.” ...advocates for other sectors of the economy quietly gripe that they’d be effectively underwriting manufacturing...by paying a higher tax rate... “Giving a preferential rate is picking winners and losers through the tax code,” said Curtis Dubay, a tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation... “This is not free-market economics, this is trying to tilt the market toward manufacturing,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most Americans don't share Rick Santorum's absolutist take on abortion. He's out of step on women in combat. He questions the values of the two-thirds of mothers who work. He's even troubled by something as commonplace as birth control - for married couples. Even among a Republican presidential field eager to please religious conservatives, Santorum's ideas stand out. A Catholic father of seven whose kids are home-schooled, Santorum may seem to wear his conservatism as comfortably as his sweater vests. But he's walked a careful path, keeping the more provocative opinions that helped sink his re-election to...

Rick Santorum will be the third presidential candidate to enjoy the endorsement of Ohio Attorney General and former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine. The AG, who was the force behind Ohio’s participation in the states’ lawsuit to block Obamacare, initially supported former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. When Pawlenty exited the race, DeWine transferred his support to Mitt Romney, whom Pawlenty also backed. Today, though, DeWine will reassign his endorsement yet again — this time to his former colleague in the Senate, Rick Santorum, according to Associated Press sources.

Martha McSally, the first female Air Force pilot to fly in combat who is seeking ex-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s seat in Arizona’s special election, blurted out in a TV interview Friday that she wanted to “go and kick him in the jimmy.” “You know, I agree with many of the things that Rick Santorum says, but when I heard this, I really just wanted to go and kick him in the jimmy,” McSally, a Republican, said on “Fox & Friends,” referring to Santorum’s recent controversial comments about women in the military.

In a campaign defined by Republican reluctance to embrace Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum has emerged as the latest not-Romney candidate to surge ahead. While it's impossible to predict what will happen in this volatile election season, the data suggests that Santorum might be more of a challenge for Romney than earlier flavors of the month. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll of the GOP race shows that Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney by 12 points, 39 percent to 27 percent. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are far behind. In and of itself, that's nothing new. The man from Massachusetts has at...