Free Republic

It would appear that Rick Santorum is trying to make himself appear as a closet Liberal. According to cited sources, he has "proposed raising the minimum wage; suggested that the death penalty be reserved for the most dangerous of killers; voted with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., on curbing sex and violence in the media; and sided with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on a bill protecting religious freedom in the workplace." Of course his real turn coat action of late has been his suggestion Sunday that "embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics and...

WASHINGTON -- Conservative misgivings about Sen. Arlen Specter's rise this year to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee were validated last week. Without consulting the Republican leadership, Specter launched a procedure that undercuts party strategy for confirming President Bush's judicial nominees. Ironically, however, Democrats are so intransigent that not even Specter's temporizing has moderated them so far. Specter, on his own, picked William Myers, a former cattle industry lobbyist, as the nominee blocked by Democrats in the last Congress who will go first in the new Congress. He did so because he figured that Myers, among 16 blocked Bush appellate...

HARRISBURG – A new statewide survey shows Democratic Pennsylvania Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. holding a 7-point lead over two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pittsburgh, in the 2006 senate race. Conducted by SurveyUSA for WNEP-TV Channel 16, the survey asked 506 registered voters around the state who they would choose in the senate race. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent. The results showed Casey with 49 percent to Santorum’s 42 percent. Eight percent of the poll respondents were undecided. A poll released last month by Quinnipiac University showed similar results, with Casey leading...

Some very smart people believe that U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is poised to become ex- Senator Santorum, a casualty of his scheduled re-election contest next year with State Treasurer Bob Casey. .... In fact, a close look at the record suggests that his confrontational style and conservative rhetoric conceals more than it reveals. Too much attention has been spent on Santorum the cultural ideologue and not enough on his pragmatism and political opportunism; inside this raging bull of a conservative is a pragmatist for whom getting re-elected always trumps ideology, which may not make him any different than other politicians....

Rick Santorum will not be elected to a third U.S. Senate term. But it's not because Pennsylvania's junior senator is "too conservative." He is anything but, as a succinct National Journal analysis shows. No, Mr. Santorum will lose his 2006 race for re-election to presumptive Democrat nominee Bob Casey Jr. because he has thumbed his nose and furiously waggled his fingers at a large cross-section of his conservative base. How can this be? Santorum is an unwavering abortion foe, right? Sure. And to him homosexual marriage is an abomination that will open the door to legally sanctioned man-canine matrimony, right?...