<p>Looks like Rick Santorum is feeling a little heat. He’s now doing the backstroke trying to distance himself from his earlier support for the Creationism lobby in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p><a href=“http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051222/D8ELIPKG0.html[/url]”>HeadlineAlley;
<p>Hopefully, the guy’s political career is almost done.</p>
<p>“But the day after a federal judge ruled the district’s policy on intelligent design unconstitutional, Santorum told The Philadelphia Inquirer he was troubled by testimony indicating religion motivated some board members to adopt the policy.”</p>
<p>Now would you call that a bald-faced lie, or a failure of intelligence?</p>
<p>
Seconded. (10)</p>
<p>Both a bald-faced lie AND a failure of intelligence.</p>
<p>Santorum sponsored an amendment to the “No Child Left Behind” bill in the Senate requiring the teaching of creationism. </p>
<p>He can cut n’ run, but he can’t hide.</p>
<p>Santorum is polling consistently as the most vulnerable Republican Senator in the 2006 elections, losing handily to Bob Casey. Some of the Loonie Left protest Casey’s pro-Life position and are backing a no-name but ideologically pure guy by the name of Chris Pennarchio (sp.?) but Santorum would cream Pennarchio…I’ll take Casey’s vote in my direction 95 times out of a 100 instead of the other way around with Santorum.</p>
<p><em>Student</em></p>
<p>I hope he is put out of office soon. He is definitely one of my least favorite US politicians.</p>
<p>(…I hate to add this, since there have just been discussions about students showing immaturity on the parents’ board. But, does anyone else on here know the other meaning of the word santorum?)</p>
<p>The vote to give the boot to ALL of the Dover school board members must have sent a chill down Santorum’s spine, huh? Kind of rude wake-up call to the Senate poster child for pandering to the christian right.</p>
<p>I hope the Dems have the good sense to club these guys over the head with these issues.</p>
<p>I was especially taken by the following bon mot by the erudite Pennsylvanian:
<a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05017/443573.stm[/url]”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05017/443573.stm</a>
Sounds like a real sparkplug…and what a wit!</p>
<p>Actually, I glanced through his book It Takes a Family and was impressed to see that it was actually rather reserved in the witty bon mot department–as above–and was rather, on the whole, unassuming and commonsensical. </p>
<p>Anent ;)Santorums political future, I say the Republican-Wit pulls it out in a squeaker/squawker and the Democrats mumble that they should have stuck to their beloved pure-blood liberal who, not being a bigot, anent a persons right to abort & choose, remains an untainted champion of all the left holds true, absolute and worth the shootin.</p>
<p>Says me: Santorum stays in his proverbial kitchen and extends his mighty bon mot into the greasy and complex innards of the cookhouse, to wit: you cant make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. </p>
<p>Love the kitchen-politician: so, sooo very…domesticand yet warriors to the very last (grrrrrrr! Ill take mine over-easy).</p>
<p>The Post-Gazette article was pretty accurate from my vantage point as one who has been involved in the smokey backrooms of Pennsylvania politics for years. And once again, I think FS has outshone her elders in the prognostication department. Santorum will pull off another squeaker, as he has always done. My prediction is that Casey, being so close to Santorum on gun control and abortion, won’t appeal to the mighty soccer mom contingent in the Philly suburbs, and that his positions on those matters won’t help him with traditional conservative Dems who have supported Santorum in the past, due to the senator’s very considerable national clout. That kind of clout is a powerful thing in the minds of voters, regardless of what they think of a candidate personally. Arlen Specter is a case in point. Widely despised by Pennsylvanians of both parties. We had a chance to unseat him in his last primary, and replacing him with a true conservative, Pat Toomey. We came within hundreths of a point of doing it…I stayed up until 2am watching the returns come in. But I heard over and over from conservative Republicans, I can’t stand Arlen, but all that clout is good for the state. That, in the end, is what’s going to put Santorum over the top. The idea that the Dover School Board thing is going to have any influence one way or the other is a pleasant fantasy for some, but specious.</p>
<p>Driver, do you work for the republican party? Or is this love of everything republican just some kind of hobby?</p>
<p>I’m not employed by the Republican party. I do often use my influence and energy on behalf of its candidates. In supporting Pat Toomey against Specter, I was actually going against my party’s endorsed candidate, and against the expressed wishes of both President Bush and Senator Santorum.</p>
<p>Have you ever supported a democratic candidate over a republican candidate? If so, who?</p>
<p>Never. Not a matter of ideology, as I didn’t become a registered R until about 15 years ago. I just haven’t encountered any democrat candidates that I like.</p>
<p>Are you pro life?
In favor of prayer in school?
In favor of ID being taught in a science class?
Against gay marriage?
Privatising social security?
In favor of a flat tax?</p>
<p>The first four have no influence at all on how I vote–one way or the other. The last two issues do, and I remain open to many of the alternatives to the current system, including the ones you mention.</p>
<p>So your biggest issues are the tax structure and defense?</p>
<p>So what do you think of Joe Lieberman?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think that the support for injecting religious creationism into the public school curriculum is just one small component of the real problems Santorum and the Republicans face: the perception that they have used their total control of the government in ways that are arrogant and self-serving.</p>
<p>The Republican candidates have nowhere to hide. They run the show. Elections are primarily won and lost with centrist voters. Centrist voters in this country are not comfortable with Jerry Falwell’s agenda and the Republicans have given them little in the way of fiscal responsibility or efficient management of government services to keep them in the fold.</p>
<p>
I didn’t say that…I just prioritized the list you presented. They’re certainly high on any list I might compile. I like Leiberman a lot, and I could support him over the wrong Republican. He’s the only Scoop Jackson-like Democrat left. Sad.</p>
<p>No Republican would truly believe that he was “troubled by testimony indicating religion motivated some board members to adopt the policy,” would they?</p>