Rick Santorum, idiot.
This is just sad:
Santorum has essentially moved to Iowa, and he hopes that some big moments at recent debates in Florida and South Carolina — along with his strong social conservative credentials — will start a brushfire of support in the plains, much like it did for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee four years ago.
Yes, 2008 was such a long time ago that most folks probably don't remember who won the presidential election that year, let alone the GOP nomination. But here's a hint: it wasn't Huckabee.
So aiming to copy the campaign of the guy who still lost? Not aiming very high.
But wait. It gets even sadder:
Santorum said his camp has even been in talks with “key people” in Bachmann’s camp. These people are not paid staff, but Iowa activists that “are in conversations with us and see things not going well for her,” he explained.
"Key people" who are not paid staff? Like, crazy grandmas clad in American flag couture, waving tin foil hats and tea bags and demanding that the government keep its grubby, socialist hands off their Medicare? Those kinds of "key people"? Yes, well, if they say Michele's in trouble, it must be true. They are her base, after all.
And Santorum, clever guy that he is, realizes this is his big moment to poach that base:
“There’s no question that doubts have been raised about Michele [Bachmann] and her electability, and certainly we clearly benefit from that,” Santorum said. “We are picking up people, not just [Tim] Pawlenty people in Iowa, but also folks who had supported Bachmann and we know that folks, even some of her key people are coming to talk to us, let’s put it that way.”
So ... Rick Santorum's best argument to the Republican primary voters is that he's more electable than Michele Bachmann? Um, Rick, a bag of hammers is more electable than Michele Bachmann. Way to set a low bar.
It's kind of pathetic, really, styling his losing campaign after another losing campaign, keeping his fingers crossed that he's the voters' "second choice," and counting on the people who've realized just how batshit crazy and stupid Michele Bachmann is to look around and say, "But hey, that Rick Santorum guy seems like my cup of tea, and a lot more electable. Maybe I'll Google him to learn more about him and—hey! What the—?"
It's pretty hard to make the "electable" argument when he didn't even win his last election. Or when he's infamous for claiming that homosexuality is a hop, skip and a jump away from "man on dog" marriage.
Or, most recently, when he was asked about Don't Ask Don't Tell at the GOP debate hatefest last week, and instead of thanking the soldier who asked the question for his service to the country, he went on some weird rant about "special privileges" and how there's no sex in the military. And even though he didn't say a word when the live audience booed the soldier, he later claimed he just didn't hear the Boo Heard 'Round the World:
"I condemn the people who booed that gay soldier," Santorum said on Fox News Friday. "Certainly had I heard them, I would have said, 'Don't do that. This man is serving our country and we are to thank him for his service’."
Yeah, he would have told the audience that the right thing to do is to thank that man for his service. Except, of course, that Santorum did no such thing. Those people who booed? That's Santorum's would-be base—if only he can figure out how to lure them away from Michele "Dead Last Place" Bachmann and copy the utterly failed 2008 strategy of Not-President, Not-Even-GOP-Nominee Mike Huckabee.