The strain of the campaign appears to be taking its toll on Senator Rick Santorum. He has a history of outlandish statements about conspiracies against him and the American people. I fear for Santorum's sanity and, by extension, the health of the nation. Increased conspiracy theories and charges of Satanism by the Senator can only be bad for the body politic and our standing abroad.
Santorum has accused Fox News of "shilling" for Mitt Romney in an appearance today on Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade and Friends. The claim is not Santorum's first that the media and his opponents are intent on subverting his campaign. There is mounting evidence that the candidate is becoming unhinged by the pressure of a Presidential run.
“The man [Romney] has had a 10-to-1 money advantage. He’s had all the organizational advantage. He’s had Fox News shilling for him every day, no offense Brian but I see it. And yet, he can’t close — he can’t seal the deal because he just doesn’t have the goods to be able to motivate the Republican base and win this election.”
This from a former
Fox News contributor who appeared two Sundays ago on
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and on
Hannity yesterday.
more below the Orange Squigglies of Conspiracy Theory ...
Rick Santorum reading from a Teleprompter at the Florida Republican Party's Presidency 5 Convention
More from the Radio Interview
"With all due respect to Dick Morris, putting up a bad candidate ... sooner, is not the answer. We need to put up the best candidate.
...
The fact is, that the longer this race goes on the better we are. And having to go to the convention, if that's where it goes, I don't think it's a bad thing at all because I think that we're going to come out of that convention with a conservative nominee and that's our best chance to win."
Kilmeade countered Santorum's argument that Romney is on Fox more by saying that Romney’s people “respond when we request, and we’ve been requesting you on this show for about three and a half months, minimum, and we’ve gotten nothing but, ‘yeah, we’ll see', which blows me away.’”
Looks like the Santorum campaign's lack of money and organization are starting to catch up to him. As much as I hate money in politics, the fact remains that money is required to run a successful campaign today.
The reference to Dick Morris refers to comments made in a video posted on Morris' website where he backed Romney as the nominee.
According to Morris, “The point is, it’s over. We’ve made our choice. Romney has 54 percent of the delegates at this point."
Charges of Opponent Collusion
See this blog post from The New York Times, "Santorum Says Romney and Paul Are Teaming Up on Him".
Rep. Ron Paul has been accused of attacking whichever Republican opponent rises up to become Governor Romney's biggest challenger, whether it be Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, or Rick Santorum. Paul also seems to have been loath to attack Romney in any of the twenty, so far, Republican Presidential debates.
Paul did run an ad in Michigan in advance of that state's primary calling Sanotrum a "fake conservative".
There was this exchange on February 23, 2012at a Tea Party rally in St. Claire Shores, Michigan, a Detroit suburb...
“What’s going on with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney?” a voter asked during a question period after Mr. Santorum delivered a speech.
“I didn’t know they would have picked a president and vice president” before people had voted, said Santorum.
Of course this was amid swirling rumors that Rep. Paul was currying favor among the Republican establishment for a V.P. for his son, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).
Charges Against Matt Drudge
When you find a conservative attacking Matt Drudge, you know that they are close to going off the rails. However, Santorum did just that. He reacted to two different Drudge articles. (I would link but I don't want to and you wouldn't go anyway.)
One article on February 21st was a story called "Santorum's Satan Warning". The story contained several quotes that Santorum made in 2008 about the nation and its political system falling into the grips of Mephistopheles himself.
Drudge also posted a story out of Cincinnati where Santorum lost a connection during an interview on 700 AM WLW with Bill Cunningham. Santorum called claims that he hung up on the host "baloney". The dropped call occurred during a heated debate on contraception.
What in the world has happened to the far right noise machine? Drudge is against conservatives? This amid accusations in the same article that Drudge had joined the Republican mainstream. If that is true, it is because the Republican mainstream has been marching ever rightward since Goldwater's defeat in 1968.
Charges Against President Obama
It is nothing new for presidential hopefuls to attack their potential opponent, especially when that person currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Presidency is a juicy target and, when that office is held by a member of the opposition party, is difficult to resist. Santorum, however, takes it a step too far.
On February 21st at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Santorum all but accused President Obama of purposely planning for higher gas prices.
“And they needed to reduce CO2 emissions, which means you need to drive less. And the only way we could force Americans to drive less was to make it expensive for you to drive. And that’s why, and here we have now a systematic plan in place by this president to, number one, reduce the drilling of oil and gas in this country.”
On February 27
th at a rally in Michigan, Santorum then
blamed the bursting of the housing bubble on rising gas prices.
“The bubble burst in housing because people couldn’t pay their mortgages because of $4 a gallon gasoline. He [Obama] actually believes this is a good thing for America, I don’t. We are not here to serve the Earth, but to be stewards of the Earth.”
We are not here to serve the Earth? Since when do serving and stewarding mean different things? Some of the strongest conservationists I know are right-leaning hunters.
Charges Against New Yorkers
On March 8th, Santorum blamed members of the media living in New York for negative press about his socially conservative values.
“The idea that values issues are losers is held by a group of people in the media who live in the New York area. Because they don’t know anybody or very few people who share those values, so they just assume the rest of the country is like them.”
Oh right, that old trope. It's the media's fault because they live on the coasts and don't know a damn thing about the "Real America"™. My bad.
Charges Against Gays
On August 16th, spent some time with hate group leaders Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, where he blamed the bad economy on the nation's "moral failing". By moral failings, he meant, of course, the redefinition of marriage and the decline of the traditional nuclear family.
"Letting the family break down and in fact encouraging it and inciting more breakdown through this whole redefinition of marriage debate, and not supporting strong nuclear families and not supporting and standing up for the dignity of human life. Those lead to a society that’s broken."
Of course, this isn't Santorum's only attempt to blame the downfall of society on teh gays. We all know about the man-on-dog comments and Dan Savage's campaign to neologize the Senator's name.
We Will Know This Thing Has Run Its Course When ...
Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis begin stumping for Santorum.
By The Way...
Have you Googled Santorum today?