Rick Santorum NOW! Santorum Surge Brings Ethics Questions - ABC News

people who are voting Santorum likely wouldn't vote Paul regardless (with Gingrich, Perry, and other similar candidates in the field). so I don't buy the theory that pumping Santorum leads to a noteworthy detraction from Paul votes. what doesn't make sense is after they burn out all the other candidates, and its Romney v Paul, I think Paul has just as good of a shot at those neo-con/bachman/perry/gingrich/santorum voters as Romney does. this helps Paul a lot more than it hurts him IMO
 
people who are voting Santorum likely wouldn't vote Paul regardless (with Gingrich, Perry, and other similar candidates in the field). so I don't buy the theory that pumping Santorum leads to a noteworthy detraction from Paul votes. what doesn't make sense is after they burn out all the other candidates, and its Romney v Paul, I think Paul has just as good of a shot at those neo-con/bachman/perry/gingrich/santorum voters as Romney does. this helps Paul a lot more than it hurts him IMO

Except for the fact that the stats showed that a decent number of the Santorum voters voted for him because of the economy. I know that makes no sense, but that is what they said.

Well, it makes about as much sense as in the last election when some NH voters voted for McCain because they thought he would end the wars.
 
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Here's what I don't understand. If they didn't have any idea who they wanted to vote for, why did they bother showing up.

Some people think they have some kind of obligation to vote. If they haven't done the study, I really wish they wouldn't bother to vote.
 
After Huntsman, what's next? Tim Pawlenty back in the race and surges in South Carolina?

Bring on the dirt on Santorum, it's been laying there all the time without anyone bothering until now.
 
Let's make a list...things that would have been useful for the media to have informed Iowans about before now...
 
Let's make a list...things that would have been useful for the media to have informed Iowans about before now...

I ran across this, I think it's a good start. I think the best approach would be exposing his lousy credentials as a fiscal conservative.

The voting record needs to be fact-checked against this and other sources though, IMO.

Rick Santorum

- Voted for Prescription Drug Benefit mandate.
- Endorsed Arlen Specter.
- Agreed with Newt on illegal immigration when Newt mentioned his limited amnesty.
- Voted for the Gun Manufacturers Liability Act of 1994 prohibiting the sale of hand guns with safety devices.
- Voted against Death Tax repeal in 2003.
- Voted for the federal regulation of farms requiring that large farms construct animal waste treatment facilities.
- Voted for Bushs' No Child Left Behind and other national testing initiatives.
- Voted for affirmative action (later voted against it).
- Voted for Minimum Wage increases (Flipped on this several times).
- Voted for federal funds for military operations in Bosnia.
- Voted to cut Trident II D-5 missiles several times.
- Voted against the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts funding numerous times.
- Voted to seize private property to designate 7 million acres of Cal. desert as a wilderness area.
- Voted against the first amendment and for lobbying restrictions and regulations.
- Voted for the Motor Voter law several times.
- Voted to limit Striker Replacement of union thugs.
- Voted on the FY 94 Clinton budget, which contained at that time the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
- Voted against SDI several times.
- Voted against Hunter amendment that sought to require the Defense Department to ask individuals entering the armed forces if they are homosexuals. (He later switched to the more conservative position on this).
- Voted against school choice early in his career. (He later switched to the more conservative position on this).
- Voted against both the 1991, 1992 spending freeze and voted for numerous large Bush II Budgets.
- Voted for tabaco tax increases (1998).
- Voted against the exemption of banks with assets of less than $250 million from the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (1998).
- Voted for the Chemical Weapons Treaty of 1997 that the ACU said, "violated U.S. constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, ceded U.S. national sovereignty to international agencies, and threatened U.S. defense forces".
- Voted for Kassenbaum amendment to the Ryan White Reauthorization which allowed for funds to be used to promote homosexuality or intravenous drug use.
- Voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere.
- Voted to continue funding the Bridge to Nowhere rather than send the money to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
- Sponsored a bill to extend milk subsidies in 2005, which he claimed he did to “save countless Pennsylvania dairy farmers.”

Some additional points from here:

- A prolific supporter of earmarks, having requested billions of dollars for pork projects in Pennsylvania while he was in Congress. Perhaps recognizing the sign of the times, Santorum finally reversed his position in 2010, saying that he was opposed to them , but one must remain skeptical about his sincerity. As recently as 2009, he said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”

- An examination of his scores in the NTU rating of Congress shows that Santorum compiled a very strong record on taxes and spending in the first four years of each of his two Senate terms, then a sharp swing to below the Senate Republican average in the Congress before his reelection campaign.

- In the 2003-2004 session of Congress, Santorum sponsored or cosponsored 51 bills to increase spending, and failed to sponsor or co-sponsor even one spending cut proposal. In his last Congress (2005-2006), he had one of the biggest spending agendas of any Republican -- sponsoring more spending increases than Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Lincoln Chafee and Thad Cochran or Democrats Herb Kohl, Evan Bayh and Ron Wyden.

- Santorum also supported raising congressional pay at least three times, in 2001, 2002, and 2003.

- He voted NO on raising the minimum wage in 1995 and 2005. But on the same day he voted NO in 2005, he sponsored an amendment that would increase the minimum wage, which he later boasted about to skeptical voters in a 2006 campaign brochure he released called “50 Things You Didn’t Know About Rick Santorum.”

- In the same “50 Things” campaign brochure, Santorum boasts about sponsoring a bill to regulate “price gouging and unfair pricing by the big oil companies.” This contradicts his opposition to a “windfall profits tax” that Democrats tried to impose on oil companies in 2005. He also voted YES on Sarbanes-Oxley, which was an overreaching bill that tried to tighten accounting regulations following the Enron scandal.

Also see: Rick Santorum the Pro-Life Statist
 
I'd like to know how much of our money he sent overseas since he's such a big lover of foreign welfare.
 
The fact that the media didn't bring this up during the hundreds of collective hours they spent talking about creating his "surge" just shows their agenda and motives.
 
He's being absolutely slammed on MSNBC right now. It's BAD.It's much worse than what they do to Paul because there is so much baggage.
 
He's being absolutely slammed on MSNBC right now. It's BAD.It's much worse than what they do to Paul because there is so much baggage.

I think thy also need to come down really hard now so they don't look complicit in the smearjob on Paul. Whatever, I'll take it.
 
what an ego, he had to know that they were going to take him down... Did he think all of this was going away and not brought up?


Or was he a paid schill from the start, playing his role/part?
 
Santorum played his part and will probably be discarded, the next step of the establishment is probably to surge Huntsman to come in second in NH, so we better dig up all the dirt on Huntsman there is.
 
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