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Stories tagged with “Rick Santorum”

Economy

Rick Santorum Ignores Jobs During Arizona GOP Debate

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 23, 2012 at 10:35 am

As Rick Santorum has risen in the polls in the GOP presidential race, his campaign has been unsuccessful in its attempt to “turn the political conversation away from the social and cultural issues that have dominated his quest for the Republican presidential nomination so far and focus instead on the economy.” The former Pennsylvania senator continues to bring religion into the campaign, saying that President Obama’s theology is not “based on the Bible” and voicing his opposition to prenatal testing.

Last week, Santorum said to voters in Idaho, “Are economics important? You bet? Are jobs important? You bet.” In last night’s GOP presidential debate, Santorum had a chance to show voters that he really did care about the economy. Instead, he failed to even say the word jobs once:

In total, the four GOP contenders mentioned the word “jobs” only 10 times over the span of two hours — and former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) uttered the word a grand total of zero times. [...] Santorum had entered Wednesday night’s debate riding on a wave of support in the polls and among conservative voters in key primary states. His debate performance — during which he struggled to answer questions about his record in Congress — could serve to blunt that momentum heading into next week’s contests in Michigan and Arizona.

Santorum also never mentioned the unemployed, though he did repeat “spending” and “conservative” over and over. According to Gallup, 31 percent of Americans say the economy is the biggest issue facing the U.S. Thirty-one percent say it’s unemployment and jobs.

Justice

Santorum Cites Racist Author To Defend His Views On ‘The Dangers Of Contraception’

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 23, 2012 at 9:50 am

At last night’s GOP presidential candidates debate, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) was asked why he’s promised to address “the dangers of contraception in this country” if elected president. In response, he cited a particularly unfortunate author:

What I was talking about is, we have a society — Charles Murray just wrote a book about this and it’s on the front page of the New York Times two days ago — which is the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in America, teens who are sexually active. What we’re seeing is a problem in our culture with respect the children being raised by children, children being raised out of wedlock, and the impact on society economically, the impact on society with respect to drug use and a host of other things, when children have children. And so, yes, I was talking about these very serious issues. and, in fact, as I mentioned before, two days ago on the front page of the New York Times, they’re talking about the same thing.

Watch it:

First of all, Santorum’s decision to justify his skepticism of contraception by citing the problem of unwed mothers is like something out of the Bizarro Planet. Here in the actual world, contraception is the solution to the problem of unplanned pregnancies, not the cause.

Likewise, Santourm’s decision to rely on Charles Murray is no less distressing. Murray co-authored The Bell Curve, which argues that black people score lower on IQ tests because they are genetically inferior to whites. To reach this conclusion, Murray relied on studies backed by the Pioneer Fund, whose original mission was to pursue “race betterment” for people “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.”

Murray’s latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, is a similarly rigorous work of scholarship. In the words of former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, Murray’s latest opus proves that the racially-challenged author is unwilling “to submit his politics to the check of uncongenial evidence” and instead would “prefer[] to avoid encountering the evidence that might shake his politics.” Sadly, this description also applies to Santorum.

LGBT

Bill O’Reilly: Cut Santorum Slack For Spouting Anti-Gay Rhetoric, He’s ‘Inexperienced’

By Zack Ford on Feb 22, 2012 at 11:54 am

On The Tonight Show last night, Jay Leno challenged Bill O’Reilly about Rick Santorum’s comments on social issues: “He doesn’t like condoms, he doesn’t like birth control, I don’t understand this anti-gay thing. It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Leno said. O’Reilly responded by defending Santorum, saying that people should disregard the “dopey past comments” he has made because he’s “inexperienced”:

O’REILLY: I think people should define their religion and why they believe and what they believe if you’re running for president. I think they should do that, but I don’t think they should be saying, “Well, my religion is better than yours,” or anything like that. Look, Santorum is a guy is who is inexperienced in this arena. He got drawn into a few things. He’s made some past comments. Everybody has dopey past comments… so we have to cut him a little slack… He’d be wise to say, “Look, I said what I said, now let’s get into the economy,” and that’s where he should go.

In fact, O’Reilly seemed to think candidates’ histories should be disregarded entirely, suggesting also that Newt Gingrich’s conversion to Catholicism made him an entirely different person. Watch the interview:

(HT: Gawker.)

NEWS FLASH

Santorum: I ‘Was Basically Pro-Choice…Until I Ran For Congress’ | While Rick Santorum is now known as a crusader against abortion and pornography, he wasn’t always so socially conservative. The Huffington Post reports today that in 1995 Santorum conceded that he “was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress.” He said he changed his mind because he “sat down and read the literature. Scientific literature.” Other quotes from the era show that Santorum was once a politician “unwilling to dabble in the cultural conservative politics that now defines his presidential campaign, a review of old campaign documents and interviews shows.” Santorum himself has said more recently that he did not become involved in social issues until later in his career.

LGBT

Santorum: The Democratic Party Is About ‘Homosexuality’

By Guest Blogger on Feb 21, 2012 at 4:26 pm

During a 2008 “Press & People of Faith in Politics” forum, Rick Santorum described to the Democratic Party as “the party of Woodstock,” and accused lawmakers of “prey[ing] upon our most basic primal lusts.” Asked to name a couple of words he’d heard attached to religion and politics in his years in the Senate, Santorum listed “moderate,” “ultra-conservative,” “liberal,” and “zealous” before launching into a full-on tirade against Democrats:

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. The prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

Of course Santorum will position Republicans as the “anti-homosexuality” party if he wins the nomination and has pledged to to annul all same-sex marriages and personally campaign in every state against marriage equality.

– Fatima Najiy

Justice

Santorum’s Top Issue? ‘Enforcing Laws Against Illegal Pornography’ (Updated)

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 21, 2012 at 2:10 pm

Rick Santorum has been trying to shed the notion that he’s obsessed with sex and show voters that he has more to offer than hard-line stances on social issues. But, a visitor to his website would be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Despite the myriad serious issues the country faces, the top item on Santorum’s “Issues” page is “Enforcing Laws Against Illegal Pornography.” The very first post makes ominous claims about pornography’s “profound” negative effect on the brain and society that many Americans would likely find hyperbolic. A screen grab:

Meanwhile, the word “tax” appears only 4 times on the issue page and “job” only 5 times — the same number as “abortion” and fewer than “pornography,” which appears 8 times.

While it’s not clear if the items are listed on the page in any particular order — the campaign did not return a request for clarification — the top-billing pornography gets will likely not help Santorum convince voters that his priorities reflect reality. Although, his stance should come as no surprise as Santorum has signed a pledge vowing to crack down on porn.

Update

Shortly after this post was published, Santorum’s campaign appears to have changed its website, as the section on pornography is now the very last item listed on the “Issues” page. The rest of the page appears unchanged, with the second item, “No More Leading from Behind for America,” moved to top billing. A Google cache version from the page on February 18th shows the original.

Green

Santorum: Climate Science Is Obama’s ‘Phony Theology’

By Brad Johnson on Feb 21, 2012 at 12:30 pm

This Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Rick Santorum argued that climate science is President Barack Obama’s “phony theology.” On CBS’s Face The Nation, Santorum was asked to justify his recent controversial claim that President Obama has a “phony theology” that’s not “based on the Bible.” Santorum replied that he was describing the Obama administration’s actions based on the science behind man-made global warming. Obama’s acceptance of science, Santorum said, is a “worldview that elevates the Earth above man“:

When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.

Watch it:

On Monday, Santorum expanded on his conspiracy theories, saying that global warming is “political science,” not “climate science.”

NEWS FLASH

Santorum: ‘I refer to global warming as not climate science, but political science’ | “I refer to global warming as not climate science, but political science,” surging Republican presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Rick Santorum said Monday in Steubenville, OH. “A lot of these environmental sciences are just that – political sciences. They have nothing to do with … real understanding of how we have to value both the environment and its impact on man and the world.”

Related Posts

Security

Santorum Press Secretary Says She Regrets Referring To Obama’s ‘Radical Islamic Policies’

By Eli Clifton on Feb 21, 2012 at 9:49 am

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s press secretary Alice Stewart came under fire yesterday for her comments accusing President Barack Obama of having “radical Islamic policies.” Stewart said Santorum was referring to these policies when he said the president’s environmental agenda was driven by “phony ideology.” Stewart told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

STEWART: There is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what [Santorum] was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies in terms of the radical Islamic policies the president has, specifically in terms of the energy exploration.

Watch it:

Mitchell later reported that Stewart had phoned MSNBC to correct her statement. “I was referring to Obama’s radical environmental policies and on one reference, I accidentally said radical ‘Islamic’ policies,” Stewart wrote in an email to Fox News. “I misspoke and I regret it.”

While Stewart’s comments may have, as she suggests, been an unfortunate slip up, the Santorum campaign is developing a track-record of suggesting that Obama’s policies are driven by nefarious motives. Earlier this month, Santorum accused Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus” and allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon in exchange for access to their oil.

Politics

Santorum Suggests Obama Is A ‘Phony’ Christian

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 19, 2012 at 9:45 am

Fresh off of excommunicating 45 million American protestants in a speech that resurfaced this week, Santorum singled out President Obama for theological scrutiny yesterday, saying the commander in chief believes in “some phony theology.” ABC News reports:

The “president’s agenda” is “not about you,” he said. “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job.

“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology,” Santorum said to applause from the crowd. “Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.” [...]

Although Santorum criticizes the president daily on the campaign trail, this is the first time he has used this rhetoric or said the president has a “different theology.”

In a statement, Santorum’s campaign said the candidate was not actually talking about Obama’s religion but rather his belief in secularism, adding, “The President says he’s a Christian and Rick believes that and has even said so publicly many times.”

Santorum appears to be on a mission to be a one-man Council of Trent, the 16th Century Catholic ecumenical council that defined Protestants as heretics. In a 2008 speech rediscovered this week, Santorum said Mainline Protestants — about 45 million Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists and others — are “gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”

As conservative Presbyterian blogger John Schroeder wrote, Santorum’s “truly intolerant comments concerning Obama pretty well disqualify him from holding office. It is simply not the president’s job to be judging whose theology is correct and whose is not.”

Update

Former Obama press secretary and current outside adviser Robert Gibbs responded to Santorum’s comments on ABC News’ “This Week,” saying, “I can’t help but think that those remarks are well over the line. It’s wrong, it’s destructive.” Gibbs added that while Santorum claims the comments were not about Obama’s “character and faith,” it’s hard not to see them that way.

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