Apparently not content to bash black people, Rick Santorum yesterday ramped up his gay-bashing.
Let me be as clear as I can about what’s so wrong with this: it isn’t just that Rick Santorum is a racist and homophobic bigot, we already know that.
The larger problem is that he does this because it is working. He is now the leading not-Romney GOP candidate. His base LIKES this. The GOP is clearly branding itself as the party of hate. The mainstream media won’t attack this hate. Why won’t WE?
How far down this awful road do we let this go before we speak out?
First they came for the immigrants. Then they came for the women (Herman Cain). Then they came for the blacks. Yesterday they came for the gays.
Who’s next?
Please share widely!
and guaranteeing his own loss in a general election if he wins the primary. Maybe his base likes it but he’ll not be popular with the independents, and of course a Dem would never vote for him anyway. Why stop him from making these ridiculous statements. Let him dig his own grave.
The evangelical thing works better in Iowa than it does in New Hampshire. I can’t imagine what he thinks he’s up to; the GOP needs this campaign to be about the economy.
This can only help Romney and Ron paul.
much less the presidency. He has to see himself as a message candidate who can do well in some select places, and is using his new found position to espouse his views to a larger audience. It’s all about putting his message out there, regardless of the outcome.
I just meant that this seems like lousy strategy in new Hampshire. Maybe he’s playing for South Carolina.
There is a portion of the ‘base’ – I’d call it 10% – that believes that the reason the GOP does badly in MA is that we are not conservative ENOUGH. Merely wanting smaller and more efficient government is not good enough – we must also enforce a social conservative agenda in schools, workplace, etc. They are funhouse mirror twins of ultra-progressives who make the same kind of demands from the far left. And the Dems to a fine job of ignoring them, bey and large.
They really believe that everyone is secretly pining to become an extremist. The fact that they repeatedly LOSE elections makes no dent in their faith. It’s the state committee, the left wing media, the phases of the moon. Santorum thinks he is bringing a popular message to an area that has been to benighted to be given it.
The next social conservative who smugly says to me that he’d rather lose with the RIGHT candidate than win with the worng one (RIGHT, get it, huh??) had better be a good runner and ducker.
And this is harmful to the local GOP, without doubt.
It was not so long ago that “New England Republican” meant something other than “about to have a damaging primary challenge from the right.” Romney ran for governor as a “New England Republican.” But then, once he decided to run for President (unexpectedly?!) he broke from this and behaved otherwise. His big, failed, push to increase representation in the legislature backfired because it seemed like he wanted to push candidates for State Senate that would please Iowa caucus-goers, rather than candidates that might have been successful.
In short, I think the former governor has a lot to do with the empowerment of that 10% and has really harmed Republicans in the northeast.
But, really, should we care that much? Santorum is the latest Republican flash-in-the-pan who, if he miraculously wins the GOP nomination (not gonna happen) would get crushed by Obama.
Romney is much more dangerous. He won’t say the same stuff as Santorum out loud because he doesn’t really believe it (after all, does he believe in anything?), but he would pursue that agenda in office to placate the same base that eats up what Santorum is saying now.
A Rick Santorum President would want to not only ban abortion, but ban contraception.
but he wouldn’t prohibit people from buying it or insurance plans from covering it. The practical difference between Obama and Santorum is whether everyone would be forced to pay for it and make it available to everyone for free.
While a president doesn’t have the power to actually ban contraception, Santorum does want it banned because, as he says:
He is phrasing it in “states rights” language, meaning that he is saying that states should have the right to ban it if they want to. Of course, he is not in that camp when it comes to banning gay marriage, which he wants to do at a federal level.
Marriage is a legal act, which needs to be consistently recognized in every state. But access to contraception is not a legal act, it is a local availability issue, like access to the ocean or fresh fish or warm weather, it’s not going to be the same in every state.
But do you really think Santorum would succeed in banning contraception in any states? He might talk about how contraception is not good, but he won’t try to ban it.
I’m not sure we are talking about the same Ron Santorum. The Ron Santorum I’m talking about is the religious right-wing nut-case who went to extraordinary lengths to interfere in the Terri Schiavo fiasco, a private citizen who as a resident of Florida was not even a constituent. After Florida judges familiar with the case properly ignored the absurd attempt to use the power of the federal government for religious purposes, this same Ron Santorum threatened sanctions against those judges — echoed by the GOP right-wing bible-thumpers of the day:
Thankfully, overwhelming public opinion (together with the various scandals, election drubbings, and criminal prosecutions of these thugs) put a stop to the Schiavo nonsense. Your apparent confidence that Mr. Santorum won’t try to ban contraception if elected (what a horrific thought) defies virtually ALL of his history as a public figure.
He could try to ban it in the US, but I don’t think he’d succeed, do you?
…on the rec list at DailyKos today. Here’s an excerpt:
Go read the whole thing, it’s well worth the few minutes it will take.