that's true. actually i haven't come across a palin article for many months
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:15 (twelve years ago) link
but frankly i think palin would have fared not much better than bachmann in this primary. maybe worse.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:16 (twelve years ago) link
that section of society has never gone away
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:17 (twelve years ago) link
There's a reason why Nixon's or Dubya's approval ratings never dropped below a certain number.
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:34 (twelve years ago) link
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:17 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
have they ever -- in the past 50 years -- had a quasi-viable major party candidate that did not just pander to them but actually embodied their ethos quite so fully?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:36 (twelve years ago) link
i think santorum is a clown who is going to fade pretty rapidly once it's all said and done. palin faded because she was so nakedly and stupidly opportunistic and obsessed w/her own celebrity and had zero credibility w/even a lot of people in her own base once she resigned as governor and after putting her foot in her mouth one too many times. even a lot of the idiots she appealed too wanted substance at some point. i think a lot of her fans turned to bachmann hoping for a more viable version of palin but quickly realized what was up. santorum i think is filling a bit of the palin gap but he's a bit of a hail mary for that base (so to speak.)
― omar little, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:44 (twelve years ago) link
Santorum will fade away, sure, but to think that that base that loves him hasn't been there for a long time and will be there for a while feels a bit optimistic.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:48 (twelve years ago) link
wouldn't deny that
― omar little, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:51 (twelve years ago) link
Santorum only fades away with repeated washings
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 08:09 (twelve years ago) link
The base is highly situational though - it's not like he's been on 38% of the vote all along.
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 08:16 (twelve years ago) link
True, but that's also media attention. He was a joke until he managed to rally some local state support. The fact is he's a candidate who speaks his mind honestly and, as much as you can try to rip him for earmarks or (bizarrely) Arlen Spector, he's remarkably consistent in his ideals and comes across as genuine. In a way, I think, its his nutjob hardcore "moralism" that has refreshed his fans in a way that they haven't been pandered to in a while. Obviously his surge is probably over, but it also would never happened had Romney not been such a disagreeable candidate for so many. So yes, they are slaves to the trends, but Santorum is probably the most significantly attractive candidate they've had in years. And I'm including Huckabee.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 08:52 (twelve years ago) link
the moral slump
^^ there's a lot going on in this phrase
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 10:25 (twelve years ago) link
Isn't the line on Santorum that his no-compromise neo-fundamentalism is more a campaign strategy than something he actually believes? It does get him votes, it's brought him this far, but I thought one of the ways Romney's managed to hammer his has been to point out that in Washington, he was a strategic-voting cynic just like everybody else prior to the Tea Party freshmen
however otm that it's a worrying sign for his 2012 campaign strategy, "be completely crazy," has been extremely effective
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 11:05 (twelve years ago) link
in this decadent era of abortions and insubordinance somebody's gotta run up the black flag and just start shooting people. santorum appears ready, willing, and able to delegate that job to trusted functionaries
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 11:09 (twelve years ago) link
http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=CICAgICQgZ76gAEQrAIY-gEyCJ2VF7RJk73p
― Big Mr. Guess U.S.A. Champion (crüt), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 12:25 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3bYBkGgRCE
okay the reveal at 1:22 is just too much
― flagp∞st (dayo), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 12:53 (twelve years ago) link
In fairness, it spent six months not being that effective until it was joined in a pincer assault by his strategy of "Don't be Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry or Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney". Most of the "Ask the people how they're voting" pieces I've seen have a lot of his voters talking more about how they need to make a stand against Romney / Obama than saying "I am fired up for President Santorum". If they were Democrats I'd say they were holding their noses, but the Republican style has always been more the fixed grin and panicking eyes.
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 13:07 (twelve years ago) link
yah santorum might be crazy but he comes across mainly as just a huge dweeb, no one is that psyched abt him, they just don't like mitt dawg
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 14:05 (twelve years ago) link
he really got where he is atm by everyone else being eliminated rather than any merit of his own
― iatee, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 14:39 (twelve years ago) link
he's a bit of a hail mary for that base (so to speak.)
― omar little, Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:44 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol subtle
― goole, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 14:40 (twelve years ago) link
btw i find santorum terrifying, not so much b/c he will win the election (he won't) but because of the fact that a significant minority of the american electorate appears to be OK with his explicitly theocratic, fundamentally punitive vision for america...
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:12 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
OTM. I think aiding his recent rise (other than being the last viable non-Mitt)has been jumping on the contraception thing, and expressing his uber-Catholic views - which are more or less shared by Evangelicals - in a way that Mitt and his Mormonism cannot. (Newt is a recent convert, and has no moral high ground anyway, except in his own mind.)
btw Newt, stfu about debating the president. You're a single-digit (in MI) non-entity, and if I hear one more time about how Obama bowed to the Saudi king I'm gonna lose it.
― Ham House showdown (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 15:16 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/santorum_loses_catholic_votebu035714.php
So based on prior evidence, there’s really no particularly reason to think the “Catholic vote” was ever Santorum’s to lose. His voting base has always been conservative evangelical Protestants, who also make up a high percentage of the voters fixated on making abortion illegal, a particularly strong Santorum demographic. I’m sure the JFK slur didn’t help, but this is one “surprise” in Michigan that really shouldn’t have been that surprising.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 15:27 (twelve years ago) link
Interesting, thanks. From the comments:
Women! Women! Women! As a female Catholic I wouldn't touch Santorum with a ten foot heavily used turd pole
― Ham House showdown (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 15:40 (twelve years ago) link
Spreading Santorum, the page defining 'santorum' as a by-product of anal sex, has finally dropped from the top results on Google.
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:01 (twelve years ago) link
now it's urbandictionary ahahahahahahaaaa
― goole, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
win some, lose some eh rick
― goole, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:03 (twelve years ago) link
I like to think this whole campaign has simply been an effort to generate enough news mentions to change his Google search results.
― A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:03 (twelve years ago) link
I hate politics.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
ok I lolled at this onion headline:
Romney Thanks State He Was Born And Raised In For Just Barely Giving Him Enough Votes To Beat Total Maniac
― silverfish, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
From WaPo "The Genesis of a church's stand on race":
At church functions, Gray said, he and other black Mormons suffered the assurances of their white brethren that “you will have the priesthood in the world to come,” or encouragements that if they lived worthy lives, “you will find your skin will become lighter and lighter.”
I'd say, "You can't make this up" except people already did make it up.
― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
you can make this up, using one weird trick
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
Rick Santorum is NOT making friends among caretakers of the developmentally disabled.
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
― A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
for that libel alone santorum should be... i don't know if i can say it on a message board.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 February 2012 21:33 (twelve years ago) link
*plop*
― catbus otm (gbx), Thursday, 1 March 2012 00:07 (twelve years ago) link
With Michigan behind him, Santorum smells victory
srsly?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 1 March 2012 01:20 (twelve years ago) link
Interesting spin by Santorum camp. Basically, he's saying, most of the early voters didn't really mean to vote for Romney. It only looked that way.
― Aimless, Thursday, 1 March 2012 01:27 (twelve years ago) link
He's obviously deluded over the long haul, but I think his point about early voting is valid (I've mentioned the same myself). The voters in this campaign have had the attention span of a flea, and I also think it would have made a difference if all the votes had been cast after Santorum's three-win night.
― clemenza, Thursday, 1 March 2012 01:36 (twelve years ago) link
has santo won anything besides iowa? is this really still a race at this point?
― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, 1 March 2012 03:57 (twelve years ago) link
oh duh I forgot about the ones he won where he ran virtually unopposed
― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, 1 March 2012 03:58 (twelve years ago) link
He took almost half the delegates from Michigan as well.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:03 (twelve years ago) link
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 3:05 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark
yes and no. i suspect that, to his devoted fans, the issue isn't so much whether or not santorum is a political animal, but whether or not he "really believes" in the things he talks about. judging on appearances and as a non-fan, i have to say that he does seem to be a man who A) speaks his mind honestly and B) allows his principles to guide him. he's a real zealot, not a cynical fake one, and that's what makes him scary to us non-fundamentalists. in this, he stands in stark contrast to mitt romney, who never seems to believe anything he says, even when he's sticking his foot in his mouth.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:11 (twelve years ago) link
to his devoted fans
these, frankly, do not exist. he is trying desperately to create them by getting ever more outlandish.
― mookieproof, Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:15 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i dunno. santorum seems to the attract hardcore fundies in droves. they respond to the intensity of his gay-hating catholic fervor like women to bass.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:19 (twelve years ago) link
he doesn't even win the catholics. he's just blindly paddling ever right-ward in the hopes that romney's inherent roboticism sinks him.
more to the point, rick santorum has no clue how he's arrived at his present position. he ran because he was bored and everyone in pennsylvania hates him. now he's sort of on the brink of vague importance! yet he remains a colossal dick with no clue about anything.
come on
― mookieproof, Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:26 (twelve years ago) link
Santorum obv came to his present position by virtue of being the last remaining choice of the insane wing of his party, after Palin abandoned them, and after they discovered Bachmann and Perry were fools and that Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich were knaves.
In Iowa, he literally was at 3% a couple of weeks before the caucuses, after spending four solid months shuffling around the state. Whatever success he has had so far has fallen right into his lap as a gift. He probably thinks it came from God.
― Aimless, Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:35 (twelve years ago) link
In reality it came from desperation.
― Aimless, Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:37 (twelve years ago) link
he doesn't even win the catholics.
yeah, that's what's so weird about him. catholics and evangelical fundies both realize what he apparently does not: he's more the latter than the former. it's foolish to understate his appeal to american religious fanatics, imo. doesn't matter that he's a fool, or that they hate him in pennsylvania, or that he's gotten to where he is basically by accident. he seems to have struck a chord among a particularly vocal group of lunatics.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:39 (twelve years ago) link
at some point, should he be blessed with the gop nomination (?) it will be required of him to figure out just why.
none of the possible answers reflect well on him. he is only relevant by becoming increasingly radical, and there is happily a limit to that.
there are no gop operatives with money who think that tacking ever right-ward is a way to beat obama. santorum is a particularly bizarre anomaly thrust up by an absurd party.
― mookieproof, Thursday, 1 March 2012 04:46 (twelve years ago) link
thrust up you say
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 1 March 2012 07:47 (twelve years ago) link
Dude who helped build and fund rightwing fundies and who has recently turned a new leaf, writes about how they could believe this stuff:
...It takes training for years to reject what is true. That training starts in a million Sunday schools and carries on through home schooling or private religious "education" and is completed in a hundred alternative Christian "colleges." It is sustained by a network of magazines like Christianity Today, World and many more. It has its own celebrity culture with heroes that no one outside the religious ghetto has heard of but who are selling literally millions of books to their followers.Is it any wonder that a bedrock article of faith in the Republican Party is now that public schools are evil? Is it any wonder Santorum says he objects to President Obama saying all kids should work to go to college? In fact anything public and open to accountability is to be feared. Education is feared most of all. All public space is hated because in that space, from infrastructure projects to the Federal Reserve to the UN to all government agencies, there has to be an acceptable baseline of fact that everyone buys into. Universities and the media - both places where ideas are discussed openly - are hated most of all.So public space is demonized because by its very nature it falls outside of the control of the "mullahs," -- i.e. the pastors and bishops and celebrity religious leaders that are fighting off facts to maintain their control of their flocks. And the government is demonized because it imposes a rule of law over and above the Bible's mandates...
Is it any wonder that a bedrock article of faith in the Republican Party is now that public schools are evil? Is it any wonder Santorum says he objects to President Obama saying all kids should work to go to college? In fact anything public and open to accountability is to be feared. Education is feared most of all.
All public space is hated because in that space, from infrastructure projects to the Federal Reserve to the UN to all government agencies, there has to be an acceptable baseline of fact that everyone buys into. Universities and the media - both places where ideas are discussed openly - are hated most of all.
So public space is demonized because by its very nature it falls outside of the control of the "mullahs," -- i.e. the pastors and bishops and celebrity religious leaders that are fighting off facts to maintain their control of their flocks. And the government is demonized because it imposes a rule of law over and above the Bible's mandates...
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Thursday, 1 March 2012 07:54 (twelve years ago) link