The Other McCain

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Nuns for Santorum

Posted on | February 25, 2012 | 16 Comments

Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist pose for a photo with
Rick Santorum in Lincoln Park, Michigan, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012

TROY, Michigan
It’s gonna be kind of hard for Mitt Romney to compete with Rick Santorum in terms of his straight-out appeal to Catholic voters in Michigan. At last night’s Lenten fish fry at a Catholic church in Walled Lake, Santorum began by saying, “I love the smell of fish on a Friday night.” Here’s my video showing the kind of rock-star reception Santorum got from the crowd there:

The contrast was obvious to Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press:

A long line of people waited to get inside more than an hour before Santorum was scheduled to visit in Walled Lake, in western Oakland County.
The fish fry organized by the St. William Dads’ Club in a Roman Catholic parish was a venue that contrasted sharply with cavernous Ford Field, where former Massachusetts governor and Michigan native Mitt Romney spoke in Detroit today with tens of thousands of seats to spare.
Santorum, a Catholic, praised the religious tradition of abstaining from eating meat on a Friday, especially during the holy season of Lent.
“I love the smell of fish on a Friday,” Santorum said when he entered the gym to loud applause.
“The only thing I request is when you take that picture, put it up on your Facebook page.”

Santorum was swarmed by well-wishers at Walled Lake, but drew a smaller crowd at the Knights of Columbus hall in Lincoln Park, where some locals in attendance said they had only learned three hours before the event that Santorum would be there. Among those in attendance in Lincoln Park, however, were 12 members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in full habit — kind of a natural photo-op for the media in attendance:

Joe Klein of Time magazine interviews the sisters. I’ve got audio of an interview with Sister Maria, who is from the Bronx, N.Y., and was quite outspoken in her support for Santorum. But I don’t have time to transcribe that interview now, because Santorum is speaking this morning at the Americans for Prosperity forum here in Troy.

Watching Fox News this morning, I haven’t seen any coverage of Rick Santorum’s campaign in Michigan. So I guess the question must now be asked, “Why does Rupert Murdoch hate nuns?”

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Category: Catholics, Election 2012, Michigan, Rick Santorum

Comments

  • http://www.ldjackson.net/ LD Jackson

    Thanks for giving us the news on the ground in Michigan. If Rick Santorum pulls off a win in the state, do you think it will be a game changer? Or does Mitt Romney already have too much momentum?

  • Largebill

    If he’s in Ohio any of the next five Friday’s, he’s welcome to stop in at our fish fry. However, he can’t campaign there. We don’t do politics at our KofC or parish events. He is still welcome to stop in and get a decent meal at a good price (fish dinner & a beer for under $10!). Recommend the unbreaded baked fish – really good. 

  • smbren

    I live literally ten minutes from Lincoln Park. I would have run out there, but had no idea until I heard it on the news. That is how Rick does it here, shows up everywhere with not a lot of fan fare before hand.  The local press and TV news has been extremely fair to him. Not a lot of biased reporting in radio or TV.

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    If Mitt wins, but doesn’t win by a lot — the press will trumpet how he’s picking up momentum and the “inevitability” and “only electable one” will get plastered everywhere (along with accounts about how all the non-Romneys have fallen one by one).

    But if it’s a squeaker, then he’ll be in bad shape, because he stands to loose more, and public opinion will not be for him.
    If he wins it will be due to things which will make him lose and lose badly in the general (or worse yet, win it with a public that is facing the worst crisis they have ever lived through and thinking the GOP president is even more untrustworthy than W — that could also be the danger, and if that happens: look out).

  • Tennwriter

    Separation of Church and State issues worry me/ ignorant libertarian.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    So let’s run the church out of the state… and make the state our church?

  • Quartermaster

    That’s what the regressives are trying to do. On that note, the libertarians are pretty naive.

  • Quartermaster

    If it’s fish, it doesn’t have to be Friday for me. Any night will do for me.

  • http://twitter.com/motionview motion view

    Nuns for Santorum, isn’t that a little ‘dog bites man’?  How about Atheists for Santorum

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Why would you expect the Mitt News Network to cover true people of faith flocking to Rick Santorum.

    BTW, I’ve found the MNN logo to replace that old Fox thing that’s no longer operative.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Interesting – the Santorum event at a church hall had a line waiting to get in, while Romney’s event had “tens of thousands of empty seats” – all of which is technically correct.

    What the “reporter” fails to mention is how many attended the events.  How many tickets were sold to the fish fry, and how many even knew Santorum would be there if it was unannounced?  Did those who showed up do so to see Rick, or to get the dinners they already paid for?  Hmmm, no mention.  Wonder why?

    No mention either that Romney only invited 1200 people to his event which was supposed to be held in the Atrium, but was moved down to the field at the insistence of the Secret Service for security reasons.  No, that might make the “tens of thousands of empty seats” seem silly to mention, eh?

    Why bother to give readers an accurate picture of who were in attendance at each event and why?  Better not to leave the “raw facts” in the hands of the public, their interpretation might not fit the meme – sounds like the Journ-O-List credo to me.

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  • concerned

    Did any one bother to remind him od the Aquinas just war principles?  Did anyone ask him why he signed bills that fund planned parenthood.  Im Catholic not tryin  to judge anyone just wondering if all you good people out there are really looking at the record of this man…

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