Category: Rick Santorum

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Time to Quit Whining and Get to Work

Posted on Comments

This will be brief, but expect additions to follow in updates. Rick Santorum is now urging his supporters to get behind Mitt Romney:

Rick Santorum has officially endorsed Mitt Romney, and notified his supporters in an email sent Monday night.
In the email, the former presidential candidate cited his Friday meeting with Romney in his hometown of Pittsburgh as a reason he finally got behind the presumptive GOP nominee.
“On Friday, Governor Romney came to Pittsburgh for an over-hour long one-on-one meeting,” Santorum said in the email. “The conversation was candid, collegial and focused on the issues that you helped me give voice to during our campaign; because I believe they are essential ingredients to not only winning this fall, but turning our country around.” . . .
In the lengthy email, Santorum encouraged Romney to “add more conservative leaders as an integral part of his team.”
“And you can be sure that I will work with the governor to help him in this task to ensure he has a strong team that will support him in his conservative policy initiatives,” Santorum said. . . .
“Above all else, we both agree that President Obama must be defeated,” the letter read. “The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime.”

More at Memeorandum. As I say, this initial memo will be brief. If you supported Santorum, you must now respect his judgment that getting on board with the Romney campaign — “all hands on deck,” as Santorum says — is a vital obligation for all conservatives.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Santorum is scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening, and ABC’s Shushannah Walshe says that Santorum was expected to make a commitment at that time.  Santorum apparently decided to announce the endorsement as soon as he made the decision.  That may take a little of the drama out of tonight’s appearance, but it also may draw more interest as people tune in to hear Santorum’s explanation of the endorsement.

Here’s the thing I want to get across to our readers: Whenever Republicans lose a presidential election, the first thing the GOP Establishment does is to focus blame on conservatives. This is why Sarah Palin was scapegoated for the 2008 defeat, because treacherous swine like Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, who get paid to win elections, don’t want to accept responsibility for their own failures.

It is therefore an urgent necessity — however painfully ironic — that hard-core grassroots conservatives give their maximum effort to help Romney defeat Barack Obama, because if Team Mitt loses this election, you will be blamed. Your honor as a conservative, to say nothing of the future of our Republic, thus requires from you even greater labors than you would have made if Rick Santorum had won the nomination.

Like I said, “painfully ironic.”

UPDATE II: In case you don’t understand how the GOP Establishment’s blame-shifting apparatus works, Tony Lee explains it at Big Journalism. Here’s the thing: When Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace backstabbed Palin and threw her under their RINO careerism bus, they thought their vicious treachery would never be discovered, because they’re so much smarter than everybody in the conservative grassroots.

UPDATE III: As I say, however, this isn’t the time to be nursing old grudges. We’ve got find a way to win, or else expect to be blamed for the defeat. Bridget Johnson at PJM notes that Santorum’s e-mail “stressed his differences with Mitt Romney and therefore gave the need to beat President Obama as the key reason to vote for the former Massachusetts governor.” Well, of course that’s what Santorum did.

If he hadn’t been honest about the differences, his endorsement wouldn’t have persuaded anyone. Here’s the crucial word from Lisa Graas:

Since May [2011], I have been 100% behind Rick Santorum because I trust him to do what is right for America. If Rick Santorum believes that Mitt Romney will defend life and marriage, then that is good enough for me. I also now endorse Mitt Romney for President and look forward to being a part of Rick Santorum’s grassroots volunteer team to continue the fight for conservatism in America.

One of the key topics at the Mitt/Rick meeting? Vanuatu.

UPDATE IV: Readers will recall that yesterday I said it is important to let Team Mitt do their job. That is to say, we shouldn’t be disgruntled, sitting around second-guessing them and bitch, bitch, bitching for the next six months. That ain’t gonna beat Obama, OK?

Our confidence in Team Mitt should prevent us from being distracted by certain people (not on the campaign) whining because they didn’t think Santorum’s endorsement was sufficiently sycophantic.

Hey, whiners: Kissing ass is your job, not Rick’s.

UPDATE V: Robert Costa at National Review talks about Team Mitt’s new hires, including former Santorum campaign director, Mike Biundo.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been biting my tongue about this, which got linked here, and to which I obliquely replied Sunday night. Because we are now in what Ace likes to call “game faces” mode, some insults must be ignored and some injuries suffered in silence.

Our personal interests or narrow ambitions should never be confused with “the conservative movement,” which is larger than any one person. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and owe an obligation to those who suffered and sacrificed to build this movement, and who are no longer here to aid us in our struggle. Humble service is our duty, and the scrupulous fulfillment of that duty is a matter of honor.

Note, please, that this mild acknowledgement has been included in the fifth update, three hours after the original post went online. That is to say, I’ve put it where it will attract little public notice, merely so that it may be known to friends that I am fully aware.

 


Ashley Judd Makes Cruel and Tasteless Jokes About Abortion in Political Video

Posted on Comments

Barren middle-aged actress Ashley Judd in scene from
‘Rick Santorum Aborts Presidential Campaign’ video

When last we heard from bitter, childless, menopausal Ashley Judd, the over-the-hill ex-starlet gave us a feminist lecture about how she was being victimized by the oppressive gossip-blog patriarchy.

Last week, however, Judd joined forces with three more attractive actresses — fellow Hollywood liberals Michelle Trachtenberg, Katy Mixon and Eliza Coupe — in a video mocking Rick Santorum’s decision to end his presidential campaign by comparing it to an abortion:

“Oh, Mr. Santorum, take a seat. I understand you’d like to terminate your candidacy. . . . If you weren’t mature enough to carry your candidacy to term, you shouldn’t have engaged in the risky behavior that began it.”

Jennifer Hartline at Catholic Online is outraged:

The stars of the “choice” universe have gone way beyond their worn-out euphemisms and are now embracing shameless mockery. Ashley Judd and crew have made a video that mocks the act of killing babies in the womb. They mock the violence of stopping the heartbeat of a child. What a hilarious analogy they’ve drawn by comparing an abortion to Rick Santorum’s suspended Presidential campaign, if you’re someone who finds dead babies and wounded mothers hilarious. Apparently they do. . . .
So this is what we’ve come to? This is the present and future of “feminism” in America? Women openly mocking the deaths of their own children; deaths fought long and hard for; deaths campaigned and paid for; deaths celebrated as “freedom” and “rights” for women? I’d say that’s officially the bottom, folks. There’s nowhere lower to sink. That’s as pathetic and wicked as it gets.

It is customary, on certain feminist blogs, to include “trigger warnings” before discussion of topics such as sexual assault that may prompt emotional reactions caused by psychologically traumatic memories. Therefore, in consideration of the millions of women suffering from Post-Abortion Syndrome, I offer a “trigger warning” Continue reading Ashley Judd Makes Cruel and Tasteless Jokes About Abortion in Political Video →

Gingrich Gets Stomped by 30 Points in Delaware; Fourth in Pennsylvania

Posted on Comments

As predicted, the talk of Newt Gingrich winning Delaware turned out to have been delusional: Mitt Romney got 57% to Gingrich’s 27% in the state where Newt had campaigned heavily in recent weeks.

We have known since April 8 that Gingrich’s campaign was more than $4 million in debt. By continuing his campaign another 16 days, Newt appears to have placed third in Rhode Island and also third in Connecticut. He may finish within 40 points of Mitt in New York.

In his native Pennsylvania (many people forget Gingrich was born in Harrisburg), Newt appears to be on his way to a fourth-place finish behind Rick Santorum, who ended his campaign April 10.

Thanks to CAC at Ace of Spades HQ. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is going to give a speech tonight in New Hampshire, a state where Mitt (a) won the primary and (b) trails Obama in the most recent poll.

Gonna be a lot of states like that. I’m just sayin’ . . .

UPDATE: Excerpts of Romney’s speech. You know who I personally blame for Newt’s pathetic shuffling zombie campaign? Here’s a four-word clue: “Second look at Gingrich?” It’s like he didn’t take The Boss seriously: “Newt for 2012? No, thanks.”

Anyway, Allahpundit wants to see Gingrich keep going until Newt’s humiliation and embarrassment are complete, I guess.

Exit question: Are the “campaign insiders” still getting paid?

UPDATE II: Guess the checks started bouncing: It’s finally over.

FEC Reports: Gingrich Campaign Ended March With More Than $4.3 Million Debt UPDATE: ‘State of Confusion’ Over Gingrich’s North Carolina Schedule

Posted on Comments

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign finished March with debts of more than $4.3 million, according to his report released to the Federal Election Commisssion today.

Gingrich’s monthly fundraising fell by 35% in March, declining to $1.7 million from the $2.6 million he raised in February, but his campaign’s spending declined more slowly, to $2.0 million from the February total of $2.9 million. Gingrich’s campaign had finished February with about $1.55 million campaign debt, slightly more than its cash on hand total. The campaign’s debt at the end of March, however, exceeded its cash on hand by more than $3 million.

For the second consecutive month, Gingrich raised less than either of the three other Republican candidates, including Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who raised about $2.6 million in March.

Rick Santorum raised slightly more than $5 million in March, but spent about $5.8 million, finishing the month with about $185,000 more in debt ($2 milllion) than cash on hand ($1.8 million). Santorum suspended his campaign April 10, a week after losing the April 3 Wisconsin primary.

Gingrich has said he will continue campaigning, but on Friday the former House speaker suddenly canceled appearances in North Carolina scheduled for next week. His campaign spokesman said Friday that Gingrich will remain in the race and keep his Secret Service protection, which reportedly costs taxpayer more than $40,000 a day. “He’s still a candidate,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told the New York Times. “The nomination is not over.”

Mitt Romney, now the presumptive Republican nominee, raised more than $13 million in March, spent about $10.3 million, and finished the month with about $10 million cash on hand and no debt.

President Obama’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, raised $35 million in March and spent only $15.6 million, ending the month with a total of $104 million cash on hand.

UPDATE: Elicia Dover of ABC News reports a “state of confusion” in the Gingrich campaign about the candidate’s North Carolina schedule:

Two people close to the Gingrich campaign told ABC News they were contacted and told all of Gingrich’s North Carolina stops had been canceled, although R.C. Hammond, communications director for the campaign, said there was a “communication glitch.”
“There was confusion, but we will maintain our North Carolina schedule next week,” Hammond said.
One person close to the campaign said the stops were certainly canceled, then resumed after news reports left looming suspicion, even among his own staff, that Gingrich was suspending his campaign. . . .
Hammond denied the stops were resumed purely to extinguish speculation Gingrich was dropping out.

UPDATE II: Linked by Allahpundit at Hot Air. Thanks.

UPDATE III: R.C. Hammond tells CBS News that Newt sees “a sign that we need to keep scrapping, keep fighting.” CBS notes that Gingrich’s “Winning Our Future” super-PAC got its last $5 million check from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson on March 21, three days before the Louisiana primary, where Gingrich placed a distant third.

UPDATE IV: Alex Moe of NBC News reports that Gingrich has been spending most of his time in Delaware, which holds its primary Tuesday, and quotes “a source close to the Gingrich campaign” as saying: “Tuesday is a big day. … Newt is just waiting to see what happens on Tuesday.”

What will happen Tuesday is, Newt will lose.

By the way, Newt’s campaign was the last to file its FEC report Friday. Ron Paul’s report was posted about 12:30 p.m., Mitt Romney’s about 2:30 p.m., and Rick Santorum about 4:45 p.m. The Gingrich campaign’s report didn’t go online until after 8 p.m., which almost guaranteed that it wouldn’t be reported in Saturday’s papers.

UPDATE V: There is probably some kind of literary metaphor in this report from ABC News:

The campaign’s list of debts and obligations is long, but Gingrich owes the most money to Moby Dick Airways Ltd., a private charter company based in Sterling, Virginia.

“Call me Ishmael.”

RECENTLY:

Narrative Arc: Second-Guessing Palin, Santorum’s Story and Romney’s Doom

Posted on Comments

Sarah Palin speaks in Manchester, N.H., Sept. 5, 2011

Yesterday, Ross Douthat engaged in a “counterfactual” what-if about the 2012 primary campaign: Could Sarah Palin have won?

Speculation unmoored from actual facts is one of those games intellectuals love to play. It’s light work for brainy people to imagine what might have been in an alternative universe. By contrast, the business of reporting — trying to get sources to return your calls, for example — is often enormously frustrating and the labor-to-output ratio sometimes makes you wonder if it’s worth it.

Why bother picking up the phone, when you can just speculate?

Successful politics involves telling stories — “narrative arc,” as the intellectuals say. In 2008, Sarah Palin had an awesome narrative arc: Feisty mother of five, husband an oil worker and snowmobile race champ, she fought the odds, beat the Republican establishment, became governor of Alaska, and was plucked from (relative) obscurity as the surprise choice for vice-presidential running mate.

Then her enemies went to work on her, and messed up that story, so she was scapegoated for John McCain’s 2008 loss and was made a symbol of everything anybody might hate about the Republican Party: A religious fanatic. A negligent mother. A tacky, selfish, scheming manipulator. An unsophisticated airhead lacking basic knowledge about major policy matters, who quit before her first term ended under a cloud of ethics allegations, and then cashed in with a book deal, a reality show, and a contract with Fox News.

A 2012 Palin for President campaign would have been about repudiating that negative version of her story, recapturing the narrative arc of the feisty Alaska hockey mom that had made her a heroine to so many people in 2008. And I would have loved to cover that campaign.

Peter Singleton and Michelle McCormick had me half-convinced at one point it might actually happen. (See, “Still Waiting for Sarah,” The American Spectator, Aug. 22.) I traveled to New Hampshire over Labor Day weekend to cover a Palin rally (“The People’s Palin,” The American Spectator, Sept. 6) where she drew a bigger crowd — and vastly more media coverage — than Mitt Romney had the day before. By the time she finally bowed out (“Sarah Says No,” The American Spectator, Oct. 6) Palin’s supporters had endured two months of agony, only to have their hearts broken, and were exposed to sadistic mockery from Erick Erickson merely for having hoped at all.

Perhaps you understand why I don’t particularly relish watching Ross Douthat, Allahpundit and Philip Klein (none of whom were ever prominently pro-Palin) do a leisurely re-hash of the hypothetical counterfactuals of a Palin campaign that didn’t happen. Continue reading Narrative Arc: Second-Guessing Palin, Santorum’s Story and Romney’s Doom →

The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’

Posted on Comments

Newt Gingrich tells the truth:

During a meeting with 18 Delaware Tea Party leaders here on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich lambasted FOX News Channel, accusing the cable network of having been in the tank for Mitt Romney from the beginning of the Republican presidential fight. An employee himself of the news outlet as recently as last year, he also cited former colleagues for attacking him out of what he characterized as personal jealousy.
“I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said during the private meeting — to which RealClearPolitics was granted access — at Wesley College. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact.” . . .
“I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point [who] said, ‘I want Romney,’ and so ‘fair and balanced’ became ‘Romney,’ ” Gingrich said. “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches FOX.”

Four quick points:

  1. Newt can say this, now that his campaign is $4 million in debt and he’s got zero chance of winning the nomination.
  2. Newt used to work for Fox. I suspect he’s been talking to CNN executives about a future gig.
  3. It’s not Murdoch who makes the calls, but Roger Ailes and top executives and producers who are the shot-callers at Fox News.
  4. Scott Conroy does something here that annoys my inner copy editor, namely writing FOX in all caps, as if it were an acronym, which it’s not. The name originated as 20th Century Fox, a company that was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and re-branded, first as the Fox broadcast TV network and then in such cable spinoffs as Fox News Channel (FNC). But the word “Fox” is not an acronym, and people who want to write it “FOX” — evidently trying to match the acronyms by which other networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc.) are known — are simply wrong, and must be corrected, lest the erroneous example be imitated.

Scott Conroy has done excellent work in his career — scooped me on my own beat more than once — but that one little thing gets on my nerves so bad I could scream. However, I digress . . .

Having closely scrutinized coverage of this year’s campaign, I know what Newt’s talking about, and certain stipulations must be made: Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren were quite even-handed in their treatment of the GOP candidates. Sean and Greta both gave time to underdog candidates, including Rick Santorum and Herman Cain during the months when they seemed permanently stuck in the campaign purgatory of “second-tier” status.

Coverage of the campaign by the dayside programs on Fox News, however, seemed to be dictated by behind-the-scenes producers who exhibited a clear bias toward front-runners and even — as during the ludicrous Donald Trump faux-candidacy — toward certain Big Names that were merely the objects of ill-informed presidential speculation.

Let’s just say it, OK?

I love Sarah Palin, and would have loved to cover her campaign if she had run, but once Rick Perry jumped in (and remember, Palin had endorsed Perry in his 2010 primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison) it seemed blindingly obvious that Palin wasn’t running. The subsequent six-week will-she-or-won’t-she game struck me as a made-for-TV drama cleverly scripted by Roger Ailes for the specific purpose of boosting his own network’s ratings.

There: Now, I’ve said it.

In terms of political judgment, Bill O’Reilly is a nincompoop, his entire worldview shaped by his New York D’Amato/Giuliani Republican Party machine frame of reference. The commentators who appear most frequently on Fox’s D.C.-based programs — Chris Stirewalt, Stephen Hayes, etc. — all bring to the table their own prejudices. And the network’s reverential touch-the-hem-of-his-garment attitude toward Karl Rove makes me want to puke. Continue reading The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’ →

Good News, Bad News

Posted on Comments

Mitt Romney calls Rick Santorum and says, “Rick, I’ve got good news for you, and I’ve got bad news for you. Which do you want to hear first?”

Santorum says, “Well, gosh, Mitt, I just quit the race, and I’m still kinda bummed out. Guess I could use the good news first.”

Romney says, “OK, you’ll be glad to know, my advisers and I have been talking it over and, with all the hard feelings after that tough primary campaign, we think it’s really important to unify the party. So we want you to give a primetime speech at the convention in Tampa.”

Santorum says, “Wow, Mitt! Thanks! That’s really a great gesture, and I appreciate how much this will mean to getting conservatives fired up for the fall campaign. But . . . what’s the bad news?” Continue reading Good News, Bad News →

A Couple Things Wrong, Jim Antle

Posted on Comments

Jim Antle of the American Spectator gets almost everything right in this column about the 2012 campaign. His two most glaring errors:

Yet if Santorum had done just a bit better in Michigan and Ohio, we could be having a very different discussion right now. Santorum showed future conservative contenders how to go hunting where the ducks are. As the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed, a Republican like Bobby Jindal could take the Santorum coalition — Southerners, Midwesterners, evangelicals, Catholics, and Reagan Democrats — and build on it.

  1. Error: Never quote Ross Douchebag.
  2. Error: Bobby Jindal zigged when he should have zagged.
    I remember the Sept. 13 CNN Tea Party Express debate in Tampa, encountering Bobby Jindal as he exited the CNN tent outside the auditorium. Jindal had endorsed Rick Perry and was appearing on CNN as a Perry surrogate along with Objective Political Analyst Erick Erickson.

The Perry campaign was a predictable disaster — “The Phantom Menace” — and the way Jindal climbed aboard that bandwagon irritated me at the time. I’ve always liked Jindal, but Ross Douchebag’s idea that Jindal “could take the Santorum coalition” is based on the presumption that Santorum has no future plans for that coalition.

It’s one of those ideas Ivy-educated Boy Geniuses get, like “Tim Pawlenty, Conservative Alternative to Romney,” or “Second Look at Newt.”

Pundits like to think up clever ideas that impress their peers as “counterintuitive,” but are actually just counter to common sense. The really genius ideas, however, are always the kind of common sense things that seem stupid to people who think of themselves as clever.

What does common-sense genius look like? I remember when Steve Foley called me on Election Night 2010 and said, “Whaddya think about Herman Cain?” That was a genius idea. I remember when Lisa Graas said to me in August, “Hey, while you’re in Iowa, do you think you could go check out Rick Santorum?” That was a genius idea.

Now, here’s another common-sense genius idea: Rick Santorum spends the next four months working on his convention speech. And I mean honing it ’til it shines: Every word, every pause, the whole thing committed to memory and rehearsed until it is absolutely perfect.

So that when Santorum gets his primetime moment in Tampa, millions of Americans will say, “Damn. Why didn’t Republicans nominate him?”

Yesterday, somebody started the “Rick 2016? Facebook page.

Common-sense genius, you see.