2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIs there any substantive opposition research on Santorum?
I "know" he is bat-shit crazy. But he does NOT consider his crazy utterances as gaffes, and apparently NEITHER does the Republican base.
Do you think Obama is prepared to run against Santorum? Has the DNC put together anything? Anybody have links to opposition research that is more informed than merely saying "he will scare independents", etc?
cindyperry2010
(846 posts)would it i mean really this guy is so out there
Joe Bacon
(5,165 posts)From The Skeleton Closet:
http://www.realchange.org/santorum.htm
One of the 3 Most Corrupt Senators
Santorum is one of the most corrupt politicians in recent memory, by which I mean, he repeatedly sponsored laws giving very specific help to companies -- worth millions of dollars -- and they immediately gave him large campaign donations and -- after he left the Senate -- hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars in cash that went directly into his pocket and made him rich. He was twice named one of America's 3 most corrupt senators by CREW, a clean-government group, and has become a millionaire from payments by these companies since was voted out of the Senate in 2006.
For example, Santorum bragged in 2006 that he had steered millions of dollars in earmarks to clients of American Continental Group, a lobbying firm. They gave him $14,000 that year in donations, and after he left office paid him $65,000 for legislative policy consulting services. Another firm he helped, Consol Energy, paid him $142,500 just in 2010 and 2011.
But that's nothing compared to what he got from Universal Health Service, a medical company with facilities in Puerto Rico that has been sued for Medicare fraud. You see, while in Congress, Santorum kept pushing very specific laws increasing Medicare payments in Puerto Rico; one would have cost the government $400 million. (The eventual bill gave them more money, but not that much.)
That seems like an odd cause for a small-government Senator from Pennsylvania to work so hard on -- until you find out Universal Health Service paid Santorum $395,000 for his "insights" after he left the Senate, and appointed him to their Board of Directors. During his time on the Board, UHS was sued for Medicare fraud (and settled out of court), and several of their facilities had their certifications suspended or cancelled.
Santorum, who entered the Senate as one of the least wealthy congresspeople, bought a $2 million, 5,000 SF house in Great Falls, VA in 2007. It has 4 bedrooms and 5 baths, and sits on 5 acres, and goes well with the 5 rental houses he has accumulated since entering Congress.
While in the Senate, Santorum held weekly meetings supporting Tom Delay's "K-Street Project," an effort to fill lobbying groups with Republican loyalists. And they rewarded him handsomely, even back then. In 2006, he received $500,000 from lobbyists, far more than any other federal candidate -- 40% more than the #2 recipient, George Allen.
It's true that CREW -- the group that named him one of the 3 most corrupt senators, out of 100 -- is a liberal-leaning group. Only five of their 25 corrupt congresscritters in 2006 were Democrats -- but they have pretty good credibility on the people they include. (Who they leave out may be a different story.) Their reports, which come out every year, are meticulously documented with solid media sources, ethics investigation reports and required government filings by the congresspeople themselves. They only picked 3 Senators out of 100, and Santorum was one of them. Most of the Congresspeople convicted of bribery or other ethical crimes since then -- such as Democrat William Jefferson, and Republicans Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham - were listed first in these reports. They're pretty solid.
Now, unlike Jefferson and Cunningham, no one is accusing Santorum of direct bribery -- no one found bundles of cash in his freezer -- but he had a remarkably consistent pattern of collecting money from big special interests right at the time he did them big, highly specific favors. We're not talking about generic actions like voting to keep taxes low. These are very detailed provisions, added to bills by Santorum, that put millions of dollars in the coffers of these companies.
One dramatic example was Santorum introducing a bill that required the National Weather Service to keep collecting weather data, but said they couldn't release it to the public! They had to hand it to private weather companies who then would make the profit off of it. Guess what? Accuweather, a private weather company in Santorum's state, gave him tens of thousands of dollars right during the time he promoted this absurd bill.
There are many more examples -- $25,000 from execs at Waste Management & Processes, Inc. after Santorum proposed a $100 million subsidy for their coal-to-diesel plant; $6,000 from Miller and Annheuser-Busch right before Santorum introduced a bill cutting the beer barrel excise tax in half; $20,000 from tobacco interests around the time he blocked a law allowing the FDA to regulate tobacco, etc. etc. It's pretty shameless even by Congressional standards.
bowens43
(16,064 posts)this freak would be even easier to beat then perry or bachman. I think the republican base, except for a very slim percentage on the extreme lunatic fringe also consider him to be bat shit crazy.
but don't get your hopes up. I'm still convinced it's going to be Romney.
NAO
(3,425 posts)the base are embracing him as the anti-romney, and they believe he is a "True Conservative";
further the evangelical pastor council held in TX choose him above all others as their preferred candidate;
and now the entire RCC bishop and priest, in every Mass in the United States is telling their congregants that Obama is "immoral", "evil", "an enemy of religion" and part of the "culture of death".
every evangelical pastor is telling people that the "abortion pill mandate" is part of Obama's "war on religion";
The CPAC people love him; ppp has him polling above Romney and Gingrich.
They may consider him "crazy" but they have been telling themselves that nothing could be worse than Obama; they were willing to embrace ANY candidate who could "beat Obama", even Mitt whom they hate.
renie408
(9,854 posts)I thought that the states he won were the just-for-show states. I wonder if maybe they felt safe in those states to vote for him knowing that their votes didn't really count. Also, in all three states that he won, turnout was miserable. Santorum is in the exact same position Gingrich was in a month ago. A month ago everybody was saying that Gingrich was the man to beat and the chosen Non-Romney. Today it is Santorum. Actually, I just read that Paul is winning Maine with Santorum in a distant third, so today maybe the chosen Non-Romney is Paul.
God, it has to suck to be Mitt Romney and watch the party that he has cut backflips to fit into desperately trying to find somebody, ANYBODY other than him to nominate.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,460 posts)I expect that the "establishment" GOP and MSM will begin putting out his "greatest hits" any day now-Terri Schiavo, comparing homosexuality to bestiality, proclaiming that we had found WMDs in Iraq, claiming that Obama is leading religious conservatives to the guillotine, billing taxpayers for his cyber-schooling, etc. There's plenty of material to work with and he's anything but mainstream.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Proud Liberal Dem
(24,460 posts)the better for us.
Any thoughts about whether or not Mitt might seriously consider asking Santorum about being his veep? Anybody wondering if he isn't thinking about offering him the job? If the social regressives accept the deal and Santorum drops out of the race for POTUS, Romney's path to the coronation......er......nomination would be clear and the regressives would probably be more supportive of him. Santorum doesn't have Newt's massive ego and would probably be o.k. with a VP slot. He has to realize that his "surge" may not last long.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)This guy is "squeaky" clean for a GOP politician. People here who dismiss him as a lunatic see him through our lens as liberals. The low information ignorant masses will just see him as a clean-cut good-looking guy with a nice family and is very religious. I think he could be harder to beat than Romney.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)in the eyes of the Republicons, anyway, is that shenanigans he pulled by having a school district in Pennsylvania pay for some sort of home-schooling scam while his family members were probably technically residents of Virginia. Tea partiers don't like to see any kind of government spending they consider wasteful, and this looks that way.
The vast majority of the GOP base either doesn't have any problems with, or actually lauds him for his stands on freedom for gay people and other culture war issues. They may be a problem for him in the general, but he's got to win the nomination first before he addresses those issues with independent voters.
NAO
(3,425 posts)he's squeaky clean and his followers don't consider his crazy utterances gaffes - they consider them to be honest, principled statements.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)there is the whole tax issue, where he was claiming a 2 bedroom house with no furniture or curtains as his "primary residence" for tax purposes. Said empty house was outside of Pittsburgh. Santorum family was living large in Virginia.
If anyone has oppo research, it would be Bob Casey. He beat Santorum a few years ago by like 19 points or something and kicked him out of his Senate seat.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)I doubt the M$M will cover this. People here seem to think that Santorum will be easy to beat; but, he's done enough favors for the Powers That Be to assure that they are willing to spend big money to (s)elect him.
NAO
(3,425 posts)to rupture things "underground"?
The process that results in a " frothy mix of lube and waste matter that is sometimes the byproduct" of the struggle to expel gas and oil?
Talk about "unnatural acts" done against nature!
DebJ
(7,699 posts)of either party.