Rick Rolling The Country, Part 5

So this nonsense about Rick Santorum quitting for noble reasons about his daughter and family?  Naah, he was out of money.

Rick Santorum said Thursday that he ended his presidential bid because he ran out of money, his campaign was in debt and he would have been unable to air any advertising in Pennsylvania.

"Money isn't everything in politics, but you do have to have enough to be successful, and we were reaching a point where we were frankly not in the position," Santorum said in his first interview since suspending his campaign Tuesday, on the "Today's Issues" show on the American Family Radio Network. "We simply didn't have the resources to compete going forward."

The remarks were the most direct Santorum has made about why he dropped out of the race two weeks before a critical primary in his home state, Pennsylvania. Previously, he alluded to his seriously ill youngest child who was recently hospitalized, as well as the allocation of delegates in upcoming contests.

In the interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Santorum said his campaign organization had grown and had been "just burning through cash" in recent contests, while donations slowed to a "trickle," leaving the campaign in debt for the first time and for an amount that Santorum said he was not comfortable with.

"I'll be honest with you, Tony - in the last week after Wisconsin, we basically raised almost no money," Santorum said. "We had solicitations going out and people were just emailing back saying the race was over."

Nice of him to admit the truth two days later.  What a hero.

Look, Santorum was basically told he was getting out when his backers were told THEY were getting behind Romney.  It's a Citizens United world, and it goes both ways.  Whoever controls the big fish, controls the race, and Ricky here lost control some time ago.  He was never a serious candidate, just a bargaining chip to make sure Mitt Romney was going to go the full Tea Party route.  The wingers with all the money are satisfied now, so Santorum got cut off along with Newt.  Game ends.

Now the real battle begins.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/12/145038/santorum-says-he-quit-campaign.html#storylink=cpy

Last Call

Bye Ricky.  We'll miss you.  Not.  Signed, Blah People everywhere.

Rick Santorum announced Tuesday that he is suspending his presidential campaign, all but bringing to a close the 2012 GOP presidential contest and effectively handing the nomination to Mitt Romney.

“We made a decision over the weekend that, while this presidential race for us is over — for me — and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said at a campaign event in Gettysburg, Pa., the site of the historic and pivotal Civil War battle.

The former Pennsylvania senator had been Romney’s top opponent, but he suffered a trio of defeats last week in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and over the weekend his daughter, Bella, was hospitalized for the second time this campaign due to complications from a rare genetic disorder.

In announcing his decision, Santorum said Bella’s condition caused him to reconsider his campaign but that she “is a fighter and doing extraordinarily well.”

He did not endorse or urge the delegates that he has won to support another candidate, but spokesman Hogan Gidley told MSNBC that the Romney campaign has requested a meeting about an endorsement, which he said Santorum is “open” to.

I bet.  And I'm sure everyone will forget the last three months of brutal Santorum attacks on Romney, just like everyone will magically forget Romney's extremist positions in order to stay ahead of him.  Please.

Let the real games begin.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: Farmer In The Dells

Looks like Mittens has all but ended this thing with a clean sweep of Tuesday's contests in Maryland, DC, and Wisconsin.

Mitt Romney rode a wave of high-profile endorsements to victories over Rick Santorum in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, DC on Tuesday.

Only Wisconsin, where Santorum led polls just weeks ago, was considered competitive. The GOP there is currently preoccupied with Governor Scott Walker’s (R) impending recall election, making the presidential race a sideshow, but Romney’s usual spending dominance and a growing sense of inevitability helped hand him a win.

“We’ve now reached the point where it’s halftime,” Santorum declared to supporters Tuesday night. “Who’s ready to charge out of the locker room in Pennsylvania for a strong second half?’

Romney’s nowhere near the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination and Santorum’s campaign is pledging to go all the way to convention, talking up far-off states like Texas at the end of May. Santorum’s next shot at a winnable race will be his home state of Pennsylvania on April 24, a date that also includes several Northeastern states where Romney is expected to dominate.

I personally think it will take a Santorum loss in Pennsylvania to seal the deal, but frankly the next 3 weeks of pressure on him to quit is going to be brutal.  We'll see what happens, but despite Santorum vowing he can win Texas in May, it won't matter.

But by all means, continue to drain Mitt of his precious resources as you fight on, as Mitt still can't get more than 50% in a competitive primary...

Romney Gets That Poll-Asked Look

The latest USA Today swing state poll shows a massive shift in the last six weeks as the GOP has gone full bore into their War on Women, and it's costing the Republicans dearly.

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.

The numbers are even worse for Santorum.  It's painfully clear that if this keeps up, President Obama will win in a landslide.  The Tea Party Misogyny Monster has been unleashed and in six weeks it has turned into a 15 point swing in Obama's favor overall.  In these same swing states in late February, Santorum had a 5 point lead and Romney 3.   Now Obama is up 9 on Mitt and 11 on Rick.

The GOP War on Women is rapidly turning into a complete disaster for the Republicans.  No wonder so many GOP bigwigs are lining up behind Romney and want the primary season over ASAP so they can get back to lying about Romney's record and he can stop having to say he'd get rid of Planned Parenthood to keep Rick off his back.

Sadly, it's looking like it's too late.  Gosh, I'm all torn up.

Last Call

Megadeth rock icon Dave Mustaine:  Birther idiot.  Santorum supporter.  Oy.

Megadeth guitarist Dave Mustaine said in an interview with a Canadian television show “The Hour” that he “has a lot of questions about him [President Obama], but certainly not where he was born. I know he was born somewhere else than America.”

“Well, then you’re a birther,” said host George Stroumboulopoulos, who had asked Mustaine directly whether he was one.

“No I’m not calling a question to it, I just, you know, what’s the point?” Mustaine said, who then proceeded to say that Obama had been “invisible” until he became President.

Earlier in the interview, Mustaine had lamented the state of American politics, casting aspersions on nearly all the Republican candidates as well, except for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Mustaine previously said that he hoped Santorum would make it to the White House, and then said he hadn’t actually given his endorsement, essentially citing some semantics about what he meant.

In the new interview, Mustaine said that Santourm “…just looks like he could be a really cool president, kinda like a JFK type of guy.”

OK, sort of a birther idiot, sort of a Santorum supporter.  Sort of.   Still a douchebag.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: The Big Sleazy

Rick Santorum easily won the Louisiana GOP primary Saturday, with exit polls showing such a clear win that the race was called by all the major networks as soon as polls closed at 9 PM EDT.  By 11 PM he had about 50% of the vote and Romney was in danger of not even getting the 25% he needed to capture any delegates.

But it was the exit polls that showed the most interesting parts of the story.  75% of primary voters were 45 and older, 94% white.

The troubling news for Romney in the state:  Santorum won self-described conservatives as well as moderates and liberals.  Santorum won voters who said the economy was the most important issue by 13 points (and deficit voters by one point).  Romney did win by 23 points among those who said that a candidate who could defeat President Obama was the most important, but overall that was just 38% of the voters.  Santorum won overwhelmingly among those who were looking for moral or conservative candidates.  Romney didn't even get 10% of either category, and Santorum got 70% of them.  Combined, they made up 46% of the voters.

Here's the real shocker:  44% said Mitt Romney was the most likely candidate who could win.  27% of those folks voted for Santorum anyway, whereas of the third of the voters who said Santorum was the most likely candidate who could win in November, 94% of them indeed put their vote where their opinion was.

More people thought Newt Gingrich understood their problems better than Romney, 26-21%.  42% thought Santorum did.  Most important question, if only Romney and Santorum were on the ballot, Santorum would have won 59-37%.

Now, does any of this matter?  Will Gingrich finally get the hint?  Who knows?  Anyhow, a week from Tuesday brings us to Maryland and Wisconsin.  Will anything have changed by then?  Probably not.

We'll see.

Last Call

On a day where President Obama spoke about Trayvon Martin's murder and said the following:

"All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen," President Obama said Friday morning following a White House Rose Garden ceremony when asked about the 17-year-old's death.
The president called the shooting a "tragedy" and says "every aspect" of the case should be investigated. Obama gave his condolences to the slain teenager's parents and said if he had a son, "he'd look like Trayvon."

We have this going on at a Rick Santorum event...

At a shooting range in Louisiana on Friday, an onlooker encouraged Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to pretend the target he was firing at was President Barack Obama.
“Santorum is shooting a 1911 Colt,” Politico’s Juana Summers tweeted from the sheriff’s office shooting range in West Monroe. “Range master says ‘Well, it’s not your first rodeo.’ Someone here says ‘pretend its Obama.’”

...and this out of the mouth of Newt Gingrich....

In a radio interview on Thursday, Newt Gingrich returned to one of his favorite recent themes, what he calls the “elite media” and their conspiracy to aid and abet the Obama administration.

In an article at Huffington Post, the former Speaker of the House is quoted as saying to Sandy Rios of the American Family Association that the “elite media” are “in the tank for Obama” and will do everything they can to see him re-elected.

“It is just astonishing to me how pro-Obama they are,” he said, “Do you think you are going to see two pages on Obama’s Muslim friends? Or two pages on the degree to which Obama is consistently apologizing to Islam while attacking the Catholic church?”

...and I just shake my head.  I'm a black male who has survived to the ripe old age of 36 and is not incarcerated.  I'm an exception in this country, it seems.  I live in one of the 24 states that has a law that solely exists to justify the use of deadly force as the ultimate sanction against someone who is merely perceived to be a threat, without evidence, due process, or the right to face your accuser (because hey, you're effing dead.)  The legislative need to create laws like this is a symptom of a much more awful syndrome, and in every case these laws were passed by "pro-life" Republicans led by the gun lobbyists.

These laws are designed to allow vigilantism, period.  It's the worst impulse of the whole Glibertarian/Paulite/Somali Pirate anarcho-justice codified into "I get to decide who lives and who dies, and I reserve the right to exercise that impulse at any point."  We're all castles stomping around killing each other, and may the best, most heavily armed castle win.  And as far as Republicans are concerned, well that impulse extends to "We've decided that having a black President violates our right not to have one, so we're going to do something about it from the ground up."

Trayvon Martin's awful, pointless murder is just a symptom of a much uglier sickness.

[UPDATE]  Newt doubles down.

“What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful,” Gingrich said on the Hannity Radio show. “It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

“Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”

Effing. Perfect.

Governor Etch-A-Sketch Gets Scorched

As JM Ashby notes over at Bob Cesca's place, Slick Rick has wasted zero time going after Mitt Romney's latest gaffe and he's swinging hard.

As ThinkProgress first noted this morning, Mitt Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney can “restart” in the general election, should he win the GOP nomination — “almost like an Etch A Sketch.” Challenger Rick Santorum, who has sought to portray Romney as inconsistent, pounced on the statement. His campaign sent an email to reporters, calling the comments “shocking” and saying it shows Romney “will change positions.” Later, Santorum himself took up the attack, telling a crowd in Louisiana that the comment shows Romney will “say what he needs to say to win the election that is before him, and if he has to say something different, because it’s a different election and a different group of voters, he’s willing to say that too.”

And this is Romney's braintrust basically admitting that anything Mitt Romney says before he's nominated is null and void.  You don't get more cynical and jaded than that, and Santorum knows it.

Of course Mitt Romney will "change positions" after the nomination.  If he doesn't, he'll lose by even more than Santorum would as the nominee.  There's a word when you change positions and then completely deny the fact that you changed positions:  Lie.

Rachel Maddow rips into Mittens over everything Etch-A-Sketch and calls him out on those lies.



And yes, she outright calls Mitt Romney a liar.  Point blank.  Several, several times.  Because Mitt Romney is a liar who lies.  Constantly.

In the general election, he figures you're too stupid to recall he's a liar, or that the Village will give him "President Obama is just as bad!" cover.  He's counting on both.  Maddow here at least calls him on the act.  More of this, please.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: Da Bearz And Da Bull

Mittens has claimed Illinois.  The crowd went "meh."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney scored a decisive win in Tuesday night's Illinois Republican presidential primary, CNN projects, running ahead of his top remaining rival by a double-digit margin.

"We thank the people of Illinois for this extraordinary victory," Romney told supporters in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg. "Elections are about choices. Today, hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois joined millions of people in this country in this cause."

Mittens ended up with less than 50% of the vote, which is not what Mitt wanted to see in a "two-person race" between Romney and Not Romney.  Not Romney still won Illinois.  The Santorum folks at this point are running to get enough delegates to keep Mitt from hitting 1,144 and forcing...something.  An actual brokered convention, I guess.  Somehow, I think the pressure on Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul are going to be very, very strong now.  The GOP leadership wants this over with.  They want to start running against President Obama.

The much larger problem is that this is still a contested primary, and the turnout was pathetic. In 2008 900k votes were cast on a Super Tuesday showdown that all but sealed John McCain as the nominee .  The battle was over by Valentine's Day.  This year, the turnout was closer to 700k and Illinois was more important than ever. 

GOP's in trouble.  Bad trouble.  Nobody to blame but themselves.

Last Call

Expanding on what Bon said today, Rick Santorum has a Pastor Dennis Terry problem.

One of the great refined arts of contemporary American politics is the Cultural Right “dog-whistle”—the ability of candidates to pose as just normal, standard-brand conservatives mainly concerned with creating jobs and balancing the federal budget—even as they deploy veiled appeals to voters mainly interested in criminalizing abortion and same-sex relationships, putting racial, ethnic and religious minorities back in their place, and generally restoring the mores and folkways of an idealized American past.

But when campaigns get down to the lick-log, and defeat seems imminent, sometimes there’s no time for “dog whistles,” or for confining the unvarnished cultural message to quiet, unobserved places where hints and code-words can be discarded (you know, like Ave Maria University). Sometimes you just have to let it all hang out. I supposed that’s how Rick Santorum found himself yesterday being introduced in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in this manner (h/t Right Wing Watch):

So by the transitive properties of Jeremiah Wright, Rick Santorum hates all liberals, gays, single women and women who want control of their uteri, and "that one."

Oh wait, we knew that already.  This isn't news.

Hell, he doesn't even care about unemployment.

We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom. Who's going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race. I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on. We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says that the president runs the economy? What conservative says I'm the guy, because of my economic experience, that can create jobs? I don't know. We conservatives generally think that government doesn't create jobs. That what government does is create an atmosphere for jobs to be created in the private sector.

All that matters is GET RID OF THE BLACK GUY AND THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED HIM.  Got it?   Don't think it's war?

They do.

Loco Hombre

Well, Rick Santorum just handed Puerto Rico to Mitt Romney.

In an interview with El Vocero newspaper, Santorum said he supported Puerto Ricans' right to self-determination regarding the island's political status.

"We need to work together and determine what type of relationship we want to develop," he told the newspaper.

But Santorum said he did not support a state in which English was not the primary language.

"Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law," Santorum said. "And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language."

However, the U.S. Constitution does not designate an official language, nor is there a requirement that a territory adopt English as its primary language in order to become a state.

Yeah, I'm sure that's just a temporary oversight that will be corrected by President Santorum shortly after taking office.

Mitt should thank him with some arepas de coco.  He's going to need the delegates.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: Southbound And Down

The South is covered in a thin, nauseating layer of Santorum this morning as Slick Rick took Alabama by 6 points, 35% to 29% for both Gingrich and Romney, and Mississippi by 2 points, 33% to Newt's 31% and Mitt's 30%.

And yes, this means Romney came in third in both contests.  He did make up some ground by winning Hawaii with 45% of the vote to Santorum's 25%.  But the fact is, Romney can't close the deal with the most strident members of the base and he now has a serious problem on his hands.

That means, of course, that the GOP has a major problem on its hands. Yes, when Romney is finally nominated, Republicans will get behind him...but not all of them.  He got 30% or less in Alabama and Mississippi, and you can't tell me that there won't be Republican voters there will stay home and do nothing rather than vote for Romney.

The battle now moves on to open primaries in Puerto Rico this weekend and Illinois on Tuesday, Puerto Rico's contest is winner-take-all and Illinois's 69 delegates are a bigger haul than even Ohio, and a week from Saturday is Louisiana's contest and Missouri's convention caucus.   After that, we head into April, including New York and Pennsylvania on April 24.

It's looking more and more like Romney may not be able to wrap up the 1,144 delegates he'll need by the convention.  If that starts becoming clear, expect the pressure on Gingrich to really heat up.

Last Call

And Slick Rick wins Kansas.  Because everyone else bailed.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, whose top two foes essentially conceded the state, will win Saturday's GOP caucuses in Kansas, CNN projected.

The victory came on the heels of three Santorum victories on Super Tuesday. His campaign said the Kansas win showed that tea party loyalists and conservatives continue to rally around him.

Santorum, campaigning in Springfield, Missouri, on Saturday afternoon, went after President Barack Obama, criticizing the president's stance on energy, health care, Iran and the debt. The Republican candidate also talked about entitlement programs.

"In the eyes of the president, America is a great country because government redistributes wealth," Santorum said.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich abandoned plans to campaign in Kansas and instead focused on Tuesday primaries in Mississippi and Alabama. Texas Rep. Ron Paul campaigned in Kansas on Friday and Saturday.

With 99% of the Kansas vote tallied, Santorum had 51%, Romney, 21%, Gingrich, 14% and Paul 13%.

It's funny.  Jesus's message of  "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me" is 2012 is now "socialist wealth redistribution" and should be shunned and hated along with those who practice it.  It irritates me that Republicans don't believe in America, they believe in whatever they can gain for themselves.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Rick Santorum keeps it classy ahead of today's vote.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum compared the Obama administration to a drug dealer who wants to get Americans hooked on entitlement programs to expand his power.

Santorum said the president's health care law in a new addictive drug.

"That's how they see you, as people, to get hooked like a drug dealer, someone to become dependent on them and once that happens, they got you," Santorum said during a speech to several hundred people at Grace Church late Sunday. "America is changed forever. No country that has socialized medicine has ever gone back the other way, no country that has lost its freedom has ever regained it."

You're all ghetto junkies, you people who want dialysis and colon cancer screenings and heart medication.  Real Americans wouldn't need medicine.  Pretty soon we're going to get to the point where sick people themselves are downcast in the eyes of the Lord and need to be "let go" so that the rest of us don't have our freedoms curtailed.  America was sooooo much better before one of them became President.  Now look at us!

Either that or Santorum's going to slip and use the n-word.  I prefer the latter, at least it would be Santorum actually saying what's on his tiny, warped little mind.

Nice jobs speech, by the way.  Asshole.

Pinhead Wizards

Well, if Tom Jensen's poll numbers are to be believed (and PPP has been pretty much spot on in the past with a good track record) then Stupor Tuesday it could be a long, long day for the forces of Romnevibility(tm).

The news is good for Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and bad for Rick Santorum in PPP's final polls of the three biggest Super Tuesday states.

In Ohio Romney leads with 37% to 36% for Santorum, 15% for Gingrich, and 11% for Ron Paul.

In Tennessee Santorum leads with 34% to 29% for Romney, 27% for Gingrich, and 8% for Paul.

In Georgia Gingrich leads with 47% to 24% for Romney, 19% for Santorum, and 8% for Paul.

A week ago Santorum had a huge lead in Tennessee, a decent sized one in Ohio, and seemed like he had a good chance for second in Georgia. Now he's barely holding on in Tennessee, ever so slightly behind in Ohio, and seems doomed for third in Georgia.

Romney's fortunes have swung the other direction. What was looking like a runner up finish in Ohio is looking more like a win with each passing day. He has an outside chance at pulling off an upset win in Tennessee. And it looks like he'll finish a solid second in Georgia.

The news for Gingrich is good too. It's been expected he would win Georgia, but it looks now like he could even hit the 50% mark. And he's pulled within striking distance of Santorum and Romney in Tennessee.

We're at a tipping point. A Gingrich win in Georgia with him getting over 50% keeps him in the game, as does a Santorum win in Tennessee (especially if Romney slips into 3rd there.)  Should Slick Rick pull off a win in Ohio to boot, all balls will be locked for multiball and the chaos will truly begin, as Tuesday will only make the national GOP picture even more messy.

If on the other hand Romney can win Ohio and surprise in the Volunteer State, Romnevitability(tm) will rise.  It could go either way at this point.  Me, I'm rooting for multiball, then for the table to break and the balls to go flying everywhere.  Maybe knock over a few bystanders, roll out into the street, cause hipsters to ironically fall.  Yeah, the kind of multiball that makes the local news and forces some local reporter to schlep out to where they still have pinball machines and pizza by the slice with "cheese" and do a report with a straight face with the chyron underneath reading "BIZARRE PINBALL ACCIDENT DOWNTOWN INJURES FOUR.".  I'm all for that.  Let's go with that.  Yeah.

Also, what Doug said.

Walla Walla Ding Dong

Mitt Romney has taken the Washington State caucuses from last night, 38%-25%...over Ron Paul.  Santorum came in a close third at 24%.

Mitt Romney won the Republican caucuses in Washington state, according to unofficial results early Sunday, giving the former Massachusetts governor a shot in the arm heading into Super Tuesday contests.

With 99% of the vote in, Romney had 38%. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 25% and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 24%. They were trailed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 10%.

At stake in the contest are 40 delegates.

"We're in a good second place, but the good news is we're doing very, very well in getting delegates," Paul told supporters in Seattle, when about half of the vote had been counted. "The enthusiasm for the cause of liberty continues to grow exponentially."

It's certainly a blow to Santorum to come in third, making Ohio all that much more important for all four candidates.  Gingrich, Santorum and Romney were in Cincinnati yesterday rather than Seattle or Walla Walla.

With 72 hours to go before Ohio voters go to the polls, the Republican White House hopefuls made a mad dash across the state Saturday – with the three leading contenders targeting Greater Cincinnati.

They revved up fervent supporters, sought converts and threw jabs at each other in the home stretch of this pivotal primary contest.

Rick Santorum rallied hundreds of his supporters with a passionate speech about “liberty” and “American exceptionalism” in an overheated hotel conference room in Blue Ash. Newt Gingrich talked about gas prices and energy issues at the Back Porch Saloon in West Chester. And Mitt Romney wrapped up a three-stop tour of the state at a “Ribs With Mitt” gathering at Cincinnati’s Montgomery Inn Boathouse.

I can tell you about the venues.  Any hotel in business park laden Blue Ash says "I'm a grown up, why won't you listen,"  The Back Porch in IKEA country of tony West Chester says "I'm pretending to working class but so is everyone else here" and the Montgomery Inn boathouse location down by the levee says "I'm pretending to be working class and failing miserably."  He probably ruined a lot of people's evenings who were planning to go eat ribs, it's pretty much the busiest restaurant in Cincy and he and his Secret Service detail probably put a whole bunch of hungry people out.

In other words, completely a Mitt thing to do.  Douchebag.

Last Call

Steve M. is dead right about Santorum calling El Rushbo's comments on Sandra Fluke "absurd" today.  Santorum isn't attacking Rush, he's giving Rush a way out of this mess.

The key word here is "absurd," because it's a word Limbaugh proudly uses. For years he's described what he does as "demonstrating absurdity by being absurd" -- in fact, the title of a chapter in his first book was "People, Think for Yourselves, Or Demonstrating Absurdity By Being Absurd." In fact, just today he described his sex-video remark about Sandra Fluke as "illustrating absurdity here by being absurd."

Either Santorum knows all this (and as a card-carrying movement conservative, he presumably would) or Santorum in understands that saying this is an easy way to attack Limbaugh without actually attacking him.

Oh, and Limbaugh's an "entertainer," so it's silly for anyone to care, right? (Funny, back in January, when Santorum said "we've lost, unfortunately, our entertainment industry" to "the left," he seemed to regard entertainment as a lot more relevant to politics.) 

The entertainer dodge is an out Rush has used before.  He'll survive this.  He always does.  Santorum is calling Rush's comments absurd so that anyone attacking him for it is engaging in even more absurd behavior.

Here's the thing, of course.  It's false equivalence to the max, and ABL calls the GOP out on it.

Rush Limbaugh is calling your mothers, sisters, and daughters sluts and prostitutes. “Inappropriate” and “absurd” doesn’t begin to cover it.

And by the way, the “you sluts want us to pay to have sex” narrative is unimaginably stupid. Sandra Fluke testified about her friend who was prescribed birth control for a medical condition — ovarian cysts. Nobody’s asking to be paid to have sex.  Nobody’s asking for government-subsidized condoms. Besides, we women have been paying men to have sex for years. The only purpose of Viagra and Cialis and the like is to allow men to have sex.  Many health insurance plans cover Viagra.  Where’s Rush’s outrage about that?  Shouldn’t all men who take those little blue pills be forced post sex tapes online?

Agreed.

Correlation Does Not Equal Causation, Ricky

Rick Santorum seems to think high gas prices caused the housing depression and the recession, and so since Obama is causing high gas prices, he's going to cause another recession.  Of course, Rick Santorum wouldn't know his own ass from one of Saturn's moons, so it's all good.

Here’s what Dean Baker, who was miles ahead of most economists in giving early warnings about the housing bubble, said about Santorum’s theory.

“It doesn’t fit is the basic story. It doesn’t fit from the word go,” he told me by phone Tuesday. “[Housing] prices peaked in mid ‘06, dribbling downward, one percent a month by early ‘07 then to two percent a month by the end of ‘07.”

Energy prices, by contrast, “started climbing in late ‘07, but didn’t really go through the roof until late ‘08,” Baker said. 

In other words, high energy prices were not the cause of the housing bubble unless there's time travel involved.  And President Obama had nothing to do with the financial crisis unless again, time travel is involved and he was really running Bush's Fed policy and the banks in 2004-2008.  Your chart:

 

 

So back here in reality, it was roughly 8 years of Bush policies that broke our economy but good in 2008.  Of course, Santorum wasn't speaking to actual people, he was speaking to Republican primary voters, who are apparently the most gullible and/or stupid people on Earth.

After all, the number one thing on their mind is "beating President Obama."

Primary, Primarily

The Arizona primary was a complete blowout.  Romney won by 20 points over Santorum.  But Michigan was much closer, with Romney shaving out a 41-38% win over Slick Rick.  A few key findings in the Michigan exit polls reveal why Santorum lost:  First, Catholics voted for Mitt Romney, 44%-37%.  Second, the 9% of people who made up their minds to vote on Tuesday voted for Romney, 38-31%, but more importantly 47% of Michiganders made up their mind who they were going to vote for in 2011, and half of them voted for Romney compared to 24% to Santorum.  His remarks on JFK hurt him with Catholics...and he lost women by 5 points and men by 1.  Finally, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" didn't hurt Romney in the least, because Santorum opposed it too.  In fact, Romney won the 44% of primary voters that approved of the auto bailout by five points.

So we go from must-win for Romney in Michigan to must-win for Santorum in Ohio on Super Tuesday.

Independent groups backing Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are already airing TV ads in the state. Santorum campaigned in Ohio Tuesday and Romney will be in Toledo Wednesday morning for an event, followed by another in Columbus.

Romney will confront many of the same challenges in Ohio that he faced in Michigan, without the benefit of his hometown connection.

Like Michigan, Ohio’s economy relies heavily on the auto industry, and Romney’s high-profile opposition of the government bailout of the industry is not likely to be received warmly by many voters. He supported an effort last year by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) to restrict public unions’ collective-bargaining rights — an effort that was overwhelmingly overturned in the fall by voters in this union-heavy state. And Romney’s courtship of religious voters by supporting, for instance, an antiabortion “personhood initiative,” risks alienating female voters.

“The number one thing is the auto bailout,” said Eric Kearney, a Democrat from Cincinnati and minority leader in the Ohio Senate. “Ohio is the second-largest auto producer in this country. We rely on that. It’s a substantial portion of our economy. The first thing Mitt Romney says, and he repeats it, is he is against the auto bailout. Those are Ohio jobs he’s talking about that he doesn’t want to retain. I don’t get what his strategy is.”

Perhaps more than anything else, however, Romney’s difficulty connecting with average Americans may hurt him in a state such as Ohio. Romney acknowledged on Tuesday that his gaffes — including mentioning his wife’s “couple of Cadillacs” — have not been helpful to his cause. Republicans in Ohio agreed.

“People are like, ‘Yeah, he’s probably going to win, but I really don’t like him, and I’m not going to vote for him,’ ” said a high-ranking Ohio Republican who requested anonymity to speak freely. “That’s the collective zeitgeist.”

If Santorum can take Ohio, and then perform as well as I think he will in Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, Romney then is in big trouble.  If Santorum doesn't win Ohio he's done, especially if Newt will split the vote enough to give Georgia to Romney.  If that happens, then the nomination is effectively over. Either way, Romney wins Virginia...only he and Ron Paul are on the ballot there.

We'll see what next week brings.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

So, Rick Santorum said this today:

I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and visions of our country.

To which my response is:



Seriously.  Use of the First Amendment to justify the elimination of church and state in a man who could end up President is the most wildly disturbing and idiotic thing I've heard in a very long time.  He then takes JFK's 1960 speech on the subject, stood by his declaration that the idea of separation of church and state makes Santorum "want to throw up" and then rewrites history.

“Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech. ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960.”

This is hogwash.  Yes, some Catholics thought the President had given too much ground to the secular in that speech, but by and large it was a necessary and thoughtful speech, made by a man with deep theological convictions as to why those two powers must remain separate.  Coming from a NY Catholic family myself, Kennedy's speech has special meaning and his words remain even more true today:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him…. I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office….

Whatever issues may come before me as President, if I should be elected – on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject – I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictate. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

By the way, here's Kennedy giving that speech in 1960 in Houston:





And no, Rick Santorum is certainly no Kennedy.