Currently viewing the tag: "Rick Santorum"

Why the wall-to-wall CPAC coverage?

by Lev on 18 March 2013

Hey, know what happened at CPAC this weekend? I sure do. Apparently a bunch of has-beens said the stuff they said back when we cared more about them, for the most part. Also we discovered for the first time that white supremacists in the movement long for the good ole days of Jim Crow and the Republican Party’s only problem is messaging. Clearly we need massive coverage of this phony news event, which up until a few years ago could come and go like the proverbial ghost in the night with only FOX News and a wisp of media attention.

Yeah, I’m a little bit cranky and it’s Monday, but somebody has to question all this attention. Now, I get that someone like Dave Weigel does this for a living, so he obviously should be there reporting. It’s his beat, his specialization. But dozens of discrete items in my RSS feed for days? Really? Quite a few sources find this blow-fest absolutely newsworthy with seemingly little pushback that I can see. So here’s the argument against all this attention.

  1. The CPAC audience isn’t representative of the conservative base. 
  2. Their straw poll is pretty much worthless. Come on, Rand Paul is not going to be the 45th President of the United States. Neither was Mitt Romney in 2008, or Ron Paul in 2012. My guess is that Rand Paul’s campaign ends about when the filing deadline for his Senate re-election comes up, and he’ll maybe beat his dad’s numbers in the primaries before then. But, you know, it’s just not going to happen.
  3. Nobody really cares about the thoughs shared by Mitt Romney, Palin, Rick Santorum, or whatever other losers showed up to take a defeat lap this year. Santorum is the only one of these three who might conceivably run for president in three years, but the idea that he’d be well positioned in that contest is laughable. Santorum was so many choices removed from first or second in 2012, he was sort of the last other man standing by the time the primaries occurred. His second fifteen minutes are nearly done. 2016 will see him a decade out of public office, with that many more questionable utterances and sartorial choices inbetween. All three are merely trying to extend their time in the limelight, and there’s no reason to humor them.
  4. Any liberal who writes about Sarah Palin at this point in history would be better off just sitting in their chair for an hour playing internet Hearts. That would be a more productive use of time than writing about Sarah Palin. She’s like the Westboro Baptist Church at this point. The word is out, the verdict has been delivered, critical mass has long been attained in the fight against them, and liberals who “keep the pressure up” are merely helping feed the sense of controversy the shockingly small fan groups of these entities cherish. The Palins don’t even cut the mustard on cable reality television anymore. Either it’s lazy people writing stories or desperate people trying to find something, anything, interesting going on there. But really.
  5. Every speech–every speech–was chock full of boilerplate red-meat attacks. It wasn’t like we didn’t get enough of them over the last year, where there was this never-ending presidential election, now, right? It was deja-vu to such an extent that they probably just delivered the same ones they did five months ago.
  6. The two conservative Republicans who might actually have some strong appeal among non-rightwing voters weren’t even invited to participate. Given how focused the event was on the presidency, that is silly. Could you imagine a Democratic 2016 forum that didn’t invite Hillary Clinton or, let’s say, Andrew Cuomo to participate?

Admittedly, the Scott Terry white supremacy story is awful, and bizarre, and newsworthy in its own right. But this is my point. I have no objection to covering legitimately newsworthy events that happen at CPAC. But it doesn’t seem like very many actually newsworthy things actually happened at CPAC! But we got volumes of coverage because it’s CPAC!! It’s now a bona-fide press event like a party convention. Clearly this is because it’s been built up that way deliberately, but the reason why Scott Terry popped so much is probably because, well, it’s really just an event where the same people we always see say the same things they always say. Why don’t we just go back to the way it was?

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The Santorum Has Officially Been Mopped Up In The 2012 Race

by Lev on 10 April 2012
I think this gets it right. Additionally, though, while I find Rick Santorum’s beliefs to be pretty risible, and his inability to accept that his ideas had some less-than-ideal results during the ’00s is a personal failing, but at the very least he seemed to possess some sense of personal honor and integrity. Not as good as being right, of course, but it’s not nothing either. And it’s more than at least two of his GOP opponents had.

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The State Of The GOP Race At This Moment

by Lev on 14 March 2012

So far as I can tell, it’s basically this. Romney can’t help but win no matter how hard he tries to sabotage himself, and he expends considerable effort trying. But he has too much money not to win, both personally and in his campaign. Santorum has consistently outperformed expectations but can’t win because he doesn’t have the money to really take Mitt out, and also he’s trying to fulfill the Mike Huckabee role without the humor, likability, or hints of populism. In other words, he’s running Sam Brownback’s 2008 campaign. Remember that shimmering affair? No? Me either. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich’s campaign is fueled by his intense hatred of Mitt Romney, which is helping to ensure the nomination will go to Mitt Romney.

To me, this feels like the sad and boring follow-up to a genuinely exciting and nerve-wracking 2008 campaign. It’s like the Phantom Menace to 2008′s Star Wars. I think people would get more into it if any of the following things happen:

  • Mitt Romney gives a major speech, addressing a disinterested crowd of literally dozens from his balcony, and gives up the ghost by promising to “bring back the monocle” as president, demands a yacht-waxing tax deduction, and swears that he’ll use the entire NEA budget to finance a sequel to the movie adaptation of his favorite book of all time, winning the critical John Travolta endorsement on two of the three points.
  • Rick Santorum recapitulates Oral Roberts, saying that if he doesn’t raise three million dollars by midnight tonight, God will force him to kill his campaign. Then he will host a telethon in full-on televangelist mode. It would be a good idea to have his wife smear the mascara if the fundraising pace is a little slack.
  • Newt Gingrich just leaves already. I mean, come on Newt, you’re even more hated than Rick Perry ever was right now. Nobody wants to hear about what a fundamental crossroads we are at anymore. You had, like, four chances and you screwed up all of them. Go back to being the poor man’s Harry Turtledove.
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasts Republicans’ stances on women’s issues, calls them “reactionary, superstitious and backward, and that’s something coming from me!”

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Santorum: Saying Racist Things Is As Bad As Calling Someone A Racist

by Metavirus on 12 March 2012

Santorum 2012

Well, not really; but close:

In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan on Friday, Rick Santorum defended Kirk Cameron’s recent remarks that homosexuality is “unnatural” and “detrimental and destructive to society,” suggesting that “both sides need to respect both sides.”

I think both sides need to respect both sides… As someone who’s been very public about this, I respect people who disagree with me. I think they have a right to go out and make their case and sell it to the American public and try to change the law if they see fit. But, I don’t use language that, you know, calls them bigots or haters, and nor should they think that someone, because they simply disagree with them on that subject, should be treated the same. So I think rhetoric on both sides needs to be judicious and fair and respecting people’s difference of opinion.

It’s statements like these that really make me think that Republicans read Orwell’s 1984 as a bible on how to achieve and maintain power.

War is peace.  Eastasia is our enemy, er, no, ally.  Slavery is freedom.  Repudiating lies is as reprehensible as lying.  Ignorance is strength.

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Um. About Those Predictions…

by Lev on 29 February 2012

I guess Michigan's voters soured on Santorum quicker than I figured. Understandable.

In any event, I think this is really cool, and I hope it has an effect. California is nothing if not a leader among the states. We're forcing the U.S. to deal with global warming, now we're doing the same with civil liberties too. We'll do whatever we need to do and bring the rest of y'all along for the ride. I do love this state, and think its flaws are well outweighed by its virtues.

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Romney Stops Spread of Santorum Surge in Michigan

by Metavirus on 29 February 2012

My favorite part of this article is the picture of Ricky having a Sad:

When Tuesday’s Republican primary outcome became clear, Rick Santorum facedhis supporters and declared it “an absolutely great night”—which it may have been, but not for Rick Santorum. He was crushed by Mitt Romney in Arizona, where, just a week ago, polls showed Santorum within easy striking distance of the frontrunner. And in the marquee contest in Michigan, Santorum blew what two polls had recently shown to be a double-digit lead, taking a loss he had no choice but to portray as a moral victory.

But the most striking feature of Santorum’s double-header defeat Tuesday was his failure to win a majority of his fellow Catholic faithful, who went for the Mormon Romney by a six-point margin in both Arizona and Michigan.

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My Predictions

by Lev on 28 February 2012

Santorum wins Michigan by 2. Romney will try to spin it as all the Dems' fault, but I don't expect it to carry water. Ultimately, a win is all that matters to the press. And if Romney loses, he'll be in a crappy state to compete on Super Tuesday, after days' worth of everyone wailing about how much he sucks.

Romney wins Arizona by about 15, though if he only pulls out a single-digit win and Ricky wins Michigan, expect lots more sound and fury about how GOP elites will dump Romney. Do act surprised when they don't.

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