Tag Archives: Rick Santorum

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Mitt Romney’s pandering to Puerto Rico shows that he will say anything to win

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From the Weekly Standard.

Excerpt:

CNN has projected that Mitt Romney will win Sunday’s primary in Puerto Rico, and Romney will most likely receive all 20 of Puerto Rico’s delegates. Romney had the support of Puerto Rico’s Republican governor, Luis Fortuño, and was expected to win handily.

But Robert G. de Posada, the former president of the conservative Latino Coalition, has an op-ed at the Daily Caller charging that Romney “sold out his conservative principles” in order to win big in the Caribbean territory. De Posada points out that Congress has often required territories with large non-English speaking populations to agree to use English officially within government and in schools before allowing those territories to achieve statehood. Romney, he says, pandered to pro-statehood sentiments in Puerto Rico while ignoring this precedent as well as his own position back on the mainland:

On Thursday, Romney called a radio station in San Juan (Noti-Uno) for an interview with a local reporter. When asked if he would support requiring that English became the principal language of government as part of a petition for statehood, Romney said no. When asked if he thought the legislature should have English as the principal language, once again Romney said no. He even opposed requiring English in the courts and public schools.

In Louisiana and Alabama, Mitt Romney is for English as the official language of the United States. In 2008, when Romney sought the GOP nomination, he was upfront about his opposition to bilingual education and his support for ending it in Massachusetts. But in Puerto Rico, he is a strong advocate of bilingualism and opposes requiring the state to make English the principal language of the legislature, courts and public schools. This only makes sense in the Romney World of Flip Flops.

But Romney took it a step further. He stated that a simple majority of 50% + 1 was enough for him to aggressively support statehood for Puerto Rico. As Rick Santorum said during his trip to Puerto Rico, “We need a significant majority supporting statehood before it’s considered. Why would we want a state where nearly half of its residents do not want to be part of the Union?”

Santorum should be commended for staying true to his conservative principles even when it was not politically convenient. Santorum could have pandered to the pro-statehood governor of Puerto Rico in order to get the 20 delegates at stake, but instead the former senator spoke the truth and told Puerto Rican voters a reality they needed to hear. Immediately after, Romney’s campaign started attacking Santorum and maliciously twisting his comments, telling voters that the former senator was advocating “English-only” and was against Spanish.

In contrast to what the Romney campaign said, Santorum Puerto Rico would have to stress English in addition to Spanish, before getting statehood.

Excerpt:

Rick Santorum Wednesday became the first Republican presidential hopeful in this election to visit Puerto Rico before the island commonwealth’s Sunday primary, taking a controversial stand on statehood that he was forced to defend this morning after losing a key supporter.

[…]“What I said is English has to be learned as a language and this has to be a country where English is widely spoken and used, yes,” Santorum told reporters, stating that the use of English should be a “condition” if Puerto Rico is to become a state. The island, he said, “needs to be a bilingual country, not just a Spanish speaking country.”

“I think English and Spanish – obviously Spanish is going to be spoken here on the island – but this needs to be a bilingual country, not just a Spanish-speaking country, and right now it is overwhelmingly just Spanish speaking. But it needs to have, in order to fully integrate into American society, English has to be a language that is spoken here also and spoken universally,” Santorum explained.

“I think that would be a condition. I think it’s important. And I think if you talk to most parents, they want their children to learn English. It is essential for children in America to be able to speak English to fully integrate and have full opportunities,” he added. “I don’t think we’re doing any more than, you know, people who come to America on the mainland. We’re not doing them any favors by not teaching them English.

There is a clear contrast between these two men: Mitt Romney is not a good man. He just says what people want to hear in order to win, and then when elected he will govern like a pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, tax-and-spend liberal – that’s what he did in Massachusetts.

News

Electability: Obama trails Santorum but leads Romney in FL, OH, VA, NC

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It’s a Rasmussen Reports poll – a reliable poll.

Excerpt:

President Obama now trails former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum by four points in a hypothetical 2012 matchup in combined polling of key swing states Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The president continues to hold a modest lead in those states.

Santorum leads the president 48% to 44% in the so-called Core Four states. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate in this matchup, and two percent (2%) are undecided. This marks a shift from last week, when the president was slightly ahead of Santorum.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Obama remains ahead of Romney 46% to 42%, showing no change from last week. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in this matchup, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia was conducted on March 10-15, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

In a previous post, I noted that Rick Santorum does better with women and independents in Florida.

Excerpt:

In the biggest prize among November’s swing states, the latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows Rick Santorum faring slightly better than Mitt Romney versus President Obama. In Florida, Santorum trails Obama by 2 percentage points (45 to 43 percent), while Romney trails Obama by 3 points (46 to 43 percent). Florida, by far the largest swing state, now has as many electoral votes as the state of New York (29).

Interestingly, Santorum is faring better than Romney among women in the Sunshine State. Among women, Santorum trails Obama by 11 points (52 to 41 percent), while Romney trails Obama by 13 points (53 to 40 percent). Santorum is also faring better than Romney among independents and among likely voters who make close to the median income. Among independents, Santorum trails Obama by 19 points (50 to 31 percent), while Romney trails Obama by 24 points (55 to 31 percent). Among those making between $40,000 and $60,000, Santorum leads Obama by 4 points (49 to 45 percent), while Romney trails Obama by 3 points (50 to 47 percent).

The people in the mainstream media keep tell us that Romney is electable. But they only do this is because Romney is liberal, like they are. Especially on social issues. Obama wants to run against the rich and Wall Street. None of his attacks will work on a blue collar, pro-manufacturing conservative like Rick Santorum. We should not run a candidate that Obama expects. We should run the candidate that Obama does not expect, and force him to come clean on his unpopular stances on social issues.

Rick Santorum

News

Santorum campaign relies on donated buses and door-to-door campaigning

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From socially liberal Business Week.

Excerpt:

With minimal campaign organization and less funds than his rivals, Santorum has boosted his campaign with the votes of a network of evangelical Christians, anti-abortion rights activists and home-schooling parents who are resisting frontrunner Mitt Romney. In a March 8-11 national Bloomberg Poll, likely voters who described themselves as “born again” or evangelical Christian backed Santorum by 42 percent compared with 28 percent for Romney.

“Romney’s inability to close out the race has given Santorum a golden opportunity to unite social conservatives behind him, and they are getting in line,” said Keith Appell, a Republican public relations executive who works with social conservative groups.

Parents who home school their children are spreading the message on Facebook. Southern Baptist pastors are promoting Santorum’s candidacy to their members. Anti-abortion rights advocates are boarding the “Rick Bus” for multi-state voter mobilization tours.

Two days before Tennessee’s primary, Santorum attended services on March 4 at the Bellevue Baptist Church, a 7,000- member organization in the Memphis suburbs.

[…]Santorum won the state’s primary.

Such efforts are helping the former Pennsylvania senator compensate for a campaign operation that trails Romney in every measure of strength: money, staff, and organization.

Romney raised $63 million for his campaign through January, compared with $7 million by Santorum. Santorum had spent $148,806 on salaries and benefits through January; Romney’s personnel costs have exceeded $4.5 million. Santorum recently opened a national campaign headquarters in Virginia; Romney’s offices near Boston Harbor have been open nearly a year.

He’s tapping into well organized yet loosely affiliated groups of activists whose leaders consider Santorum one of them. “Santorum has piggybacked on the top of other existing grassroots networks,” said Cleta Mitchell, his campaign counsel. “They’re basically activating their networks on his behalf.”

[…]Romney and a political action committee supporting him ran 64 percent of the commercials that aired in Mississippi and Alabama in the month before the primaries, compared to just 15 percent aired by Santorum’s backers, according to data from New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising.

The article tries to paint Santorum as a social conservative, and he is. But he also has a solid economic plan, that’s targeted to the middle class, and especially manufacturing. Basically, Romney is burning through millions and millions of dollars to buy the nomination. But ordinary conservatives, especially social conservatives, like Rick Santorum best.

Rick Santorum