Forget all the sunny “morning in America” nostaliga — Rick “It’s My Turn” Santorum is going direct for the bitter soul of the Silent Majority voter, whether or not the nattering nabobs of the mainstream media can crack the code. Here’s Ben Jacobs, at the Daily Beast:
Among potential Republican presidential contenders in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, Rick Santorum is polling at around 6 percent. He’s mired behind more than a half-dozen candidates, some of whom have never campaigned the Hawkeye State, let alone won the first in the nation’s caucuses. But while the former Pennsylvania senator may not be in an ideal position for a presidential hopeful, he’s still light-years beyond where he was was at this time four years ago…
… Being so behind in the polls for 2016, the former Pennsylvania senator was under particular pressure to deliver a strong performance at Saturday’s Family Leader Summit in Ames, Iowa. Bob Vander Plaats, the summit’s organizer and a leading Iowa social conservative, told The Daily Beast that as “the defending champion,” Santorum’s speech had some of “the highest stakes” of anyone who appeared. Vander Plaats said he thought the former Pennsylvania senator needed to remind attendees “why he won the Iowa caucuses and why he’s the one to champion their values and lead on those moving forward.” Instead, in a unique appeal, Santorum avoided hot button social issues almost totally and did something peculiar: He went after Ronald Reagan…
Both Friday night in Boone and at the bigger Family Leader Summit on Saturday in Ames, Santorum gave what has become his standard stump speech, focusing on themes from his book Blue Collar Conservatives. But unlike some other GOP presidential hopefuls, he appeared more focused on using his book to promote his potential candidacy than the other way around…
In contrast to Cruz’s pep rally, Santorum could sound as much like a political analyst as a candidate, as when he noted on Friday that this year’s Senate races were especially important because the GOP would almost inevitably lose seats in the upper chamber in 2016…
… Santorum is in the mix, which is remarkable for a politician who has been out of public office for eight years and whose last general election was in 2000. As he told reporters after his speech on Saturday, he plans on being back in Iowa often and encouraging congressional candidates, particularly in the more Democratic-leaning, eastern half of the state, to adopt his message. It will certainly be an uphill battle for Santorum, who has to gain roughly 25 percent in the polls over the next 18 months in the Hawkeye State. Then again, he only needed one month to accomplish the same feat in 2012.
Dave Weigel is more alert to the actual audience:
… At the county picnic, Santorum was constantly, politely interrupted by well-wishers who had met him before. He spent much of his downtime kibbitzing with Rep. Steve King, the local congressman, who kept looking at Santorum during his remarks about how the conservative movement needed to settle on a champion in 2016. (King endorsed Fred Thompson in the eleventh hour of the 2008 caucuses, and stayed neutral in 2012.)
“We have had the same message on the economy for 35 years,” said Santorum. “Every single Republican that runs, they talk about the same three things on the economy. Number one, cut taxes. Number two, shrink the government. Number three, balance the budget. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan in 1979 giving a speech and saying, ‘as Wendell Willkie said’?” It was a laugh line. “Because that’s how long ago, 35 years, it was from Willkie to Reagan. Wendell Willkie!”…
Wendell Wilkie — dark-horse, liberal, bankers’-choice flip-flopper, “last nominee of either of the two major U.S. political parties to have never held elected or appointed office”. Much like that rich-kid pretender the GOP stupidly nominated in 2012! You’ll get none of that one-world pablum from Pastor Sanctorum, you miserable sinners!…
Which would be entirely risible, except for the fact that Richard Nixon won two terms in the Oval Office.
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While we contemplate yet more unpleasant recycling of 1960s tropes, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Suffern ACE
Taking a before picture. If the contractor decides to show up tomorrow, we might have an after photo sometime before the 2016 election.
Pogonip
Arlene Martel, who played Mr. Spock’s reluctant fiancée on Star Trek lo these many years ago, has died at 78. Her death was overshadowed by those of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m originally from Detroit, and my relatives and friends are posting pictures of the flooding. It’s astonishingly bad.
See if this link works. Those are major highways there, including I-75.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=575148561900&set=vb.138900064&type=2&theater
the Conster
Watching the fall of empire. No, my TV is not on.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
I think and have been saying that I think Santorum has a real chance at the nomination. He might not win, but he is going to be a legitimate top three guy. Terrifying, I know.
Pogonip
Getting back to crappy businesses and products–where can I buy sheets that don’t pill and don’t wear thin around the middle of the fitted sheet after a year or so? I’m willing to pay for quality if it still exists.
Amir Khalid
One difference between 2012 and 2016 is that in 2012 no one realised how little Rick Santorum differed in substance from the rest of the crowd, how profoundly dull a candidate he would turn out to be. Unless he has since turned into Mr Excitement, I don’t see him overcoming that. He should stick to making preachy little TV movies with Susan Boyle.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman: He has valid claims to being the next in line. He annoys liberals. He is a sanctimonious douchecanoe. These all work in his favor in the GOP mind (as I understand it).
Abo gato
Pogonip, we love the sheet sets you can get at Costco. Queen size is 49.99. The fitted bottom has deep pockets that actually fit our waterbed. They have a nice thread count and are just soft and lovely when you slide in the bed. They seem to have a good life as we use them and do last for well more than a year. Love my sheets.
shelley
@Pogonip:
T’Pring?
Pogonip
@shelley: T’Pring.
Pogonip
@Abo gato: We just got a Costco in our benighted frontier so I’ll try them. Thanks!
patroclus
Wilkie wasn’t all that liberal – as a former CEO of a public utility holding company which, despite the potential profits, didn’t bother to provide electricity to most farm communities for over a half century after the electric light bulb was invented, until finally forced to do it under the REA in the 1930’s and thereafter and a union-buster and anti-minimum wage and federal hour limits and most of the New Deal. Historians give him a pass because he supported FDR’s aid to the UK strategy and he was neither Taft nor Lindbergh, but let’s not overdo the praise please. Wilkie was a Romney and would have been a terrible President. Santorum probably knows little about him or his era.
Mike in NC
@efgoldman: In the late 1970s I was nominated by Senator Ed Brooke (R-MA) as an alternate to the Air Force Academy, meaning that if several other guys dropped dead I would have had a chance to go there and sexually assault other cadets.
gian
@efgoldman:
it was the late 70s
I went to football games at West Point.
I recall a friend pointing out the cheerleaders (then co-ed) were trained to kill
Mustang Bobby
@Iowa Old Lady: The late WJR morning DJ J.P. McCarthy used to refer to the Detroit freeways as “the ditches.” He was right.
Juju
@Pogonip: High thread count. You want majority cotton if not 100% cotton, and a thread count close to 300, if not 300.