This might not be widespread news over here as yet. But Rick Santorum, while running for President (actually, at present, for the Republican nomination for such) has something of a problem.
It\’s delicately referred to as Santorum\’s \”Google Problem\”.
Nothing illustrates this better than what Mr Santorum calls his \”Google problem\”, which has been an irritation for nine years.
In retaliation for his comparing gay relationships with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, gay rights activists flooded the internet with graphic false claims about what his surname really meant.
This explicit description remains the top web search result for the former Pennsylvania senator, a 53-year-old father of seven children.
Well, no, it\’s not the top result. The Wikipedia entry about it is, then there\’s his own Wikipedia entry and then, at least on my version of the results, comes the entry which is indeed his problem.
The basic background is that he did something (can\’t remember what) to piss off Dan Savage, the sex columnist at the Village Voice. Who then launched a campaign to get a new meaning associated with the word santorum.
Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum.
That is something of a problem. That the dastardly liberals have done this to him might whip up his base among the die hard cultural conservatives but a politician who is being laughed at really does have a problem.
As to who I want to win, well, it\’s not my country, not something I have a vote in but Santorum would be a retrograde step I think. To put it mildly. Romney, well, there\’s a problem again. I think that the worst thing that Obama has done is his horrible mangling of health care reform. Given that this is based on Romneycare (ie, what Romney instituted when Gov of Massachussetts) then that\’s not something that would be undone or corrected under Romney.
Other than Gary Johnson (who has no hope at all, sadly) the rest of the Repubs are worse. And it isn\’t as if Obama\’s been all that good on anything is it?
Doesn\’t bode well for the American Republic that they\’re going to end up choosing from among that bunch of political pygmies and outright idiots.
Rick Santorum, if he had an ounce of sense, should have made a play for PA-12. After redistricting, I’m pretty sure a chunk of his old seat is now in PA-12. Plus, the redistricting is forcing two sitting Democrat reps against each other – Critz vs Altmire. After a nice beating up in the primary, the remaining candidate could be easily picked off in the general by Santorum. I’m guessing Santorum didn’t run for his old Senate seat because a) inside pollingtold him he couldn’t beat Casey handily and b) it would be a cold day in Hades before Toomey would campaiugn for him.
How Santorum thinks he’s going to win PA in the presidential election is a mystery. Maybe he thinks he can win w/o PA, by getting FL and TX. But he is going to have to scoop up ALL of the battleground states, to make up for not getting NY, CA, & IL.
My theory is that, as with some other Gamma-level candidates, Santorum entered this contest looking to raise his profile, and thereby his speaking fees (Alan Keyes was a pioneer of this). Maybe even land a show contract, ala Mike Huckabee (after all, Santorum has been doing “fill-ins”for Bill Bennett’s radio show). The current gambit is stay in and hopefully grab a few delegates in early primaries that the quasi-candidate can later trade in for a cash-out of campaign debt and an endorsement (cf. Huckabee, Hillary Clinton). Santorum knows he can’t win the presidency. The question is what does he think he can get for ending his campaign?
It’s a pain in the butt, to be sure.
It says something about the total FU of the political system that, on either side of the party divide, there’s hardly one of them you’d entrust walking your dog to, let alone a nation. Describe someone as a conviction politician & the first question comes to mind is how many & for what? It’s surely an indicator when the only one in the frame who actually seems to believe in anything whatsoever, Ron Paul is regarded as an oddball outsider. The rest seem more intent on the prize of being in government rather than having any constructive idea of what to do if they get there/what to do when they are there.
Not much different this side of the Atlantic either, is it? Been looking at the choices in the French presidentials & the adjectives are bad, worse & disastrous. Nevertheless, Marine’ll get my vote on the basis that picking the candidate, none of whose policies are viable, is better than one who might get some into play. (Oh, & for Tim’s reason discussed elsewhere. Should be able to hear the brain pans detonating in the Farringdon Road from this far south if she cracks it)
Politicians. What’s the point of them? Since the start of the financial mess have any of them contributed anything that has improved the situation in the slightest? A plague on all their houses. Let’s just do without them.
“Doesn’t bode well for the American Republic that they’re going to end up choosing from among that bunch of political pygmies and outright idiots.”
Doesn’t this describe every US presidential election? The process seems to be a strangely protracted way of discovering the most accomplished male millionaire liar in the nation.
“Doesn’t bode well for the American Republic that they’re going to end up choosing from among that bunch of political pygmies and outright idiots.”
Ha! I look across the water at our US friends and laugh!
Then I look at our choices….and weep!
“Doesn’t bode well for the American Republic that they’re going to end up choosing from among that bunch of political pygmies and outright idiots.”
On the plus side it is an excellent advertisement for smaller government. Seriously – does anyone think these people ought to be entrusted with the power to raise bread much less taxes?
Santorum is not likely to be laughed at. Because that comment is just not funny. I suppose some twelve year old boys may giggle at it, but I would think it would be more likely to raise sympathy for him among normal people than anything else. I mean, he should be laughed at, but this is not likely to strike many people as humorous.
No major country in the world seems to have a hope of competent leadership right now. We are faced with the biggest economic mess since 1929 and we have people like “Dave”, and even worse Ed Miliband, and Sarkozy – and all those alternatives are worse as well. Obama and Romney? We are screwed aren’t we?
I have been advising canned food and shotguns for some time now. What is the next step beyond that? Watching “Omega Man” for handy survival tips?
Can’t see that the Google thing will make the slightest difference to Santorum’s chances.
It’s the top result on Google for me; perhaps the Portugese rankings are different?
He annoyed Dan Savage by comparing gay sex in the privacy of one’s own home to bestiality and pedophilia. Frankly he deserved to be pranked like that. The subeditors are having a field day – “Santorum surge in Iowa”, “Santorum comes from behind” etc. Fox news even gave him poo brown as an election results colour.
In short, the man is a hateful hypocritical bigot even by the standards of the religious right.
Hateful bigot, I’ll give you – but their cultural frame is significantly shifted from even the conservative side of the European one (outside the Vatican City, at least.)
But have we seen “hypocritical” behaviour from him, especially regarding his announced opinions about sex?
BTW, I get his problem first, then the wiki about it, then wiki about him. 7 of the first page are about the problem rather than him, and one of the others is hostile. His official site is well below the fold (9 of 10).
His wife had what could be prosecuted as an abortion under the law he champions.
@ bloke in spain
I’d trust Ron Paul to walk my dog if I had a dog.
I disagree with him on policy a lot of the time (just as I did with De Gaulle about Quebec Libre and many other points) but he deserves, and gets, my respect for his honesty. In the last election the TEA Party candidates managed to lose the Senate for the Republicans except in Kentucky.
Over here we have at least two potential leaders of the Conservative Party who have shot themselves in the foot by being too honest (Ken Clarke and John Redwood, for starters). Most of the Conservative leaders who have won an election since WWII have made themselves unpopular by being too honest.
So, please don’t generalise your contempt of one group of politicians to cover *all* politicians.
Matthew L – “He annoyed Dan Savage by comparing gay sex in the privacy of one’s own home to bestiality and pedophilia. Frankly he deserved to be pranked like that.”
Why do you think that? Why are you so offended by the comparison?
10Matthew L – “In short, the man is a hateful hypocritical bigot even by the standards of the religious right.”
Hypocritical? Why do you say that?
“Why are you so offended by the comparison?”
Seriously?
“Why do you think that?”
Well, it’s not me but consenting homosexual sex in private is certainly not the same as paedophile sex – i.e. rape – and I, personally, would categorise it as wholly different from bestiality. Despite not being ‘into’ blokes, kids or animals, myself. So if you think that a comparison between an act one morally disapproves of but, as Tim often says ‘doesn’t scare the horses’ and raping children (or scaring the horses!) isn’t offensive doesn’t say much for your awareness of human social response. Having had to deal with paedophilia in the past, I’m actually quite offended by the comparison.
“Hypocritical? Why do you say that?”
That’s what I asked and the odd case of Gabriel was brought up. Personally, I can’t see how Karen having gone in to labour at 20 weeks pregnant and having a drug administered, whatever its other uses, on medical advice because a normal length labour would have been bound to kill the baby is equivalent to procuring an abortion. Therefore I wouldn’t consider him to be a hypocrite. But then I’m not an anti-abortion zealot like Rick, so my careful distinction on the clinical merits may be wholly unacceptable to him. Which might indeed make his and his wife’s actions hypocritical.
Noting both my repeated hedging and the fact that the baby survived the birth process. Only for a couple of hours, but then he was well below 24 weeks (maternal infection being significantly causal in a large minority of pre-term births.)
Obama is the best conservative candidate in the field by a country mile. I accept that the health care legislation he ended up with is far to the right of the French system Tim likes, but one can do only so much.