[Source: Reuters]
Showing posts with label Rick Santorum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Santorum. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
[Source: Reuters]
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: Pressure piles on Newt Gingrich to quit as Rick Santorum takes Mississippi and Alabama, with Mitt Romney trailing third
Rick Santorum has made a clean sweep of the Deep South primaries, taking Mississippi and Alabama in victories that put pressure on Newt Gingrich to bow out and set up a showdown in Illinois next week with the struggling favourite, Mitt Romney.
Gingrich came second, with Romney third and Ron Paul a distant fourth. Although Gingrich vowed to carry on, if he cannot win Mississippi or Alabama, he has little chance of winning anywhere else. He goes to Chicago for a fund-raising event on Wednesday and is likely also to hold a post-mortem with his backers to discuss the viability of fighting on.
If Gingrich bows out and the conservative vote rallies around Santorum, he would be well placed to take on Romney in Illinois, one of the biggest states in contention.
Santorum, at an election party in Louisiana, one of the upcoming contests, said there was nothing inevitable about Romney winning the Republican nomination to take on Barack Obama in November, even with all the millions of dollars behind him.
"For someone who thinks this race is inevitable, he spent a whole lot of money against me for someone who is inevitable," Santorum said.
Invoking his faith right at the start of his speech, he said: "I want to thank God for giving us the strength every day to go out there." » | Ewen MacAskill | Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
SUEDDEUTSCHE: Obamas Gegner in der Selbstzerstörungs-Show: Die Rumpelstilzchen-Strategie wird nicht aufgehen, spätestens nach dem Super Tuesday ist klar: Obamas Gegner sind sich selbst die größten Feinde. Sie werden keinen starken Bewerber aufs Schild heben, sondern einen zerrupften Torso servieren. Der Präsident hat es leicht gegen seine zornigen Konkurrenten, die sich in ihrem Missmut überbieten. » | Ein Kommentar von Stefan Kornelius | Mittwoch, 07. März 2012
My comment:
I have been in the USA since December, so I have been able to observe first-hand the circus that is the Republican US primaries.
One is subjected to the running commentary night after night after night. The whole thing is ridiculous. Americans think this is democracy in action. I'd beg to differ.
In my humble opinion, the only man who has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Obama is Mitt Romney. He is not perfect, but he's the best that the GOP can throw up at this time. Even though he is wooden, he is a likable fellow. And has been very successful to boot.
The others: Forget them! Rick Santorum, though telegenic, is a throwback; furthermore, he's too emotional and sentimental for high office. He is certainly also far, far too regressive. His social conservatism is going to turn off the moderate voters, the feminists, and the gays.
Newt Gingrich is not right for the time. He'd have made a great president right after 9/11. Alas, the train has left the station for him, I fear.
Now they talk of the possibility of Sarah Palin running. God! How desperate can the 'Grand Old Party' be? Her high-pitched voice is enough to sour the milk! And what experience does she have to run the world's superpower? (Though I hasten to add that such things seem not to matter to the American voter these days. Witness Barack Obama's success at the polls.) Moreover, I somehow doubt that Sarah Palin could put a pin in Tehran or Kabul on a globe.
At this rate, the Republicans are going to lose. And they have only themselves to blame, because they are doing it to themselves. They are bickering with each other endlessly, and in such a negative way. Such negativity in a lead-up to an election is rare to behold – anywhere.
By the time November comes, the electorate will be so damn sick of hearing the Republican candidates going on ad infinitum, and trying to outdo each other in being the most conservative, or most pious candidate that they'll end up re-electing Obama into the White House. If this happens, the Republicans will have been the architects of their own demise. They will have had their chance in Mitt Romney, but they will have been too dim to seize it.
If the Republican Party is serious about winning this election, it should stop the nastiness and close ranks behind their only hope: Mitt Romney. If they don't, they'll be committing electoral suicide. – © Mark
This comment also appears here.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Rick Santorum looked ahead to Super Tuesday after losing primaries in Michigan and Arizona to rival Mitt Romney Tuesday night, focusing on energy and the economy and again pitching himself as the candidate to take on Barack Obama in November. Full text and video of Santorum's speech follow (text courtesy of FDCH Transcripts).
THE WASHINGTON POST: Rick Santorum’s Michigan primary speech » | Amanda Zamora | Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Mullah Rick has spoken.
He wants religion returned to “the public square,” is opposed to contraception, premarital sex and abortion under any circumstances, wants children educated in what amounts to little red schoolhouses and called President Obama a “snob” for extolling college or some other kind of post-high school education. This is not a political platform. It’s a fatwa.
But that’s not all. On the Sunday shows, he even lit into John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to Protestant ministers, in which he called for the strict separation of church and state. Santorum said the speech sickened him.
“What kind of country do we live in that says only people of non[-]faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum asked on “This Week.” “That makes me throw up.” Earlier, he said, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” not noticing that he was speaking from what amounts to the public square.
Kennedy’s speech is actually a sad document, a necessary attempt to combat the bigoted and ignorant notion that a Catholic President might take orders from the Vatican.
Oddly, the assurances that Kennedy offered that day are ones that I would like to hear from Santorum. He, too, is a Catholic, although not of the Kennedy variety. Santorum is severe and unamusing about his faith, and that is his prerogative. But he has shoved his beliefs in our faces, leaving no doubt that his presidency would be informed by his extremely conservative Catholicism.
This is a perilous and divisive approach. We have all of world history to warn us about what happens when religion takes too prominent a role. The public square gets used for beheadings and the like. While that is not likely to happen now — zoning rules and such forbid it — we do know that layering religion over politics is dangerous.
Santorum cannot impose — and should not argue that — his political beliefs come from God. That closes all debate and often infuriates those who differ. » | Richard Cohen, New York Daily News | Monday, February 27, 2012
Rick Santorum probably wishes he could turn back time.
The Republican presidential candidate said he regrets saying a 1960 John F. Kennedy speech on religion made him want to throw up.
"I wish that I had that particular line back," the former Pennsylvania Senator — who's also a Catholic — admitted on the Laura Ingraham radio show on Tuesday.
Santorum, who came in second place to Mitt Romney in Arizona and Michigan's primaries Tuesday night, came under fire from critics after he ripped the legendary democrat's speech on separation of church and state earlier this week. » | Aliyah Shahid / New York Daily News | Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Republican social conservative Rick Santorum could see an uptick in support during Tuesday's presidential primary in Michigan from an unlikely voting bloc: hardcore Democrats.
Democratic activists and strategists have launched a campaign to push fellow Democrats and independents to vote for Santorum to try to derail the more moderate front-runner Mitt Romney, a Michigan native and the candidate President Barack Obama's campaign least wants to face in the Nov 6 election.
"I think Santorum is completely radioactive and will bring an electoral disaster to the Republicans – he could deliver Obama a landslide," said Michigan Democratic strategist Joe DiSano, who has launched one of the efforts to help Santorum. "We need to focus on the one real challenger to Romney." » | Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
The appeal to the party's Christian base – dismissing the famous 1960 campaign speech by President Kennedy to keep his Catholic faith out of politics – represents a further lurch to the right in the acrimonious battle to find a Republican candidate to face Barack Obama in November.
"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," said Mr Santorum, an evangelical Catholic who would become the second Catholic to win the White House after President Kennedy.
"The first substantive line in the [Kennedy] speech says, 'I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute," the former Pennsylvania senator told ABC News, "You bet that makes you throw up." » | Peter Foster, Jon Swaine in Washington | Monday, February 27, 2012
This guy is a throwback – a throwback from a bygone era. If he becomes the nominee, he doesn’t have a chance against Obama. He’s going to alienate the gays, the feminists, and all the moderate voices in the US. If the concept of the separation of Church and State make him want to “throw up”, it begs the following question: Which kind of state do you wish to see in the US, Mr. Santorum? A theocracy, per chance? – © Mark
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Rick Santorum, the Republican presidential hopeful, has accused Afghans of "overreacting" over the burning of the Koran, as he criticised President Barack Obama for apologising for the incident.
Mr Santorum said there was "no deliberate act ... of disrespect" when US authorities at Bagram airbase north of Kabul apparently disposed of the Islamic holy books in a fire.
The United States rushed to condemn the burnings, and Mr Obama apologised to the Afghan people for what he said was a mistake.
President Hamid Karzai went on television Sunday to appeal for calm, after an explosion of outrage over the burning resulted in dozens of deaths, including two US military advisers killed in Afghanistan's interior ministry.
Mr Obama's apology in itself had "made it sound like there was something that you should apologise for, and there was no act that needed an apology," Mr Santorum told NBC's "Meet the Press" talk show.
"I think the response needs to be apologised for, by Mr Karzai and the Afghan people, for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform, and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake. That is the real crime, not what our soldiers did." » | Sunday, February 26, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
It says quite a lot about the state of the Republican Party that the right-wing extremist Rick Santorum -- a politician so despised by his own Pennsylvania constituents that he lost his U.S. Senate seat by an 18-point margin -- is now the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. And not by a little, I might add -- by 10 points, according to that latest national tracking poll by Gallup.
As increasing numbers of people identify themselves as independent voters -- independent of the major political parties, that is -- the essence of the Republican Party has distilled into a toxic brew of resentment, prejudice, anti-intellectualism and misogyny. In truth, the party has been headed this way for a long time, but the election of Barack Obama -- a moderately liberal African American man with an African-Islamic name -- offered the perfect catalyst for the alchemists of the right to convert their everyday potion of pique into something far more fortified.
Enter Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate regarded as little more than a joke a mere month ago. Santorum presents himself as everything Obama is not, and represents the opposite of everything those anti-Obama right-wing tropes, the lies both whispered and shouted, purport the president to be. There are liberals who relish the possibility of a Santorum nomination; at the Daily Kos, founder Markos Moulitsas is urging liberals to vote for Santorum in open primaries, on the reasonably sound theory that Santorum is too crazy to win the presidency. Perhaps.
"The longer this GOP primary drags on, the better the numbers for Team Blue," Markos writes. Fair enough, but is it good for America? If Santorum gets to bear the standard for the GOP, the party moves even further to the right from where it is now. Difficult to imagine, I know. But sooner or later the Republican Party wins big, when voters tire of the Democrats, or the Democrats screw up in a major way. And then, we'll all be ruled by the Santorum agenda, or something like it. Here's a taste of what's on that plate, based on Santorum's own extremist claims. » | Adele M. Stan | AlterNet | Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Nun werden die Karten neu gemischt: 36 Prozent der Republikaner wollen den streng-religiösen Rick Santorum als Präsidentschaftskandidaten. Er zieht Umfragen zufolge dem bisherigen Favoriten Mitt Romney eindeutig davon.
Einer landesweiten Gallup-Umfragezufolge will eine Mehrheit der Republikaner, dass der streng-religiöse Ex-Senator Santorum Barack Obama bei den Präsidentenwahlen im November herausfordert.
Lediglich 28 Prozent unterstützen den Multimillionär und ehemaligen Gouverneur Romney. Damit habe Santorum erstmals einen eindeutigen Vorsprung, der ausserhalb statistischer Fehlermargen bei Umfragen liege, meinen Umfragexperten. » | dpa/gallch | Montag, 20. Februar 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
'I've repeatedly said I don't question the president's faith. I've repeatedly said that I believe the president's Christian,' Mr Santorum said in a broadcast interview Sunday.
'I am talking about his world view, and the way he approaches problems in this country. I think they're different than how most people do in America.'
Mr Obama's campaign said Mr Santorum's remarks were another attack on the president's faith by Republican rivals in a nominating contest that has grown increasingly bitter and negative. » | Daily Mail Reporter | Sunday, February 19, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Outside a Christian store in the middle of a maze of suburban strip malls, Grace Rozelle has no doubt about what matters to her in the Republican primary battle for Michigan.
"Abortion is the really big thing for me. It has always been extremely important because of my faith," explained the 69-year-old retired schoolteacher. "I love Jesus and he created all of us."
Rozelle was standing on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, just a few streets away from the Mars Hill Bible Church, an evangelical mega-church built out of a converted shopping mall. Such displays of religious conviction are usually not seen as vital to Michigan's political landscape, which is more typically dominated by heavy industry and struggling city economies like Detroit and Flint.
But Rick Santorum is changing all that.
The former Pennsylvania senator has surged into contention in the 2012 race on the back of a stunning hat-trick of victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. He has banded together religious social conservatives and Tea Party supporters, creating a powerful challenge to frontrunner Mitt Romney in national polls. It has also seen him catapult into the lead in Michigan, a state that only weeks ago Detroit-born Romney assumed was virtually guaranteed. One Michigan poll had Santorum ahead by 15 points, and the last four surveys all show him maintaining a lead.
Now if Santorum can beat Romney in Michigan on February 28, he would deal a hugely damaging blow to the former Massachusetts governor's campaign, and achieve something few experts ever believed possible: become a real contender for the Republican nomination. "It is absolutely going to be a competitive race in Michigan now," said Stu Sandler, a top Republican strategist in the state. » | Paul Harris in Grand Rapids, Michigan | Thursday, February 16, 2012
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012
THE ATLANTIC: What separates issues that are in the proper purview of politics from matters best left to individuals? I'd hate to draw that line for everyone, but watching Rick Santorum in the much-discussed interview above, I'm confident in declaring that he's put himself on the wrong side of it. » | Conor Friedersdorf | Staff Writer, The Atlantic | Wednesday, February 15, 2012
CAFFEINATED THOUGHTS: Santorum’s Surge Challenges Romney’s Electability Argument and Gingrich’s Candidacy » | Shane Vander Hart | Monday, February 13, 2012
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