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Santorum as presidential candidate: Does anyone care?
What if former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum threw a presidential campaign and nobody came?
Santorum as presidential candidate: Does anyone care?
Rick Santorum, of course, has a “Google problem” thanks to spreadingsantorum.com, a website created by sex columnist and gay-rights advocate Dan Savage defining “santorum” as “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.” The former Pennsylvania senator’s biggest problem running for president, however, is that few Republicans know or care who he is.
“Improbable but not impossible” is how Franklin and Marshall College political scientist Terry Madonna puts Santorum’s chances. “But it borders on being impossible.” He needs a “breakthrough moment ... something that allows him to capture some attention. Something that makes people say, ‘This guy has something that nobody else has.’”
But what Santorum has right now is name recognition in all the wrong ways and with all the wrong people, landing him somewhere near the bottom of a pack that is 10 candidates deep and growing. A Gallup poll from earlier this month found that Santorum’s name recognition among Republican voters has actually gone down since March, from 46 percent to 44 percent. A recent Quinnipiac poll even shows Mitt Romney beating Santorum in Pennsylvania.
Santorum, who has compared homosexuality to bestiality (“man on dog,” thereby earning Savage’s contempt), is touting himself as the authentic “family values” guy in the race (pat on the back: seven kids, all home-schooled) and criticizes Romney for his past support of abortion rights.
One fan is Glenn Beck, who has praised Santorum for having “spine” and for being “ahead of the curve on the threat of radical Islam.” Beck even got so excited that he told Santorum, “I could kiss you in the mouth!”
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