According to the primary results so far, it still seems highly unlikely that Rick Santorum will win the Republican nomination.
But what if Santorum somehow manages to win?
Can anyone doubt that Pennsylvania Democrats would loudly haunt him – with public appearances as well as campaign commercials by Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Casey?
Casey is, this year, running for re-election. Just six years ago, he ousted Santorum from the Senate by the highest Senate vote victory in Pennsylvania history.
What could be more delightful in Casey’s running for re-election than to be able to make both public appearances as well as campaign commercials reminding everybody (in Pennsylvania and nationwide) that the GOP nominee for our nation’s highest office was politically annihilated by Casey’s 59 percent victory over Santorum’s 41 percent?
The Washington Times’ Ralph Hallow reported a number of negative Pennsylvania reactions to Santorum:
- “Yet from Gov. Tom Corbett to U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, state GOP Chairman Rob Gleason and on down the political food chain, no major GOP politician in Pennsylvania has endorsed Mr. Santorum.”
- “‘Rick is definitely a social conservative and is very true to the pro-life movement, but fiscally he supported the big-government position,’ said Larry Dunn, who was the Republican Allegheny County Commission chairman.”
- “‘Santorum makes a big deal out of earmarks and he participated in one of the biggest of all time, twice as big as “the bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, which cost taxpayers $240 million and was never built,’ said David O’Loughlin, a Pittsburgh developer and contemporary of Mr. Santorum’s.”
- “Mr. O’Loughlin blames ‘Santorum’s political agenda, with little or no regard to the consequences to the taxpayers, community economic benefit or safety of the bridges, roads or other infrastructure. On a local level, the senator’s decisions were very hurtful; on a national level, they would be calamitous.’ The 53-year-old presidential contender’s role in supporting public financing of new stadiums for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates and the tunnel project still sticks in the craw of friends back home. ‘It was disconcerting to see Rick take a public position in favor of taking public money to pay for stadiums instead of having the teams’ owners pay for those stadiums,’ said Kenneth Behrend, a Pittsburgh lawyer. ‘Typically, whichever interest helped support his political career, that’s the one he supported.'”
If presidential candidate Santorum cannot even win in his own state of Pennsylvania, how in the name of political reality is it possible that he could be a winning nominee against an incumbent president?
I have not seen any Sen. Casey statement about candidate Santorum so far. But if the former Pennsylvania U.S. senator really began a series of primary victories, I cannot imagine those Pennsylvania Democrats failing to engage in a massive and mischievous series of dealings about what Democrat Casey did to Santorum in the 2006 election.
