Daily Santorum 4/15/11

Apologies for the lack of Daily Santorum yesterday, there were some technical problems with the blog, but we're back today with a double-barreled shot of news from everyone's favorite ex-senator, whose announcement that he is forming a committee to raise dough for a presidential run got beaucoup coverage. We start in our own pages, where Jim O'Toole today leads with the news that Santorum is bringing on Amanda Kornegay to lead his fundraising effort. Kornegay brought in big bucks for Sharron Angle, who narrowly lost to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November. Santorum and Angle share some foot-in-mouth tendencies, and the ability to excite the pro-life base, but the guess here is that Santorum might want to avoid comparisons with the somewhat batty Nevadan.

Washington Post's Aarong Blake proposes The Case For Rick Santorum (WaPo's "The Fix" blog does a for and against for everyone who throws their hat in the ring) noting, as we have before, his conservative foreign policy cred. Also, Blake writes, "almost nobody is more willing to engage in a political fight than Santorum. ... Debates can be the great equalizer for Santorum, so look for him to do his best to stand out on stage."

KDKA's Jon Delano interviews Santorum and revisits the controversy over his Penn Hills home, and why it won't amount to a hill of beans in a presidential race.

Santorum's new not-quite-exploratory committee bears the slogan: "Fighting to Make America America Again." Daily Santorum looked at this and found it to be rather hokey. Liberal ThinkProgress looked at it and found that it was almost identical to a poem by gay rights supporter Langston Hughes (pictured above). If we thought Rick had read any Langston Hughes we might cry plagiarism, but let's be serious. (If any Krauthammer lines turn up, we know he's poaching.) When quizzed about the slogan in New Hampshire yesterday, according to the Union-Leader, he said he had no idea about the Hughes connection and downplayed the slogan's significance: "well, I'm not too sure that's my campaign slogan, I think it's on a web site."

Somewhat tangentially, the sage G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young look at history to find out why Pennsylvania has only produced one president. (For the Daily Double: Who is James Buchanan?)

And finally, Glenn Beck -- whose star is fading faster than Charlie Sheen's -- interviewed Santorum about sharia law and all that fun stuff.

The Schedule: Santorum is Concord, N.H., today for a tax day rally, followed by a speech to Republican women in Hampton, N.H. He's got a couple more events in New Hampshire tomorrow as well.