Daily Santorum: The Quarter-Dodd Begins
Maybe this will be a fun summer after all.
We here at your World Rick Santorum Tracking Headquarters felt some pangs of compassion for the Santorum brood as father loaded them up in a caravan to Iowa. What kid really wants to spend their summer vacation on the presidential campaign trail? Radio Iowa's O.Kay Henderson -- who coined the term "Quarter Dodd" for Santorum's move, referencing former Sen. Chris Dodd's moving his entire family to Iowa for months before the 2008 caucuses -- was on the scene for Santorum's first appearance of the tour at the crack of 8:15 a.m. today and, lo and behold, there were no Santorum kids.
Santorum said one of his sons was going to accompany him, but just couldn’t get out of bed that early. Santorum indicated most of his family was still in bed when he left the cabin where the family is staying.
“The kids are going to be fishing and four-wheeling and doing some fun stuff today, not that this (campaigning) isn’t fun — don’t get me wrong — but they deserve a break today and I’ll be spending some time with the tomorrow night,” he said, explained a few minutes later the reason for having his family in Iowa: ”I’m going to be here…and I don’t want to be away from my family for three weeks.”
Santorum said before the family left home, he and the kids made peach jam using peaches from their own trees. He plans to serve that jam to people who stop by his tent at the Iowa Straw Poll August 13. No word, though, on whether that jam will be served on crackers, bread, toast or scones. Maybe BYOB (bring your own bread)?
Four wheeling? Jam making? Perhaps this could actually be a decent summer for the Santorum kids. At least they deserved a break from politicking after a 16-hour trip from Penn Hills yesterday. Santorum tweeted a photo of his crew at the Boender family homestead in Oskaloosa -- the same folks who hosted him for a meet-and-greet about a month ago.
Today it was the early-morning town hall in Ankeny, followed by stops in Boone, Fort Dodge, Storm Lake and Sibley. It's unknown which family members are joining him where, but it's nice to hear attendance is not mandatory at all hand-shakings.
The patriarch, of course, is hard at work and even stayed up after his long drive to watch President Obama's debt limit speech last night. It may shock you to learn that he was unimpressed. Here's his statement:
President Obama said tonight that 'people are fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word,' but what the people are fed up with is a President who uses class warfare as a crutch to divide rather than focusing on solving the issues affecting each and every American. The fact that President Obama has been shut out by not just Republican but by Democratic congressional leaders is a clear indication that he has become incapable of addressing our nation's debt crisis. President Obama must throw out the failed economic playbook of raising taxes and recklessly spending tax dollars that he has used for over two years and make the tough choices necessary to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington.