Daily Santorum: The real 1%er
Man. We go underground for a while to write a politics think piece and the national media swoops in to grab the Daily Santorum mantle. We'll do our best to keep tabs on the original one-percenter,
but first a nod to Slate's Dave Weigel and his new feature "Santorum Surge Watch." It starts out with a critique of a Washington Times story on the ex-Pittsburgher:
Today's SSW item comes from the Washington Times. It fits snugly in the Santorum story mold, which has three components.
1) Santorum does lots of events
2) Santorum is accessible
3) Iowa is unpredictable and he has a good organization.
The Times eschews the usual evidence of home schoolers et al rallying for Santorum and focuses on chin-stroking from Republicans who agree that, eh, sure, he could surge.
Now, everybody may be talking about Newt-mentum these days, so leave it to Mr. Rick to take on his fellow Pennsylvania native while meeting with an editorial board in New Hampshire. The issue: Gingrich's relatively moderate stance on illegal immigration and families. From ABC News:
Just days after Newt Gingrich won the endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader, one of his rivals sat down with another Granite State newspaper. Rick Santorum met with the editorial board of the Nashua Telegraph Monday for an hour and was asked about Gingrich’s comments on immigration at last week’s CNN and American Enterprise Institute debate.
. . . Santorum told the Nashua paper, ”the principal thing we need to accomplish is securing the border.”
“I think amnesty–and do I believe what Newt is suggesting is amnesty?” Santorum asked the moderators. “Well, even he said after the debate the other night that millions of people would be able to stay in this country as a result of this proposal. I don’t know what you call amnesty. Does amnesty only mean full citizenship or does it mean you are forgiven for your transgressions and you are allowed to stay here under some status? If that’s amnesty then that’s clearly what Newt is suggesting.”
Speaking of New Hampshire/newspapers, here's a Santorum op-ed in the Union-Leader about a balanced budget amendment.