SantorumBlog

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A children’s story from “The Real Bob Casey”

Twas the night before the U.S. Senate debate, when all through Harrisburg
Not a creature was stirring, especially in the Treasurer’s office.
Democratic Talking Points were neatly piled on Jay Reiff’s desk,
In hopes that Bob Casey Jr. soon would be there.

Pennsylvania voters were nestled all snug in there beds,
while visions of ‘Bobby-the-Duck’ and ‘Flipper’ danced through their heads.
And Hillary in her ‘kerchief’ and Bill in his cap,
Just left our state to pull the strings for another Democratic hack.

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The Rick Santorum campaign launched RSite today.

RSite is a collection of short videos that address issues pertaining to the upcoming 2006 election. The videos are hosted by either Mike Rubino or me, Karissa Kilgore. We were asked to do this by some folks in the campaign, and we were overjoyed to be able to be so involved in the campaign.

http://www.RSiteOnline.com/

Coyote at Sounding the Trumpet has a good idea regarding New Media and political campaigns.

A couple days ago I wrote about an opportunity to volunteer with Rick Santorum’s campaign. His campaign uses a cool new online service called Team Volunteer, which allows volunteers to sign in and get phone numbers to call instead of having to drive to a phone bank. I’m not sure why other campaigns such as Ray Meiers or any of the other Republican senatorial or house campaigns. It’s a lot easier than the traditional way of setting up phone banks at different locations.

You can either use your local phone or your free minutes on your cell phone. However, there is even an easier way. You can use Skype, the free internet phone that’s available for Windows, Apple, and even Linux.

Usually Skype is only free from one computer to another. However, till the end of this year, Skype has made it free to call anywhere in the United States.

The tubes are magical.

Go check it out.

The Tribune-Review has an article on the impact of Facebook communities on the Senate race.

A Facebook search for Sen. Rick Santorum prompts results varying from “Rick Santorum is my hero” to “Only an idiot would re-elect Rick Santorum” to “Rick Santorum is a tremendous (expletive) idiot.”

There are fewer groups for Democratic challenger Bob Casey, but the political debate remains.

Comments on everything from Casey’s “unibrow” to “Tricky Rick” being a “weasel” are popping up all over Facebook.

The comments mentioned above were found on University of Pittsburgh freshman Dan Gore’s “I Pledge to Vote for Bob Casey for Senate” Facebook group.

Gore, a Johnstown native, said the groups are great opportunities to get traditionally uninvolved young people involved in politics.

“Candidates perceive young people to be consumer-oriented — they’d prefer to talk about video games and movies rather than the politics of the day,” Gore said. “Well, that’s true to a certain point, but that doesn’t mean all (students) ignore the issues altogether.”

Money line, right here.

Generally speaking, Gore believes too many college students and young people are apathetic when it comes to political issues and elections. He thinks the online boost in political campaigning may succeed in reaching young people and even create a movement that will demand candidates pay attention to young voters.

“(Young people) need some kind of spark to get them going,” he said. “There’s a huge group of people here being ignored by politicians. If they could ignite that spark, that may change.”

Bob Casey, electoral spark.

Not really.

That “spark” may be facilitated by absentee ballots.

Because many college students are away from their home voting precincts, absentee ballots are crucial for young voters.

Actually, I have this theory that the reason the sixties hippy/liberal movement was so successful in changing our society was that there was an abundance of good looking girls. The free love never hurt either. But where there’s girls, there’s guys. That’s how you motivate college students… well guys anyway.

Casey was at a pow-wow at the First Unitarian Church. So much for tax-free status (yeah, right). This event was put on by a group that surely exudes love: Philadelphians Against Santorum. It seems there were plenty of lefties in the audience. There were enough varieties to get some very different views on Casey’s performance!

Dragonballyee.com has one take, while youngphillypolitics.com has quite another. One is NC-17, the other is G.

YPP gushes over the event…and Casey himself, using words that no one typically uses with the career campaigner:

“Bob Casey spoke directly and smoothly to the crowd in the church for at least fifteen minutes. He was as polished as you’d expect your politicians to be. He was enthusiastic. He touched on the issues that Ray said PAS members and Philadelphians really cared about. He stated that what he stood for was a “new direction” rather than Santorum’s “more of the same.” Among Casey’s bullet points were that Congress Representatives shouldn’t get raises until the minimum wage was raised, that oil companies shouldn’t be subsided at the expense of the environment and that this country needed to improve homeland security, it needed a smarter foreign policy and it needed a new defense secretary. (I’ll say.) He promised to hold the President accountable. Casey quoted liberally from his recent debate with Santorum, being sure to clearly outline the differences between himself and Rick Santorum.”

Of course, Casey continues his bombast with the “more of the same” slam against Santorum. Democrats must be wondering when Casey is going to start discussing his plans, not issue the “more-of-the-same” rhetoric that he isn’t Santorum.

And with that, we jump into the take of DBY, who takes Casey to the shed (expletives omitted):

“As predicted, the event was a disappointment. I had mentioned that prospective attendees were asked to fill out a RSVP along with a field where you could type in a question to ask Junior Casey. I had remained optomistic [as promised] all while I sat towards the front for the talking to begin. My optimism was stabbed as Ray Murphy said there would be all of five questions during this “town hall” meeting. Five pre-selected questions. What the ****? I was surprised that I wasn’t asked to fill out a vote pledge form to be let inside this Unitarian Church. What happened to open mics?

“He said that he’d sum up the campaign in two words: “New direction” which to me translates into a big fat ****ing “I’m not Rick Santorum so vote for me” which is total **** and not a reason to vote for a candidate. He summed up (Santorum)’s candidacy as “More of the same” which I’d amend to read: “More of the bat**** crazy same” but otherwise on the money. He also noted that this was going to be an ugly campaign, but that he would be ready for the smear campaign and that the Repugs have already been publicly vocal about how negative they’d be going. Later Monday night, I saw the newest (Santorum) smear ad where a bunch of men were sitting around a dark poker table smoking cigars and labeled as criminals and people under investigation. It was a good commercial. Casey takes a lot of nasty 527 monies. So does (Santorum).

“He went right into his stump on his differences with (Santorum). The issue of pay raises. He said that (Santorum) voted for three pay raises as Senator while voting against an increase in minimum wage thirteen (I think that’s the right number) times. He pointed out Babette Josephs in the back of the room as a champion of the minimum wage. A good thing too since she’s been shilling full force for him for a year now hook line and sinker. No mention of the pay raise fiasco here in PA which he signed and then later filed suit for. No mention of moving towards an actual living wage either. Not that anyone is talking about that CRAZY idea.

“On Iraq, he said that (Santorum) didn’t have the courage to stand up to his president and ask the tough questions. He didn’t mention anything about getting the **** out of Iraq. Maybe I missed it. I may have been snapping away while he said this, but I didn’t catch it. He said that Pennsylvania needed an independent Senator to talk tough in DC. Heh.

“He wants to restore honesty and competence to U.S. foreign policy. He didn’t give any hints as to what U.S. foreign policy in regards to anything should be at any point of the night.

“He seemed hurried throughout the night as if he had a couple fundraisers to rush off to after the event which was annoying. After his stump, he stuck around to answer the pre-selected questions.”

The blog entry is quite long…with lots of things that are really interesting to read, but not recommended…let’s just say this guy loves his free speech rights an awful lot…lol.

Here is the summary:

• DBY hates…I mean hates Casey’s position on “choice” when it comes to abortion. It seems that family planning (funding private abortions through clinics) and “widely available” abortion pills aren’t good enough.
• DBY believes in the 2nd Amendment, but thought Casey bombed when he said, “we should find a common ground instead of talking about more stringent gun control laws.”
• DBY noted that Casey accuses Santorum of not having a plan for Social Security (Was Casey at the MTP debate??). Casey noted, once again, that the SS problem is not a crisis (wow - surprised he’s sticking to that one…).
• DBY noted that Casey thinks he, and other politicians, campaign too much (has Casey done anything but campaign in the last six years?). Casey said that he’ll think about how to fix that once elected. DBY was far from impressed.
• DBY freaked about Casey’s answer to a question about how to help him win in PA: Casey asked for money, right after answering a question about campaign finance! “It’s as if he just has a database of answers to stock questions in his head without a proper boolean variable telling him to not say certain things in relation to other recent answers. I just sat there dumbfounded that he’d say this. Not to connect with the people. Not to take the issues to him. Not to show the voters how he’ll implement his plans. To raise money was his number one priority and my thoughts on his overall hurried state seemed more true than at any point of the night.”

DBY concludes in such a poignant way, that a SantorumBlog response isn’t necessary:

“…a whole bunch of people from the audience screamed out repeatedly “WHAT ABOUT IRAQ!!! WHAT ABOUT IRAQ!!!” I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a question about Iraq in the five questions asked. Pathetic.

I spoke to a person who had been following the race closely for some time now as I made my way out of the church. I leaned over and said “More of the same bull****, eh” to which he looked back at me with a shrug. After a pause, he said, “He’s getting better?” Getting better six weeks out from election day is a pretty ****** spot to be in. The candidate shouldn’t be getting better and leaving a partisan crowd screaming at him to answer the biggest most pressing question on the minds of all Americans (let alone Pennsylvanians). The candidate should be really honing the message with little tweaks here and there to be nice and polished. This stone is still quite rough around the edges and seemingly missing huge chunks as well. I almost had to break out laughing at the people asking me to volunteer for this *********. Completely blows the Iraq question on Meet the Press and then doesn’t address it at any length in front of this crowd. This guy sucks. Schumer, Reid and Rendell are to blame. Those *******.”

The Tribune-Review looks at the internet’s role in 2006 politics.

Sen. Rick Santorum’s campaign is using three Web sites, text-messaging and a page on the social-networking site Facebook to fend off his Democratic opponent, state Treasurer Bob Casey.

Early in his campaign, Santorum picked the nation’s top Internet campaigner to lead his cyber-charge: Mindy Finn, who previously did similar work for the Republican National Committee and Bush-Cheney ‘04.

Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet, said Finn has put Santorum’s campaign “on the cutting edge. He’s way ahead of the curve.”

At one of Santorum’s sites, visitors can see images of Casey, dressed like the character from the “Where’s Waldo” books, popping up around the state and quacking as he “ducks” questions.

Tubes, man. Tubes.

I would have preferred to stay away from politics today, but if our liberal friends aren’t even going to rest, I won’t either.

Swing State Project: PA-Sen: Finally, Casey Shows Some Teeth

The leftist blogger cheers on Casey’s latest ad, the one with Debbie Balcik, which, as I recently pointed out, is pure nonsense.

James L. of Swing State Project talks about Santorum’s book, claiming that Santorum holds it “against mothers of any kind to hold a job outside their home in order to support their family.”

Tom Ferrick, Jr of Ferrick’s Poliblog 2006 has it wrong, too:

“The Casey ad, called “Debbie” is a soft negative, taking Santorum to task for remarks in his book “It Takes A Family” about how women should stay at home.”

Tole lege, people. Tole lege. If you want to bash Santorum over what he wrote in his book, try actually reading what he wrote first.

From page 94 of “It Takes a Family”, and I quote:

“Children of two parents who are working don’t need more things. They need us! In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do. Some are working because they think they must buy their kids and themselves more things they “need” - instead of giving themselves to their kids.”

Senator Santorum is very clear. He isn’t denouncing women who work in order to support their families. All he’s doing is saying that if you happen to be a mother or father who works more hours than you really need to, and you do so to buy unnecessary stuff for your family, you would be better without having the stuff and instead having more hours spent with your kids. He isn’t saying that families should go without needs. He’s saying that families should try to limit their wants of material goods in favor of the higher good of spending time with each other. That’s it! It’s not anti-woman. It’s not anti-poor. It’s simply pointing out the superiority of the family to inanimate objects.

Anyone who says differently either has a reading comprehension problem or is simply dishonest.