Since May, I’ve been saying that the only thing that the Left can really go after Rick Santorum with is lies. We have to get through our primary first, though, and human nature being what it is, those on our side of the aisle who are interested in propping up other candidates are doing so by distorting Rick Santorum’s record. Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has been around the horn a few times, to say the least, and on January 4, he has decided to take on these distortions head on.
Now there’s a mantra — there’s mantra out there — and it’s even now spread to CBS News: “Will Santorum’s big government conservatism resonate?” It’s everywhere, folks. “Santorum’s big government conservatism.” Have you ever heard “big government conservatism” associated with Rick Santorum before today? Have you? Have you? All right, very rarely. Some of you might. In Pennsylvania in some of his campaigns it might have been said, but nationally most people are hearing this for the first time after he wins the Hawkeye Cauci. Now, it started (at least I first saw it) in conservative media and then The Cato Institute, which is Libertarian. Now CBS News has it. So let’s talk about this for a second.
Rush is right to point out that the Cato Institute is Libertarian. As such, they would likely agree with Ron Paul on more issues than they agree with Rick Santorum on. Libertarians are not Conservatives. They would like to be seen as more mainstream and so they will frequently adopt the label of conservatism in order to pick up conservative support. Unfortunately, many people do not realize there is a big difference between a Libertarian and a Conservative. As a Conservative, I would say that in policy debate, Conservatives live in the reality that our rights are inalienable in that they are based on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and that no level of government may trump those rights, whereas a Libertarian takes God off the table of discussion completely and claims “States Rights” over federal powers.
Rush Limbaugh is a Conservative. Mark Levin is a Conservative. Cato Institute, Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano are Libertarians. Know the difference. Rick Santorum is not a Libertarian and it is offensive to him, as it is to me, to be called that. Like Limbaugh and Levin, he is a Conservative Republican. Rush explains:
What Rick Santorum has always been about is disempowering the Democrats. Same thing with Tom DeLay. It is why the Democrats had to take DeLay out. It’s why the Democrats came up with these phony prosecutions of DeLay and did everything they could to get him out of the Republican leadership: Because Tom DeLay was a successful enemy of the Democrats and their entrenched power in that town; and Santorum knows full well the entrenched power in that town and he is devoted to breaking it up, pure and simple. His K Street Project was simply, you know, nothing more than an attempt to lessen the Democrats’ lobbying power.
Rush Limbaugh – Mantra: Santorum is a “Big Government Conservative”
Video: Libertarian Paradise
