Despite Mitt Romney’s carpet-bombing of Rick Santorum with negative ads, polling indicates that more voters still like Rick Santorum than dislike him. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is disliked by half the country. Further, the Republican establishment would like us all to believe that it’s “bad for the party” the longer Rick Santorum stays in, a claim that I would argue contributes to more dislike for Romney.
The establishment believes it’s bad for the party because the party doesn’t want this very likable candidate (Santorum) with his strong record of consistent, principled conservatism to make their flip-flopping, dishonest, mostly liberal golden boy continue to look bad by having to spend more time destroying Santorum, whom we all know to be a good man.
We don’t want to do what we’re going to have to do to Rick Santorum in his home state — if he stays in the race.
So, they like Rick Santorum as much as we do and feel guilt about smearing his good name? Or is it that they know this behavior demoralizes good people and makes Mitt Romney’s negatives go up, but still works because people are so demoralized that they will feel pressured to vote for Romney? I think it’s both.
More from Team Romney, via the New York Times:
Mitt Romney’s attempt to pull off a victory in Rick Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania was all set to go into overdrive Monday with attack ads highlighting how voters there soundly rejected him in his 2006 Senate race.
But the aggressive tactics that have served Mr. Romney so well in other states faced an unexpected complication: the emergency hospitalization of Mr. Santorum’s disabled daughter Bella, which prompted an outpouring of public sympathy.
[...] The Romney campaign substituted a positive ad “out of deference” to Mr. Santorum, a spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said.
Once Bella is released from the hospital, the Romney campaign is expected to put the anti-Santorum ad back into its rotation, although that could take a day or two.
“Speechless” was the way one Team Santorum member reacted to this when she learned of it. If the ad is not okay when Bella is in the hospital, it’s not okay at all.
I think that most of us are still moral enough to know that blaming Rick Santorum for staying in the race because it forces this liberal candidate to have to continue crucifying him is the real reason all of this is “bad for the party.” The liberal party establishment is destroying its conservative base and then blames the base for fighting back. What is “bad for the party” is that so many people across America who don’t normally pay that much attention to politics are finding out just how dishonorable, cruel, unprofessional and underhanded are the people who are running the “Grand Old Party.” That is why people continue to generally like Rick Santorum and why fully half of them dislike Mitt Romney. They don’t want a thug to be president, but they will vote for the lesser of two thugs, for now, hoping that the bigger thug will be defeated.
That is not what America is about, folks. We are better than this. We want a hero, not a thug.
God bless you, Rick Santorum, for loving this country so much to endure this Cross for us.
