Rick Santorum is not trying to win the presidency [View all]

[ProSense]

Rick Santorum is not trying to win the presidency

by Scottie Thomaston

Does anyone here believe that a man is going to win the presidency in 2012 by telling the electorate that he wants the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold and Eisenstadt and leave birth control up to hostile anti-women states? Does anyone believe a candidate is going to win the presidency by avoiding discussions of foreign and domestic policy and instead simply saying that the president's "theology" is bad and that Protestants are a dying breed and overtaken with satanism? Do you think his public persona that has been carefully built over his long political career is one that specifically invokes anti-LGBT sentiment that is the same type of terrorism leveled against our community by the worst horrific zealots on accident? Do you think his focus on philosophical issues relating to his version of morality instead of concrete policy initiatives is because he's just too stupid to come up with policies, or can you see that it is part of his strategy?

Rick Santorum is not going to be President of the United States and he was never trying to be. If he were he would be lying like Romney is and desperately attempting to appear more sane for the cameras. He is saying and doing these things because he's trying to send a message. These aren't dog whistles; they are screams.

Here's what's happening: the culture war is pretty much over. Our side won. Proposition 8 was a pyrrhic victory for these people, showing the entire country the utter foolishness of anti-LGBT legislation and the inhumanity of taking away marriage from a group of people who have done everything we could have possibly done to earn the right to be viewed as humans just like anyone else. Once Proposition 8 was passed into law and people began to witness the fallout and once our sadness and desperation and humanity were shown to the country, there was nothing to keep the culture war alive. What could they say? "Well yeah, we're pretty terrible and inhumane and probably killing people, and we've just taken marriage away from people who have previously had it for no good reason, but we really really do have the only moral position in this argument"?

No.

As soon as lack of marriage rights for gay Americans was equated with hate (or "H8" as the "No H8" campaign says) we won. It does matter that we've lost battles along the way and that amendments and anti-LGBT bills have been passed; that's important, but that's part of the last bit of scrambling the radical right is trying to do to appear relevant.

This is where Rick Santorum's strategy enters the picture. He's very upset. Frantic, even. He knows everything is over and he knows fairly soon our side will see nothing but victories, increasing poll favorability numbers and he knows we will be able to stop fighting. He's in panic mode. The far right is in panic mode. They wanted to win so badly and now it's just over and the people they were trying to keep down feel all empowered.

So they're doing scorched-earth.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/21/1066877/-Rick-Santorum-is-not-trying-to-win-the-presidency

I agree completely with the premise. Romney wants to win. That's all Romney wants. He wants to win at any cost. The rest of the candidates and the entire right wing are throwing a Hail Mary pass. From Komen's attack on Planned Parenthood to the Catholic Church's assault on women's rights, from the attacks on government to the push for austerity and from the attacks on safety net programs to the assault on the working poor, the right wing is doing a "scream" because dogwhistles aren't enough these days.

Oh yeah, Republican hypocrisy is biting them in the ass every step of the way:

Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu Says He Supports Gay Marriage
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002333539