Rick Santorum/Dan S

==From Feb 2013==
I see Deb Kohler, Rick Santorum's staffer, removed her post. Just as well, as I was preparing this reply:
A few years ago, I attended a monthly breakfast of Republican committee people in Rick Santorum's original congressional district. It was during the height of his campaign to retain his US Senate seat against Bob Casey.
As I sat down at one of those big round tables, with others whom I did not know, I mentioned my surprise that only one person was wearing a Santorum button, and got quite an ear full.
The first comment was, "She's only wearing that button because we're polite."
I was then regaled with stories of the bodies Santorum stabbed in the back and climbed over on his way to the top. I will skip over the individual betrayals and go to just the issue flips.
Santorum came to Pittsburgh after being groomed by Kirkpatrick Lockhart, a law firm that is better known for raising political candidates and lobbyists. This is the same law firm that gave us such political imports as city councilman Dan Cohen and Greg Fajt.
Anyhow, Santorum figured he could knock off Democratic congressman Doug Walgren, so he took up residence in Walgren's district. He needed some big money and political support, so he went to Elsie Hillman, who was the chair of the Republican Party and a member of the fifth richest family in the United States.
He had not established his political platform yet, and Elsie was very strongly pro-choice. Santorum then entered politics as a pro-choice Repulbican, until he discovered that his district was strongly pro-life - so strongly that a pro-choice candidate had no chance. (Even the Democrats were Catholic.)
So, Rick had a "conversion" and became pro-life. Since he was on record as pro-choice, he had to become more and more strident to obliterate that record. Good enough, he was elected.
His district was also very paleo-conservative and libertarian, at least economically, so, like them, he became a free trader and spoke often against "protectionism," until he chose to run for US Senate. He needed the help of the Steelworkers, so he came out for quotas on steel. Never mind that the manufacturers in his district were not steel makers, but steel *buyers*, and would be harmed by this, and never mind that he had portrayed himself a free trader as a matter of principle. He got elected.
Then, seeing that the paleo-conservatives were losing ground, he hitched his wagon to the rising star of neoconservatism. Then, when the Republicans went to extremes in the direction of religious and social intolerance, Rick Santorum ran to the head of that parade as well.
I don't know that Chuck Hagel would be better or worse than the next guy they might put up for the job, but I do know that advice from Rick Santorum's office is not trustworthy