Last week, Rick Santorum was on one of those Sunday morning news shows and criticized Senator Ted Cruz for his efforts to spare us all from Obamacare. One of my Facebook, ex-friends (her doing) and a Santorum campaign worker posted that she agreed with Santorum’s comment that Cruz had “hurt” the Republican Party. Santorum was parroting other liberal voices in the media and the left wing of the GOP.
I’m very disappointed that Santorum thought it was necessary to impugn Ted Cruz. For one, Obama shut down the government (really only 15% of it), not Cruz or the brave and wise House Republicans who stood with Cruz. Am I to believe that they’re all stupid and Rick Santorum and John McCain are all wise? Secondly, I know of no one who was negatively impacted by the shutdown. Being blocked from looking at Mt. Rushmore does not constitute a permanent hardship. Please, give me an example! Thirdly, the strategy did not hurt the Republican Party. The polling is misleading. The Republican brand was ruined before the shutdown because of the RINOs, McCain, and Romney, etc.
Cruz’s strategy was brilliant in that it highlighted to the people who were willing to take a stand to rescue them from Obamacare just as it is starting and everyone is seeing what a disaster it is. People will remember that Cruz and the House Republicans attempted to stop it, but McCain, McConnell and Rick Santorum could only criticize Cruz. This is sad; especially since I was a Santorum supporter. I even had a big yard sign and donated to his campaign. I met him more than once and actually respected him.
Cruz had this to say in response to his critics, “Washington has a long tradition of trying to hurl insults to silence those who they don’t like what they’re saying. I have to admit I find it amusing that those in Washington are puzzled when someone actually does what they said they would do.” Some have criticized the strategy for not having an “end game.” That is false. The plan was to call Obama’s bluff. It failed because of the Senate RINOs. The Senate Republicans have enough votes to stop cloture if they stand united. But, thanks to McCain, Graham, Collins, Murkowski and the like, they never do. Have you noticed how that group usually votes with Harry Reid on key issues?
Had the shutdown continued longer and the debt ceiling had not been raised voters would soon have recognized that Chicken Little’s screams about the sky falling were a repeat of the great sequester threats. That, in conjunction with what we are now experiencing with Obamacare, would have led to a public clamor to defund the ACA and we would all be better off for it. Obama would have been relegated to the bin of irrelevancy where he belongs.
But, that did not happen because the Republican leadership is weak. Even so, the people now know that Cruz would have spared us from this Marxist incursion, so it was not for naught. Last weekend Cruz won the Values Voter straw poll by 42%. Santorum tied for second with only 13%. Rand Paul, who also saw fit to criticize the Cruz strategy, only squeaked out 6%.
The NY Times was relishing the GOP in-fighting: “While Mr. Paul voted with Mr. Cruz on the effort to defund the health care law — pre-empting future primary attacks from the right — he also said publicly over the summer that he thought shutting the government down was “a dumb idea.” Privately, he complained during the shutdown that the effort was futile and was damaging the party.”
I would point out that Rand Paul is not opposed to cozying up to the left wing of the party, as he has endorsed Mitch McConnell over his Tea Party opponent. Of course, McConnell brokered the deal giving Obama everything he wanted in exchange for some Kentucky pork. The same NY Times article points out that Paul recently “appeared at a closed-door American Crossroads foreign policy panel and then posed for pictures with donors to the “super PAC,” which was co-founded by Karl Rove, a despised figure among some Tea Party activists.” Rove and his group are the ones waging war on the Tea Party.
This week George Will published a very complimentary editorial about Rick Santorum in the Washington Post. He correctly points out that Santorum is not going to give up the fight on the social issues, particularly in regard to abortion, that Rove and the GOP establishment want to jettison. “Santorum says that if Republicans will not speak for the many millions of voters concerned about social issues, “We’ll be more competitive in states we lose and will lose states we should win,” and “we will become the Whig Party and be done.”
I could not agree more. Santorum’s dedication to conservative social principles is what I admired about him. I understand that culture drives policy and not the reverse. I think he does as well. But, Santorum is a politician and sometimes politicians compromise their principles. He endorsed Arlen Specter who was vehemently pro-abortion and eventually switched parties.
I sent a Facebook message to the sweet lady that un-friended me:
Sorry to see that you un-friended me. I’ll miss your posts. I apologize if I offended you. If you intend to remain political, don’t expect that everyone will agree with you. Burning bridges does not advance the debate. I’ll be posting my response to Rick Santorum on Clashdaily.com this week. You probably won’t like it. Ted Cruz positioned himself as the leading opponent willing to take a stand against the Obamacare debacle. People will remember that as it becomes more unpopular. Some of us will remember the Republicans who thought it was more important to attack Cruz than Obama. I suspect that my previous efforts to help Santorum count for nothing if I have a difference with him.
I hope she re-thinks our friendship and I hope Rick Santorum is big enough to apologize to Ted Cruz.
Does politics trump principles? For Santorum and Paul that appears to be true. I hope that is not the case with Ted Cruz.
Image: Courtesy of: http://the-classic-liberal.com/rick-santorum-conservative-delusions/
