Rick Santorum has been given the gift of using vivid language to make his points. For example, at a Tea Party event in Troy, Michigan, Santorum said, “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!” He described the purpose of college as “indoctrination.” Santorum added, “Oh, I understand why [Obama] wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”
If going after the current Democratic president wasn’t enough, Santorum decided to take on an iconic one from a half-century ago. In describing his reaction to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Santorum repeated a statement he made in the past. Kennedy’s speech, Santorum said, made him want to “throw up.”
In the last several days, Santorum has also asserted that Mitt Romney is “in bed with Barack Obama on destroying these vital mediating institutions of our society by starving them of money from the very people that keep these organizations alive and well in our society.”
The connecting thread to this rhetoric is intemperance. Even arguments that have a germ of truth to them — such as college is not for everybody – is framed in language that is immoderate and wildly overstated. And why Santorum would double down on his fight with JFK rather than easily pivoting out of it tells you quite a lot. (Ronald Reagan, during his presidency, had nothing but praise for Kennedy.)
Senator Santorum is a smart and experienced man; he doesn’t need to resort to rhetoric that simply reinforces the impression he’s a deeply polarizing and strident figure. He seems to be reflexively drawn to these fights, much like Pat Buchanan was. The effect of this is to put people, even those somewhat sympathetic to Santorum’s views, on edge.
There are a lot of ways for Republicans to run against Barack Obama; coming off as anti-college and anti-Kennedy isn’t one of them.
This stunt by Santorum proves that he is unfit to be President simply becasue ti was unabashedly stupid.But what was even scarier was that the crowd cheered the idea that people shoudl not go to college and those that did were snobs. Continue on this vein and there is not doubt that Obama will be reelected.
Being nice and civil has gotten the GOP so far…oh wait, it hasn't.
this isn't what I would categorize as opposite of nice, civil, or intelligent- this falls in the "stupid" category. I say be ruthless but SMART. I'm just as fed up with wimpy Republicans as the next red-blooded Conservative, but hello?
Apparently Santorum believes college educated people will never vote for the GOP.
Santorum has to learn to pick his fights and his methods. Why does he constantly wave his intellectual underwear at the public? He has to learn when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. He is fast proving himself a political idiot.