Showing posts with label Political screed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political screed. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

A LITTLE SNARK

Oh, they've done it again, those Republicans running for President, they've gotten under my skin.  Mittens Romney seems to do it virtually every time he opens his mouth but recently Rick "the former Senator from the 14th Century" Santorum did it to me. 

And surprisingly, it wasn't his comment that President Kennedy's speech about separation of church and state almost made him throw up. 

And it wasn't his comment that President Obama is a snob because he wants every young person to go to college.  (Santorum, by the way, has three college degrees.) 

It wasn't his critique of Romney's wealth.  (Santorum lives in a home in a rich suburb of Washington, D.C.)

No what got under my skin was a recent campaign appearance in which Santorum stated that when the Republicans nominate a moderate, they always lose.  And when they nominate a conservative, they always win.

Senator, does the name Dwight David Eisenhower mean anything to you?  He was a moderate Republican and he served two terms as President.

How about the name, Barry Goldwater?  He was known as Mr. Conservative when he ran for President in 1964.  He lost.

SWMBO said this morning something about Santorum just saying whatever comes to his mind.  I said it doesn't have anything to do with his (alleged) mind.  He just says these things without even thinking about them.

So enough with Santorum.

Since I brought up that 1964 Goldwater run, I thought I should tell you how I decided who to vote for - Barry or President Lyndon Johnson.  After a lot of reading about both men I came to three conclusions.  Goldwater was crazy and Johnson was a crook.  That's two.  Now, which to vote for?  I finally concluded that Congress could control a crazy president but not a crook.  I voted for Goldwater.

A decade or so later I lived in Arizona and covered Goldwater as a newsman many times.  I wrote about him for a national magazine.  I went to Washington to cover the "10th anniversary of his non-inaugural" in 1975.

Barry wasn't crazy but he certainly was unelectable as a Republican in 1964, so soon after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In his final years, Barry pissed off most of the Republican establishment in Arizona as he seemed to become more and more Libertarian.  Many people blame his second wife but I think Barry was always that way.

I don't think anyone will ever have fond memories of Rick Santorum.