Rush blasts Ridge; Suggests Santorum

[Keystone Phil]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/08/rush-puts-kibos.html






Fire away, folks. 

[Keystone Phil]

Yes, Santorum was a McCain critic. So was Romney.

[Keystone Phil]

Yes, Santorum was a McCain critic. So was Romney.

Yes, but Romney never so graciously repaid McCain for his help.

Oh, ok, we get it. I think Romney hurt McCain a lot more (and sometimes personally) than Rick did with his few comments.

I mean, if Santorum was planning on spitting on McCain in front of the whole country, he should have done it two years ago while McCain was campaigning to save his ass here in PA.

Get over it. Seriously. If the guy was seriously selected, do you really think it would be his goal to trash McCain?

[Keystone Phil]

What exactly does Rick Santorum bring to the ticket?  Even if he hadn't been running against Bob Casey in 06 it would have been a tough fight, and now, after losing by almost 20 points, I think its safe to say that Santorum is damaged goods.

Appeals to the base like no other possible running mate and he's a young guy.

I'm not suggesting that Santorum is a good pick. In fact, he goes against what I believe: McCain should play it safe and pick someone without controversy. We even discussed that that's Santorum's belief, too!

However, I won't deny that the guy has appeal.

[Keystone Phil]

What exactly does Rick Santorum bring to the ticket?  Even if he hadn't been running against Bob Casey in 06 it would have been a tough fight, and now, after losing by almost 20 points, I think its safe to say that Santorum is damaged goods.

Appeals to the base like no other possible running mate and he's a young guy.

I'm not suggesting that Santorum is a good pick. In fact, he goes against what I believe: McCain should play it safe and pick someone without controversy. We even discussed that that's Santorum's belief, too!

However, I won't deny that the guy has appeal.

I would say that his appeal to people who want to rip us apart is alot stronger than his appeal to the base.  It will be wall-to-wall attack ads.

Fair enough but I'd rather a running mate that satisfies the base over someone that pisses off the base. Swing voters really aren't deciding based on the running mates so these attack ads wouldn't be too hurtful.

[Keystone Phil]

Phil, you know I like Rick, but Brittain is right, Rick is radioactive.

He violates the two general principles of a running-mate:

1) Do no harm.

2) Carry your home state.

Carry your home state really isn't the best benchmark for a running mate especially this year. I can agree with "do no harm" but there is no such thing as a perfect running mate.

[Keystone Phil]

Phil, you know I like Rick, but Brittain is right, Rick is radioactive.

He violates the two general principles of a running-mate:

1) Do no harm.

2) Carry your home state.

Carry your home state really isn't the best benchmark for a running mate especially this year. I can agree with "do no harm" but there is no such thing as a perfect running mate.

No, but there are grades of imperfection, I would say that Santorum sits to low on the chart to be worth the risk.

Fair enough. I just don't think he's the disaster everyone makes him out to be. If it was McCain-Santorum and they lost, I strongly doubt that Santorum would be the main reason why they lost.

[Keystone Phil]

The difference is, Romney was running against McCain at the time. Then he made up. If people ran ads showing Romney's past criticism of McCain, it wouldn't resonate so much because they've already addressed the issue and people know that former rivals will join forces in situations like this.

Yeah, I understand that he was running against McCain. That's my point. It was even nastier. Whose to say that McCain and Santorum didn't "make up?"

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Nothing in his favor? He isn't widely supported among the base? He doesn't give the ticket a more youthful look? If you don't think that he's a good pick, fine. Don't say he has nothing in hs favor though.

However, I won't deny that the guy has appeal.

You have to admit that you can't be anywhere near objective on the subject of Santorum's appeal.

Even among the base, there seem to be loads of people who resent him for saving Specter's ass.

The Specter thing is mainly a PA thing. I won't say that those feelings have disappeared. I still don't like that he did it either. However, that isn't much of an issue anymore.

[Keystone Phil]

Just fixing that problem probably cost us a month... then I almost got him killed when I was driving him to the airport.

If that's really that much of a problem with some people then we aren't winning them back anyway. The thing is that those people aren't numerous enough to cause a problem.

[Keystone Phil]

phil i dont understand you.

i know you love santorum.  that is fine.  but you have to know somewhere deep inside of you that santorum would be an absolutely horrible choice.

It would probably get mostly negative coverage but it ultimately wouldn't make that much of a difference.

[Keystone Phil]

When Phil pushes the idea that a loser like Santorum actually be picked as the republican vice presidential candidate, you keep your cool.

[Keystone Phil]

They actually have balls. Rush doesn't and he never did.

Tell me about Obamas military service.

He was born in 1961; when would he have gone to war?

Serving in the military doesn't necessarily mean serving in a war, for the record.

[Keystone Phil]

They actually have balls. Rush doesn't and he never did.

Tell me about Obamas military service.

He was born in 1961; when would he have gone to war?

Serving in the military doesn't necessarily mean serving in a war, for the record.

True.  Not every person can go into the military, though.

I'm not arguing any point here. Just wanted to make you aware that military service doesn't always mean war experience.

[Keystone Phil]

PLEASE PLEASE pick Santorum.  Even if Biden or Rendell for that matter isn't the Dem VP, Santorum probably won't even carry PA for the GOP.  Ridge I'd be far more scared of and we might need Biden to carry PA. 

Uh, you're not carrying PA because of Joe Biden as the running mate.

[Keystone Phil]

It couldn't get any better than this...







Maybe it's not that crazy, guys...