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Thread: Rand Paul: I'm 'absolutely not' looking at leaving race

  1. #1

    Rand Paul: I'm 'absolutely not' looking at leaving race

    Rand Paul: I'm 'absolutely not' looking at leaving race

    Paul championed the campaign’s ground game in Iowa, saying he thinks people will be "shocked and surprised" to see how organized it is.

    “I think really that people are missing the whole point,” he said. “I think we may well be the most organized campaign in Iowa at this point.”

    Paul's chief Iowa strategist, Steve Grubbs, said the campaign has finished building out its county-level organization, with co-chairs in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, as well as volunteers in voting precincts statewide.

    “Here’s the thing that every campaign has to tackle: You’ve got 1,700 precincts across the state, roughly, and you want to find somebody in as many as possible,” Grubbs said. “A well-organized campaign is going to come in somewhere between 1,100 and 1,300, typically. We’re on track to hit those numbers. We’re a little ahead of schedule.”
    “We plan on being on the ground (in Iowa) as much as we can, also with the considerations that I do plan on continuing to do what I’m supposed to do in my day job, which is representing the state of Kentucky,” Paul said. “Our ground game in Iowa is significant, and we feel that it matches up, if not exceeds, most of the other candidates in the race.”
    Rand Paul for Peace



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  3. #2
    This was a big part of what made Santorum so successful in Iowa, when you get your ground game working, all this national poll B.S. doesn't count for squat. The only thing I worry about is corrupt shenanigans with delegate selection, hopefully these people will be as disciplined and tenacious as the ones who took over Iowa in 2012.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by hells_unicorn View Post
    This was a big part of what made Santorum so successful in Iowa, when you get your ground game working, all this national poll B.S. doesn't count for squat. The only thing I worry about is corrupt shenanigans with delegate selection, hopefully these people will be as disciplined and tenacious as the ones who took over Iowa in 2012.
    It is 1 good thing about having Carson in the race. While the party hacks are trying to convince the disillusioned trumpers to go for Rubio or Bush, the Paul and Carson supporters will be taking seats.

  5. #4
    Good.

    I'm absolutely not done campaigning either.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by hells_unicorn View Post
    This was a big part of what made Santorum so successful in Iowa, when you get your ground game working, all this national poll B.S. doesn't count for squat. The only thing I worry about is corrupt shenanigans with delegate selection, hopefully these people will be as disciplined and tenacious as the ones who took over Iowa in 2012.
    Wrong. Santorum was not successful. Everyone knows CNN put out a "Republican" only poll 2 weeks out from Iowa that showed Santorum about 5 points higher than normal. His normal polling by accurate polling companies (75% Rep and 25% Indy cause of the open caucus) was about 8-10%. I think the CNN Santorum in at around 15% (fake surge) and the media all reported Santorum was surging when in fact he was NOT after being in Iowa for 6 plus months. The fact was that Santorum simply did better among Republicans only. The sheep all followed the media. Goes to show how powerful the media can be even with false data and facts. People will believe $#@!.

    Ron lost because his TEAM did not refute such polling tactics that knocked Ron out of first. It was all a $#@!ing LIE. I hope Rand has a RAPID RESPONSE team to refute media BS from now until the end of this nomination. If not, it will be the death of Rand or any campaign for that matter. Clinton was extremely good at having a rapid response team on any issues that popped in the media - Sea Serpent Head anyone?
    Last edited by Liberty74; 10-03-2015 at 11:51 AM.
    If Rand does not win the Republican nomination, he should buck the controlled two party system and run as an Independent for President in 2016 and give Americans a real option to vote for.

    We are all born libertarians then something goes really wrong. Despite this truth, most people are still libertarians yet not know it.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Liberty74 View Post
    Wrong. Santorum was not successful.
    He won the Iowa caucuses.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Liberty74 View Post
    Wrong. Santorum was not successful. Everyone knows CNN put out a "Republican" only poll 2 weeks out from Iowa that showed Santorum about 5 points higher than normal. His normal polling by accurate polling companies (75% Rep and 25% Indy cause of the open caucus) was about 8-10%. I think the CNN Santorum in at around 15% (fake surge) and the media all reported Santorum was surging when in fact he was NOT after being in Iowa for 6 plus months. The fact was that Santorum simply did better among Republicans only. The sheep all followed the media. Goes to show how powerful the media can be even with false data and facts. People will believe $#@!.

    Ron lost because his TEAM did not refute such polling tactics that knocked Ron out of first. It was all a $#@!ing LIE. I hope Rand has a RAPID RESPONSE team to refute media BS from now until the end of this nomination. If not, it will be the death of Rand or any campaign for that matter. Clinton was extremely good at having a rapid response team on any issues that popped in the media - Sea Serpent Head anyone?
    I don't disagree that the media helped him and that there was poll manipulation involved towards the end (along with a massive attack campaign on Ron by lunatic talk-radio clowns), but Santorum's numbers had built up over time prior to that media campaign, and if he'd stayed where he was polling, he still would have had a decent 3rd place showing. I think people also don't give any credence to the fact that Bachmann's campaign collapse resulted in almost all of her supporters going to Santorum, which gave his numbers a boost. Given Bachmann's rabid foreign policy views, her people would have either gone to Santorum or Romney, not Paul.

    Retail politics does make a difference, especially in places like Iowa. And again, I absolutely despise Santorum, I had that S.O.B. as my state's senator for 12 years and he was an utter disaster. The only thing that made him look semi-conservative was the fact that we had one of the most notorious RINOs in the history of politics in Arlen Specter as our other senator during most of that time period.
    Last edited by hells_unicorn; 10-03-2015 at 12:46 PM.

  9. #8
    I really want to thank Rand Paul for being willing to take the trashing that he is getting I know it must be really difficult for him. He is doing it for us and I think we need to help push as much as we can. We can't let the media kick our asses again.
    Last edited by Working Poor; 10-03-2015 at 01:39 PM.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Liberty74 View Post
    Wrong. Santorum was not successful. Everyone knows CNN put out a "Republican" only poll 2 weeks out from Iowa that showed Santorum about 5 points higher than normal. His normal polling by accurate polling companies (75% Rep and 25% Indy cause of the open caucus) was about 8-10%. I think the CNN Santorum in at around 15% (fake surge) and the media all reported Santorum was surging when in fact he was NOT after being in Iowa for 6 plus months. The fact was that Santorum simply did better among Republicans only. The sheep all followed the media. Goes to show how powerful the media can be even with false data and facts. People will believe $#@!.

    Ron lost because his TEAM did not refute such polling tactics that knocked Ron out of first. It was all a $#@!ing LIE. I hope Rand has a RAPID RESPONSE team to refute media BS from now until the end of this nomination. If not, it will be the death of Rand or any campaign for that matter. Clinton was extremely good at having a rapid response team on any issues that popped in the media - Sea Serpent Head anyone?

    Wrong, Paul's campaign let himself shoot himself in the foot by staying in Texas the week before the Iowa Caucus instead of campaigning there.

  12. #10
    Great news, Rand needs to fight through the attacks from mainstream media and keep his campaign afloat until he starts gaining momentum at just the right time.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Working Poor View Post
    I really want to thank Rand Paul for being willing to take the trashing that he is getting I know it must be really difficult for him. He is doing it for us and I think we need to help push as much as we can. We can't let the media kick our asses again.
    I agree. Rand & Kelley & family, thank you and know we are with you all. the. way!!
    The bigger government gets, the smaller I wish it was.
    My new motto: More Love, Less Laws

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Working Poor View Post
    I really want to thank Rand Paul for being willing to take the trashing that he is getting I know it must be really difficult for him. He is doing it for us and I think we need to help push as much as we can. We can't let the media kick our asses again.
    +2!
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  15. #13
    He should not leave the race. Santorum polled about the same as Rand at this time and eventually won Iowa.
    * See my visitor message area for caveats related to my posting history here.
    * Also, I have effectively retired from all social media including posting here and are basically opting out of anything to do with national politics or this country on federal or state level and rather focusing locally. I may stop by from time to time to discuss philosophy on a general level related to Libertarian schools of thought and application in the real world.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Working Poor View Post
    I really want to thank Rand Paul for being willing to take the trashing that he is getting I know it must be really difficult for him. He is doing it for us and I think we need to help push as much as we can. We can't let the media kick our asses again.
    Quote Originally Posted by georgiaboy View Post
    I agree. Rand & Kelley & family, thank you and know we are with you all. the. way!!


    Well Said!

    As a supporter, I'm in for the long haul as well. I'm going to do all I can despite the naysayers, not to mention the trolls. You know who you are. Those not supporting Rand need to go somewhere else. If the shoe fits, GTFO, I'm tired of listening to your lame crap.
    Brawndo's got what plants crave. Its got electrolytes.



    H. L. Mencken said it best:


    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”


    "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by hells_unicorn View Post
    This was a big part of what made Santorum so successful in Iowa, when you get your ground game working, all this national poll B.S. doesn't count for squat. The only thing I worry about is corrupt shenanigans with delegate selection, hopefully these people will be as disciplined and tenacious as the ones who took over Iowa in 2012.
    Many people keep repeating Santorum's strong ground game in Iowa and the fact he visited 99 counties. Well, when he came to my county in 2012 there were fewer than a dozen people at his event. And most of his events were small and still are this cycle. The reason Santorum won was because evangelicals in Iowa attempt to vote as a bloc to strengthen their voice. Bachmann(who was the top evangelical choice before Santorum's rise) attempted a 99 county tour as if it was the holy grail of campaigning in Iowa. It's not... not even close. What she did in my county and repeated across dozens of others was stopping in town for 10-15 minutes to shake some hands and then leave. People all over Iowa felt stiffed. Her 'ground game' was a complete joke. Couple that joke of meeting Iowans with staffers leaving her campaign and it set up an air of... this smells like s***. There were two remaining strong Christian conservatives in the race; Santorum and Paul. Paul was able to scoop up some of them but there was last minute smearing going on in the state with robocalls and mailings. Santorum got all of the media attention which allowed his campaign to catapult to the front and win Iowa despite Paul trending upwards for weeks.

    Santorum has some strong backers that know how to run campaigns. He even has some enthusiastic and active volunteers like he did in 2012 but his following is small. The stars aligned for Santorum once and I predict they won't do so again.

    EDIT: To add, Paul was trending upwards because of his ground game.
    Last edited by Uriah; 10-03-2015 at 11:25 PM.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Uriah View Post
    Many people keep repeating Santorum's strong ground game in Iowa and the fact he visited 99 counties. Well, when he came to my county in 2012 there were fewer than a dozen people at his event. And most of his events were small and still are this cycle. The reason Santorum won was because evangelicals in Iowa attempt to vote as a bloc to strengthen their voice. Bachmann(who was the top evangelical choice before Santorum's rise) attempted a 99 county tour as if it was the holy grail of campaigning in Iowa. It's not... not even close. What she did in my county and repeated across dozens of others was stopping in town for 10-15 minutes to shake some hands and then leave. People all over Iowa felt stiffed. Her 'ground game' was a complete joke. Couple that joke of meeting Iowans with staffers leaving her campaign and it set up an air of... this smells like s***. There were two remaining strong Christian conservatives in the race; Santorum and Paul. Paul was able to scoop up some of them but there was last minute smearing going on in the state with robocalls and mailings. Santorum got all of the media attention which allowed his campaign to catapult to the front and win Iowa despite Paul trending upwards for weeks.

    Santorum has some strong backers that know how to run campaigns. He even has some enthusiastic and active volunteers like he did in 2012 but his following is small. The stars aligned for Santorum once and I predict they won't do so again.
    Yeah, Santorum either lost a bet, or someone convinced him he was going to be able to pick up where he left off in 2012. Back then, they were nuts for him in LA and especially here in TN. But as soon as he dropped, the so-called GOP in TN got in line for Mitt.



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  20. #17
    I'm glad he's staying in. I really hope he can drop some libertarian talking points in the next debate.

    But we also need to look at *why* people stay in the race at 2%. Ron Paul stayed in because is was a message campaign. Most other people stay in because is lets them raise money for their future endeavours. Just something to consider.....

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by brandon View Post
    I'm glad he's staying in. I really hope he can drop some libertarian talking points in the next debate.

    But we also need to look at *why* people stay in the race at 2%. Ron Paul stayed in because is was a message campaign. Most other people stay in because is lets them raise money for their future endeavours. Just something to consider.....
    Rand is staying in because he wants to be POTUS.

  22. #19
    There's no reason for Rand to drop out, or for any objective observer to think he would.

    ....much ado about nothing.

    The media's just trying to belittle him, which must mean that today is a day that ends with day.

  23. #20
    unusual amount of MSM pressure to get Rand (and Jeb) to quit. no pressure on Santorum, Christie, Patacki, Graham, Gilmore?

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by CPUd View Post
    Rand is staying in because he wants to be POTUS.
    Of course he does. But I imagine at this point he has realized it's extremely unlikely. Same with all the other low single digit candidates.

    So why do all of the low candidates stay in the race? Increasing their fame and raising money they can use elsewhere.

    Ron Paul was a bit different. He did want the money - especially with goons like Benton running it. But he also had a message to push.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by brandon View Post
    Of course he does. But I imagine at this point he has realized it's extremely unlikely. Same with all the other low single digit candidates.

    So why do all of the low candidates stay in the race? Increasing their fame and raising money they can use elsewhere.

    Ron Paul was a bit different. He did want the money - especially with goons like Benton running it. But he also had a message to push.
    Look at Santorum's poll numbers during the same period in 2011. He was polling the same as Rand is now and went on to win Iowa.

    * See my visitor message area for caveats related to my posting history here.
    * Also, I have effectively retired from all social media including posting here and are basically opting out of anything to do with national politics or this country on federal or state level and rather focusing locally. I may stop by from time to time to discuss philosophy on a general level related to Libertarian schools of thought and application in the real world.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by kahless View Post
    Look at Santorum's poll numbers during the same period in 2011. He was polling the same as Rand is now and went on to win Iowa.

    That's a great graphic. Don't jump ship until the first couple states.

  27. #24
    Won't be in his hands after a certain point.



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  29. #25
    There's really no point dropping out before Iowa and New Hampshire as long as he h. If he doesn't finish in the top three in those two states then we can have this discussion but definitely not before.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by brandon View Post
    I'm glad he's staying in. I really hope he can drop some libertarian talking points in the next debate.

    But we also need to look at *why* people stay in the race at 2%. Ron Paul stayed in because is was a message campaign. Most other people stay in because is lets them raise money for their future endeavours. Just something to consider.....
    Listen to me carefully. Rand Paul is staying in this race because he knows the polls would mean nothing at this point even if any effort were being made to make them accurate (and nothing will be done to ensure their accuracy until less than a month before Iowa). Rand Paul is staying in the race because he wants to see, and because he believes us when we say we want to see, if the American people are ready to stop letting the media choose their candidates for them and choose them ourselves.

    If he were in this for the money, brandon my dear child, we would still have the PATRIOT Act. What part of his record in the Senate convinces you the man is motivated by money? I don't know how to break this to you, but if he were in politics for the money, he wouldn't be throwing money at a presidential campaign at all. He'd stick to the Senate and stop throwing lobbyists out of his office. Nothing else would make any sense.

    Now, give a logical argument why I'm not making any sense or quit your trolling and shut up already.

    Quote Originally Posted by cindy25 View Post
    unusual amount of MSM pressure to get Rand (and Jeb) to quit. no pressure on Santorum, Christie, Patacki, Graham, Gilmore?
    Christie is on This Week yet again this morning. I think the powers that be would have been happy enough to see him drop out before now, but then Rand Paul trounced him in the first debate. Now they seem focused on keeping him in just so we can't say our man tossed him out.
    Last edited by acptulsa; 10-04-2015 at 07:30 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by CPUd View Post
    Yeah, Santorum either lost a bet, or someone convinced him he was going to be able to pick up where he left off in 2012. Back then, they were nuts for him in LA and especially here in TN. But as soon as he dropped, the so-called GOP in TN got in line for Mitt.
    Which is simply amazing, considering he is probably the "most corrupted" candidate in the 2016 field.

    °
    Attytood
    The Rick Santorum that America doesn't know

    Will Bunch
    Attytood
    Posted: Wednesday, January 4, 2012, 11:08 PM
    image: http://media.philly.com/designimages...yNews-2014.jpg


    image: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politic..._120102_mn.jpg



    You’ve probably heard all the good ones about GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum by now. The one about his “Google problem.” The one about the “man-on-dog sex” (prompting the greatest journalistic response ever, when the reporter told Santorum that he was “sort of freaking me out.”) The one about how the Catholic Church’s priest sex abuse scandal was caused by Boston liberalism, or the one about how President Obama should be anti-abortion because he’s black and abortion is like slavery. And so on and so forth.

    That’s the Rick Santorum that America has come to know over the last 15 years or so – an unapologetic and almost goofy culture warrior whose obsessions – like thinking that gay sex is a gateway drug to bestiality – make him a hero to social conservatives and often a laughing stock to most everyone else. Santorum’s rise in the 2012 presidential race has people talking about whether his views on social issues – talk of annulling gay marriages, seemingly questioning the right to even birth control --- make him too extreme to be president – and that’s an important topic to discuss.


    But I also think Santorum’s weird sexual bluster can obscure who he really is, and what truly matters about his suddenly surging campaign. As a Philadelphia-based political reporter, I arrived in town just seven months after Santorum became my state’s junior senator. I followed his 12 years on the Washington political stage closely, and I think people obsessing on the “man-on-dog” stuff are missing the bigger picture. For one thing, the self-styled “family values” expert has a surprisingly ambiguous record with his own personal ethics. Also, Santorum’s legislative record shows that his real workaday agenda was not so much waging culture wars as protecting the interests of the 1 Percent, the millionaires and billionaires who funded the modern Republican Party. You could say that Rick Santorum is just another politician. But that would be giving him too much credit.

    Here’s a Pennsylvanian’s brief guide to the Rick Santorum you don’t know:

    1. This compassionate Christian conservative founded a charity that was actually a bit of a scam. In 2001, following up on a faith-based urban charity initiative around the 2000 GOP convention in Philadelphia, Santorum launched a charitable foundation called the Operation Good Neighbor Foundation. While in its first few years the charity cut checks to community groups for $474,000, Operation Good Neighbor Foundation had actually raised more than $1 million, from donors who overlapped with Santorum’s political fund raising. Where did the majority of the charity’s money go? In salary and consulting fees to a network of politically connected lobbyists, aides and fundraisers, including rent and office payments to Santorum’s finance director Rob Bickhart, later finance chair of the Republican National Committee. When I reported on Santorum’s charity for The American Prospect in 2006, experts told me a responsible charity doles out at least 75 percent of its income in grants, and they were shocked to learn the figure for Operation Good Neighbor Fund was less than 36 percent. The charity – which didn’t register with the state of Pennsylvania as required under the law --- was finally disbanded in 2007.



    Attytood
    The Rick Santorum that America doesn't know

    Will Bunch
    Attytood
    Posted: Wednesday, January 4, 2012, 11:08 PM
    image: http://media.philly.com/designimages...yNews-2014.jpg


    image: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politic..._120102_mn.jpg



    You’ve probably heard all the good ones about GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum by now. The one about his “Google problem.” The one about the “man-on-dog sex” (prompting the greatest journalistic response ever, when the reporter told Santorum that he was “sort of freaking me out.”) The one about how the Catholic Church’s priest sex abuse scandal was caused by Boston liberalism, or the one about how President Obama should be anti-abortion because he’s black and abortion is like slavery. And so on and so forth.

    That’s the Rick Santorum that America has come to know over the last 15 years or so – an unapologetic and almost goofy culture warrior whose obsessions – like thinking that gay sex is a gateway drug to bestiality – make him a hero to social conservatives and often a laughing stock to most everyone else. Santorum’s rise in the 2012 presidential race has people talking about whether his views on social issues – talk of annulling gay marriages, seemingly questioning the right to even birth control --- make him too extreme to be president – and that’s an important topic to discuss.


    But I also think Santorum’s weird sexual bluster can obscure who he really is, and what truly matters about his suddenly surging campaign. As a Philadelphia-based political reporter, I arrived in town just seven months after Santorum became my state’s junior senator. I followed his 12 years on the Washington political stage closely, and I think people obsessing on the “man-on-dog” stuff are missing the bigger picture. For one thing, the self-styled “family values” expert has a surprisingly ambiguous record with his own personal ethics. Also, Santorum’s legislative record shows that his real workaday agenda was not so much waging culture wars as protecting the interests of the 1 Percent, the millionaires and billionaires who funded the modern Republican Party. You could say that Rick Santorum is just another politician. But that would be giving him too much credit.

    Here’s a Pennsylvanian’s brief guide to the Rick Santorum you don’t know:

    1. This compassionate Christian conservative founded a charity that was actually a bit of a scam. In 2001, following up on a faith-based urban charity initiative around the 2000 GOP convention in Philadelphia, Santorum launched a charitable foundation called the Operation Good Neighbor Foundation. While in its first few years the charity cut checks to community groups for $474,000, Operation Good Neighbor Foundation had actually raised more than $1 million, from donors who overlapped with Santorum’s political fund raising. Where did the majority of the charity’s money go? In salary and consulting fees to a network of politically connected lobbyists, aides and fundraisers, including rent and office payments to Santorum’s finance director Rob Bickhart, later finance chair of the Republican National Committee. When I reported on Santorum’s charity for The American Prospect in 2006, experts told me a responsible charity doles out at least 75 percent of its income in grants, and they were shocked to learn the figure for Operation Good Neighbor Fund was less than 36 percent. The charity – which didn’t register with the state of Pennsylvania as required under the law --- was finally disbanded in 2007.

    2. Likewise, a so-called “leadership PAC” created by Santorum that was supposed to fund other Republicans instead seemed to mostly pay for the lifestyle of Santorum and those around him. My investigation of the America’s Foundation PAC showed that only 18 percent of its money went to fund political candidates, less -- and typically far less -- than any other “leadership PACs.” What America’s Foundation did spend a lot on with what looked like everyday expenses, including 66 trips to the Starbucks in Santorum’s then hometown of Leesburg, Va., multiple fast-food outings and expenditures at Wal-Mart, Target and Giant supermarkets. Campaign finance experts said the PAC’s expenses – paid for by donations from wealthy businessmen and lobbyists – were “unconventional,” at best and arguably not legal. Santorum also funded his large Leesburg “McMansion” with a $500,000 mortgage from a private bank run by a major campaign donor, in a program that was only supposed to be open to high-wealth investment clients in the trust, which Santorum was not, and closed to the general public.

    3. Santorum was never above mingling his cultural crusades with the everyday work of raising political cash. In 2005, Santorum made headlines – not all positive – for visiting the deathbed of Terri Schiavo, the woman at the center of a national right-to-die controversy.What my Philadelphia Daily News colleague John Baer later exposed was that the real reason he was in the Tampa, Fla., area was to collect money at a $250,000 fundraiser organized by executives of Outback Steakhouses, a company that shared Santorum’s passion for a low minimum wage for waitresses and other rank-and-file workers. Santorum’s efforts were also aided by his unusual mode of travel: Wal-Mart’s corporate jet. And he canceled a public meeting on Social Security reform "out of respect for the Schiavo family" even as the closed fundraisers went on.

    4. Santorum didn’t seem to be against government waste when it came to his family. During his years in the Senate, Santorum raised his family in northern Virginia and rarely if ever seemed to use the small house that he claimed as his legal residence, in a blue-collar Pittsburgh suburb called Penn Hills. So Pennsylvania voters were shocked when they found out the Penn Hills School District had paid out $72,000 for the home cyberschooling of five of Santorum’s kids, hundreds of miles away in a different state. The cash=strapped district was unsuccessful in its efforts to get any of its money back from Santorum.

    5. Washington's lobbyist culture -- Santorum was soaking in it. The ex-Pennsylvania senator spent much of his final years in government trying to downplay and defend his involvement in the so-called "K Street Project," an effort created by GOP uber-lobbyist and tax-cutting fanatic Grover Norquist and future felon and House majority whip Tom DeLay. By all accounts, Santorum was the Senate's "point man" on the K Street Project and he met with Norquist -- at least occasionally and perhaps frequently -- to discuss the effort to sure that Republicans were landing well-paying jobs in lobbying firms that were seeking to then access and influence other Republicans.

    6. Santorum had no problem with big government if it was supporting his campaign contributors in Big Pharma.It's little wonder that Santorum ultimately supported Medicare Part D, a prescription drug plan for the elderly that has added hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit and was drafted in such a way to best help pharmaceutical companies maximize profits from all the unbridled spending. When Santorum was defeated for a third term in 2006, an internal memo at the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline said his departure from Washington "creates a big hole that we need to fill.

    7. The defender of family values was also slavish in his devotion to a large American corporate behemoth, Wal-Mart: In the wake of the report about Santorum's travel in the Wal-Mart corporate jet, I counted the many ways that Santorum had done the bidding of the world's largest retailer in the Senate, including battling to limit any increases in the minimum wage and seeking to make changes in overtime rules that woulld benefit the company and hurt its blue-collar workforce, tort reform to limit lawsuits against what is said to be the world's most-sued company, and changes in charitable giving laws and of course eliminating the estate tax that would benefit the billionaire heirs of Sam Walton.

    8. Santorum has frequently insisted that his political values are guided by his religious values, and that John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech describing a separtion between the two had done "much harm" in America. But despite inviting such scrutiny, there's been little discussion of Santorum's ties to ultra-conservative movements within the Roman Catholic Church Santorum's comments about JFK were made in Rome in 2002 when he spoke at a 100th birthday event for Jose Maria Escrivade Balaguer, founder of the secretive group within the church known as Opus Dei. Although Santorum says he is not a member of Opus Dei -- which has been criticized by some for alleged cult-like qualities and ties to ultra-conservative regimes around the world -- he did receive written permission to attend the ultra-conservative St. Catherine of Siena Church in Great Falls, Va., where Mass is still conducted in Latin and a long-time priest and many parishioners are members of Opus Dei, mingling with political conservatives like Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and former FBI director Louis Freeh.

    9. Santorum isn't above big government-funded boondoggles -- when they're linked to his allies and campaign contributors. Consider the type of project that the Tea Party loves to hate, a $750 million energy plant in Schuylkill County, Pa., that was to convert coal to liquids but needed massive subsidies. Santorum boasted of his rule in securing an $100 million federal loan for the project -- which had hired Pennsylvania's top Republican Party power broker of the 2000s, Bob Asher, as a lobbyist and paid him at least $900,000. Despite Santorum's efforts, the plant has not been built.

    10. Santorum apparently believes in "an entitlement culture" when it comes for former politicians. After Tuesday night's virtual tie in the Iowa caucus, the Pennsylvanian spoke eloquently about his immigrant grandfather working for decades in the Pennsylvania coal fields and his massive hands; the grandson probably won't have that problem. Losing an election in 2006 allowed Santorum to become a poster child for how ex-pols quickly and easily cash in in America, as a lawyer-rainmaker and joining a "think tank" (that for a time was called America's Enemies) and as an analyst for the Fox News Channel and as a board member for Universal Health Services, an ethically challenged company where executives had supported his Senate campaigns. The New York Times' Gail Collins noted that Santorum had earned $970,000 in 2010 despite seeming sort of unemployed.

    The real Rick Santorum is indeed a frothy mixture -- of self-interest, loose ethical standards, and careerism in a career that's been largely devoted not so much to the social causes about which he makes headlines as looking out for the interests of big corporations and the wealthiest 1 Percent of Americans. It's a shame that more voters don't know that yet. That is the "Google problem" that Santorum actually deserves.


    Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/a...5dxI8oTc5SA.99

  32. #28
    When do you guys think the best time will be to unleash the kraken... Ron?
    "I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful."

    --Fisher Ames (1789)

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Henry View Post
    When do you guys think the best time will be to unleash the kraken... Ron?
    As late as possible. Of course I would love to see Ron all throughout the race, but his impact would likely be best close to the Iowa Caucus or something. I think Rand only brought him in near the end of his senate race, I forget if it was the primary or general.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Henry View Post
    When do you guys think the best time will be to unleash the kraken... Ron?
    Why bring him in on the frontal attack when he is performing some very nice flanking attacks?


    Quote Originally Posted by Lucille View Post
    http://www.theburningplatform.com/20...y-major-media/

    (ANTIMEDIA) San Diego, CA — Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has unloaded a harsh criticism of the 2016 presidential election. Appearing on RT’s Boom and Bust show Thursday, Paul commented on the media’s control of the U.S. electoral process, Donald Trump’s candidacy, and the stock market. Some of his harshest comments came when Ron Paul was addressing the media’s role in the 2016 presidential elections: “I think some of this stuff in the presidential race is orchestrated by the major media — and it’s entertainment,” he said.



    Former Congressman Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2012, has some first-hand insight into the media’s role in the electoral process. In one of the 2012 Republican presidential debates, Paul famously received only 89 seconds to speak throughout the duration of the discourse. Paul’s candidacy — despite massive grassroots support — was mostly ignored by the mainstream media, reinforcing his assertion that the media “orchestrates” the election.

    Proof comes from history, and as we look back at the 2012 Republican primary for answers, one simple fact slaps us in the face: One candidate was shown overwhelming favoritism while another candidate was essentially silenced.

    According to a research paper from the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics,

    “… Mitt Romney received nearly five minutes more speaking time per debate above his proportional share [in the polls], while no other GOPer ended up with a net bonus of even one second for the debate season.”

    The paper continued,

    “Despite frequently polling in third place (and sometimes as high as second) during this period under analysis, Paul received less than his equal share of speaking time in 14 of the 17 debates conducted from September 2011 through February 2012.”

    The table below shows the 2012 candidates in full, comparing their allowed speaking time at the debates to their standing in the polls.
    More at the link
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

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