David Sirota noticed a real problem Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum might have when running for a third term next year: he’s hardly a Pennsylvania resident anymore.
When Santorum first ran for Congress in 1990, he made a huge issue out of his opponent’s home in suburban DC. As Roll Call reported at the time:
A Republican challenger, Rick Santorum, is claiming home is not where Rep. Doug Walgren’s (D-Pa) heart is…. Santorum’s spot is the essence of simplicity. Strange music plays while a picture of an attractive white house is shown. The announcer says, “There’s something strange about this house.” The reason is because Walgren lives in McLean, which is “the wealthiest area of Virginia” rather than his suburban district.
It was an effective attack, Walgren was seen as out of touch, and Santorum’s career in Congress was on its way. The funny thing, though, is that Santorum is now vulnerable to the same charge.
As Santorum’s recent flap over his kids’ school funding made clear, the Pennsylvania senator and his family live in a $757,000 home in Leesburg, Va. Indeed, the family’s Pittsburgh-area home was put up for sale as soon as Santorum was sworn in 11 years ago. Now they reportedly own a small house in Penn Hills, Penn. — with two bedrooms, it hardly seems big enough for Santorum, his wife, and their six children — and there’s some question as to whether the Santorums have ever even seen the home.
Putting aside, for the moment, that the Constitution requires senators to “be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen,” this residency issue poses a serious political problem for Santorum. Voters sometimes expect their elected officials to have some connection to the communities they serve. Santorum doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania anymore — and he can ask Tom Daschle about how voters react to ads about senators who establish their primary residence away from their home state.
As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently put it in an editorial:
Now Rick Santorum of Leesburg, Va., is saying that he is and he isn’t a resident of Pennsylvania. Well, which is it?
[…]
Pennsylvanians fundamentally deserve a senator who lives in Pennsylvania — unless the United States wants to outsource even its Senate seats…. [T]he senator has to prove to the people of Pennsylvania that he is one of them, not just a visitor from the state of Virginia.
That snickering sound you hear is coming from Bob Casey’s office.