{"id":5802,"date":"2005-11-10T13:47:54","date_gmt":"2005-11-10T18:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5802"},"modified":"2005-11-10T13:47:54","modified_gmt":"2005-11-10T18:47:54","slug":"et-tu-santorum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/et-tu-santorum\/","title":{"rendered":"Et tu, Santorum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hill reported<\/a> a couple of weeks ago that Bush couldn’t count on Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum to be an enthusiastic ally anymore, as the struggling Pennsylvania senator realized that standing by an unpopular president isn’t exactly a recipe for success.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, we’re seeing the effects of Santorum’s concerns<\/a> more clearly all the time.<\/p>\n

When President Bush touches down in Wilkes-Barre to talk about the war on terrorism Friday, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican – the vulnerable Rick Santorum – will be 116 miles away in Philadelphia addressing the American Legion.<\/p>\n

Unavoidable scheduling conflict, Santorum’s office says.<\/p>\n

As the GOP loss in the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday showed, however, it might also be a blessing to be in a different media market when Bush and his rock-bottom approval ratings come to your state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously, it’s not just Santorum. Yesterday, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) raised quite a fuss<\/a> when he admitted on MSNBC that he wouldn’t want to campaign with Bush next year. By late yesterday, Hayworth had issued a “clarification<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

My comment was just a realistic assessment of where the president is politically at this time, as the transcript makes clear. I’m going to do all I can to help the president turn things around, and I fully expect that by election time next year his troubles will be behind him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you read it carefully, Hayworth’s elucidation left his previous comments completely unchallenged.<\/p>\n

Even Bob Novak is saying that “Keep away from Bush” may soon become the new GOP strategy<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

The antidote to avoid [a negative] fate is to keep as far away from President Bush as possible, a lesson underlined by the president’s failed election rescue mission for former Virginia state Attorney General Kilgore. The consequences may be profound. As his approval rating dipped, Bush increasingly has been treated in Congress as a lame duck. Tuesday’s Virginia outcome increases the propensity of Republican senators and House members not only to avoid their president on the campaign trail but also to ignore his legislative proposals. […]<\/p>\n

Bush gets the blame. In the days immediately preceding Tuesday’s elections, Republican committee chairmen in Congress grew increasingly contemptuous of their president. Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed Bush’s Social Security plan as something to be shelved until after the 2008 presidential election. Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, opposed Bush’s requested $7 billion to fight bird flu. Thanks to Virginia, Bush can expect more of the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Publicly, the Republican establishment insists that nothing has changed and Tuesday’s results didn’t faze them. Privately, their anxiety is palpable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hill reported a couple of weeks ago that Bush couldn’t count on Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum to be an enthusiastic ally anymore, as the struggling Pennsylvania senator realized that standing by an unpopular president isn’t exactly a recipe for success. As it turns out, we’re seeing the effects of Santorum’s concerns more clearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}