E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSEvery longshot presidential candidate comes to Iowa hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. Most never come close, but GOP hopeful Rick Santorum hopes he can buck the odds. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
WATERLOO, Iowa -- This tune might sound familiar to John McCain.
Gov. Rick Perry continued to hammer rival Rick Santorum over his past support for earmarks Friday, taking a page from the 2008 GOP nominee's playbook by ridiculing individual pork barrel projects of dubious-sounding value.
"Just yesterday, once again, he defended his prolific pork barrel spending," Perry told over a hundred Iowans at Doughy Joey's pizza parlor in Waterloo. "So, Sen. Santorum, just to get a little more specific here, please tell me why you asked taxpayers to support the bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Why did you ask the taxpayers of Iowa to support a teapot museum in North Carolina, an indoor rainforest in Iowa, and the Montana sheep institute? Why were those important enough for you to vote for?"
Earmarks for seemingly trivial projects -- notably the $400 million Ketchikan bridge and the $50 million rainforest center in Coralville, IA (less than 100 miles from Perry's morning visit today) -- were frequent fodder for the anti-spending rhetoric that launched McCain to the 2008 Republican nomination.
Perry's attack continues the volley first deployed by the campaign yesterday in the candidate's appearances and in a new radio ad. In response, Santorum, who has surged above Perry in two recently released polls, defended his past earmarks but said that he would uphold the temporary moratorium placed on the practice in late 2010.
On Friday, Perry also slammed his rival for supporting debt ceiling increases during his time in Congress.
"You voted to raise the debt ceiling 8 times while he was in the United States Senate -- more than doubling the debt in this country from 4.1 trillion to 9 trillion dollars," he said of Santorum. "And I got to ask you, how is that fiscally conservative?"
"Asking a Washington insider to stop runaway spending is like asking a bank robber to guard the vault," he added.
Perry's visit marked a return to the city where he launched his Iowa campaign in August, receiving a raucous welcome at a GOP dinner marked by a comparatively lukewarm reception for Ames Straw Poll winner and Waterloo native Michele Bachmann.
Standing virtually ignored at the back of the event as Perry was mobbed by crowds back then?
Rick Santorum.
Leave a Comment:
The only fun part of this worst primary ever is watching the Republicans point out each other's hypocrisy - stuff the Democrats have said for years.
I can't decide which is funnier...
The Perry camp managing to wrangle 100 Iowans or a pizza joint named Doughy Joey's? lol
My all time favorite by far was Santorum passing out his 'jam' @ Tommy's HamHouse!
If Governor Perry is going to take exception with the earmarks requested by Rick Santorum perhaps someone needs to present him with a record of the earmarks requested by Senator John Cornyn and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and see what he has to say about those requests.
For the record...
Senator Cornyn...
www.legistorm.com/earmarks/details/member/27/Sen_John_Cornyn_TX.html
Senator Hutchison...
www.legistorm.com/earmarks/details/member/50/Sen_Kay_Bailey_Hutchison_TX.html
Perry taking a page from McCain? Isn't that like a loser learning from another loser?
Why is Mr irrelevant still getting press?
Who Cares!
Yeah that worked so well for McCain. LOL
I guess Perry thinks he will win the nomination, then he can choose an unqualified, clueless running mate.... Just like McSame!!
I actually think that Perry continually talking about earmarks will work. The folks that hear that dirty word seethe at the thought of such wastefulness because they don't understand it's literally just a drop in the budget bucket. And low-information voters are the only ones Perry is going to get.
Low-information voters to go with a low-information candidate!
Give it up Perry, you've showed you know how to p** away millions and still you keep sinking. You've already lost, you don't have to emulate McCain to prove it.
When you go home to Texas, you will find you have lost a lot more than Iowa. The voters there have found that the 'emperor' has no clothes.
And Newt steals a page from the Hillary playbook--crying to elicit sympathy and support. Except it won't work in his case.
The Iowa rain forest earmark (which was initially going to be located in Des Moines, then Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Coralville and finally in Riverside) was never built. Chuck Grassley obtained the 50 million ear mark for developer friends (big GOP backers), but they were never able to find an Iowa community willing to meet all of the developers outrageous demands.
So what happened to the money?
I have made tons of fun of Perry - and Mitt - and Newt, etc.. But when you think about the fact that 75 to 80% of GOP voters STILL are squeamish about Romney, then you have to wonder if Perry or Newt or Huntsman could still mount a challenge to For Pete's Sake Mitt?
If - and it is a big "if" - the media does not crown Mitt as the nominee simply because he manages to win Iowa with a puny 20 to 25% of the vote and then win in NH as a "Favorite Son" of sorts, then maybe someone like Perry or Newt or Huntsman could go one-on-one against Mitt in the later contests and emerge as the nominee.
Why is so much weight given to Iowa and NH - especially NH, which has been lopsided for Romney like no other state, consistently giving him numbers in the 40% range!! Come on! Mitt has been stuck in the 20s everywhere else! Doesn't that prove that NH is not representative?
But the media seems so eager for this to be over! Only a relative handful of people vote in Iowa and NH. Let the other states have a say before declaring the whole thing over.
Taking a cue from Sarah Palin's playbook, Perry cautiously spit out his gum before attempting to walk across the stage...
Asking Rick Perry to understand the actual problems and issues confronting America is like asking a garden slug to understand quantum mechanics.
He's basically saying that Santorum's not crazy enough to deserve the Tea Party vote. I'm sure Santorum would beg to differ. Just ask him to explain his views on same-sex marriage again.
Santorum's rising right now because he's the only candidate who hasn't been hit with negative ads and doesn't have a highlight reel of gaffes burned into everybody's mind, mainly because nobody thought he was worth investigating until now. I'm sure there's some juicy oppo research to come, but the most objectionable things about Santorum are things the Teavangelicals will love, like his bigoted attitudes towards gays and lesbians, support for teaching creationism, and support for generally violating the separation of church and state in every other way possible.
It is truely "Scary" listening to Perry! Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! The Party Of NO has got too GO!
Santorum needs to hold a press meeting and menton the simple fact that Texas LIVES on Federal Aid, If it was cut off tomorrow Texans would no longer have a functional State Gov, paved streets, sidewalks, water districts,,,,,,,,Simply put, Texas cannot even support itself under Republican leadership and has become the laughing stock "Welfare State" Conservatives scream about.
Federal Aid is actually Texas's largest single source of revenue and has been for TWENTY years!!!!
Perry isn't bright enough to know he's done.