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FRANKSVILLE, Wis. -- What started as a good day for Rick Santorum took an abrupt turn on Sunday after the GOP presidential candidate grew frustrated with reporters asking him to clarify his remark that Mitt Romney is the worst Republican in the country to take on President Obama.
During his final campaign stop of the day here, Santorum said of Romney, “Pick any other Republican in the country, he is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." The comments, Santorum would clarify, were in reference to the similarities between Romney's and the president on the issue of health care. It is a common critique he levels against his chief rival, but never has the former Pennsylvania senator called Romney the "worst Republican in the country" to go head-to-head with the president.
When pressed by reporters to clarify his statement, Santorum said, “On the issue of health care. That’s what I was talking about, and I was very clear about talking about that. OK? Come on guys, don’t do this. I mean you guys are incredible. I was talking about Obamacare, and he is the worst because he was the author of Romneycare.”
But the questions struck a chord with Santorum, and when he faced the same question again, he used a profane word and accused the media of "distorting" his speech.
The Washington Post's Dan Balz and MSNBC political analyst Karen Finney review presidential candidate Rick Santorum losing his cool following a Wisconsin speech.
However a press release sent out from the Santorum campaign shortly after the rally here seemed to double down on the candidate's comments. "Rick Santorum spoke plainly and clearly that of all the Republicans in the field, Mitt Romney is the worst possible candidate to take on Barack Obama, because Mitt Romney authored the blueprint for Obamacare and the issue of healthcare would be off the table," the release said.
Santorum has done a lot of clarifying lately, with recent comments suggesting Obama would be a better choice than Romney in a general election and saying the unemployment rate will not affect his campaign. In both cases, he accused the media and his opponents of taking his words out of context. But in both cases, the Romney campaign used his own words against him.
Sunday's remarks were no exception, with Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams telling reporters, “Rick Santorum is becoming more desperate and angry and unhinged every day...He’s panicking in the final stages of his campaign.”
Before his last event, Santorum had been all smiles on the trail the day after receiving nearly double the amount of support Romney did in the Louisiana primary. Along with two rallies today, the GOP hopeful also fit in brunch at the Machine Shed and, for the second time in as many days, a few frames of bowling. In an earlier rally in Fond du Lac, WI, Santorum drew an overflow crowd.
But by Sunday's end, Romney advisers were using the hash tag "Tantorum" to draw attention to past instances of the former senator losing his cool. The response blasted out by the Santorum campaign no mention of his use of a not so family friendly word.
Santorum heads to Washington, DC where he will spend Monday before returning to the Badger State later in the week.
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Santorum sticks his foot in his mouth over and over. Is this the kind of "clear" thinking we need in a President? His home state saw what he was and turned him out of office in a landslide.
Ummmm! The taste of of freshly black leather KIWI shoe polish in his mouth!
Tasty!
Sick Rantorum.
Nice!
That's the best monicker yet.
Sick Tantorum?
One attacks the other. The other attacks the one. Both speak about domestic issues like healthcare, and the economy, but neither forcefully speak about the crisis in Afghanistan. Vote for boychild warmongering Obama? I'll vote for my pet turtle instead!
The bottom line is, don't ask Mr. Santorum question, especially one that may keep him off a short list with his secret hero Wilbur.
This guy is so batsh!t crazy i actually am in fear of him being in government in any capacity. He's a religous zealot thats totally anti-woman. If he had his way he'd run the country from the pulpit. That we cannot allow. We must protect the fundamentals this country was founded on. We must keep religon out of politics. I do not want any of these people imposing their beliefs and morals on me or my family. They are insane & care more about the rapture than the running of this country.
Some of these FLWN reporters are enough to piss the Pope off. Too bad Santorum didn't politely flipped the birdie at them telling them where to go and it ain't Heaven.
There're times when these biased fiction reportings jerks deserve a taste of of their own irritatingly crass rudeness. Cry me a river but get your own Kleenex.
This is a "Leave it to Beaver" moment.
Eddies Haskel says" You know what your problem is?" "Your cracking up Sam"!
LOL, the problem with the Republicans is that they're spending too much time trying to demonize Obama that they end up demonizing their own ideas. Instead of simply coming out and being honest that the thing they dislike about the President is the color of his skin, they find themselves arguing in ways that puts them on the wrong side of history - over and over and over again. Now they're fighting with each other over the same ideas. This is so ludicrous. Romneycare makes sense. So does Obamacare. Quit arguing over it and instead go come up with some brilliant ideas that might make voting Republican a vote for something positive rather than everything negative.
Sorry, GCV, but just because someone disagrees with Obama does not mean that it's a result of his skin color. (BTW, lest you forget, he is half white, although he doesn't like to remind anyone of that fact.) Perhaps they disagree because he has not lived up to his campaign promises, such as bringing home the troops. Remember that little promise? He has been in office for over three years now, and yet we still have troops in the Middle East getting killed on a daily basis.
You are aware that the reason Barack Obama and other biracial Americans are considered African American is because our great founding fathers, one in particular who is very well known for putting a pen to paper and writing "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal" inbetween running his plantation and impregnating his slaves needed to come up with a label for all the biracial children popping up in the slave quarters right? Thus the "one drop" rule was born. Mr. Obama is African American because Thomas Jefferson said so.
So the 144,000 men and women that just came back from Iraq don't exist?
Ryan - I guess you forgot about the soldiers who are still in the Middle East and who are still dying there. Also, isn't is a bit of a coincidence that Obama waited until close to another national election to begin bringing soldiers home? Why didn't he tend to this in 2009 after he was inaugurated?
Gosh, that seems to be something that was never included in the history books in my school. Seems to me that you are distorting reality just like the media do.
Scales,,,,,,,Have you forgotten who put them there in the first place?
Obama has the Afghan war on a timetable for getting out and Republican politicians are screaming about it just like they did when he ended the Iraq war,,,,,,,,,Screaming about it and trying to find new wars to wage for their Masters to profit by.
I'm sorry, I was under the impression that Iraq was a Middle Eastern country. I was also under the impression that 144,000 men and women just got home from the (possibly) middle eastern country of Iraq.
It's not really so much of a coincidence seeing as how the orderly withdrawal of troops from Iraq to be completed by December of 2011 was planned, ordered and signed by President Bush in September of 2007 when President Obama was Senator Obama.
The "one-drop rule", also known as hypodescent dates to a 1662 Virginia law on the treatment of mixed-race individuals. The legal notion of hypodescent has been upheld as recently as 1985, when a Louisiana court ruled that a woman with a black great-great-great-great-grandmother could not identify herself as "white" on her passport. The most common example of hypodescent involves Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Claims that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Hemmings had circulated for almost 200 years when 1998 DNA tests showed descendants of one Hemings child were related to Jefferson.
Actually reading a book or two and having some facts when joining the adult conversations will do you a lot of good.
Rick Santorum - The new Richard Cranium
I'm still trying to find out what Santorum meant when he referenced "Blah people". He said that he was trying to say another word.....so was he trying to say "Blond people" or was he trying to say "Blind people"? What was he trying to say?
Lil Ricky is an accident waiting to happen! From my perspective, Lil Ricky is the perfect example of the faux christian. The do as I say, not as I do type of hypocrite. Lil Ricky does not have enough space in his closet to hide his skeletons, he needs a storage unit, lol.
I wonder who pays for Santorum's healthcare. Probably me and others like me.
Why God? Why make Santo suffer so?
For your endless amusement, my little lambs.
Santorum always brags about not needing a teleprompter--ha ha ha ha ha!
santorum is the worst republican or anything there is.
he is slanderous about everyone, he has no integrity, and he has bad character.
he does not deserve to run for president and he has proven over and over how bad of character he has...
Look at the BS Obama is put through week in and week out, Santorum would have a mental collapse during his first month in office when he found out he could not order all none evangelicals to convert or lose their heads. He is one of those who think of the "Dark Ages" as the good ol' days
The Dude is a NUTCASE!!!!
Nutcase---its such a nice way to desribe Sanatorium. You are being too kind. I am relieved to see that most people are in direct opposition to this wack-job. And, we thought Sarah Palin was a fool. Can it possibly get any worse?
Marlene - I'm SURE it will. I'd be hating life if I was a teabagger or right winger, but this liberal is LMAO and enjoying the show!
Starderup: Me too. And, what a freak show it is. You have the best outlook. I'm biting my newly manicured nails worrying that everything we protested against and for regarding women's rights in the '70's will be for naught. The citizens of this country have lost a lot of freedom since that time.
Santorum loses his cool? There has never been anything remotely cool about Santorum to have been lost.
A Ricky win is a BIG win for President Obama and Dems :).
This used to be funny. Watching these guys falling all over themselves. In the beginning it was amateur hour all the way. I, and quite a few other people I'm guessing, were enjoying the show and just assumed that as 2011 turned into 2012 that the GOP would get serious and get someone in the race that could win. Now it's just sad. We have real problems in this country, and whether or not the President has done enough to warrant another term is no longer the question. Which by the way, unlike the GOP candidates, the numbers don't lie and the numbers say yes.
Let's take President Obama out of the equation. Let us for a minute not factor in the President, nor the Democrats. There are roughly 55 million registered Republicans in the United States. Out of 55 million this is the BEST the RNC could come up with? I'm not trying to be funny, I'm not making jokes. I'm serious. Out of the entire Republican party these four guys are the absolute best in the party?
Mitt Romney it seems can't go from his bed to the shower without lying or completely fabricating something. The guy has been running since 2007 and 75% of the voters are STILL voting for one of the other guys. It's not even April yet and he's spent about $90,000,000 and his biggest accomplishment thus far has been to make Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum viable candidates. Mitt Romney could possibly be the only rich guy on the planet who could actually come off as MORE acceptable if he just acted like a rich guy. When Mitt does "the common man" routine he just comes off as a monumental tool.
Newt Gingrich seems to have forgotten that as Speaker of the House he lead the effort to impeach the President for banging an intern while he was at the very same time banging an intern which caused HIS OWN party to put him on the first bus out of DC. And more recently, 7 months ago, Michele Bachmann promised $2 gas if elected. Newt pretty much called her delusional. And then made his campaign about $2 gas. He's been a Catholic for about 20 minutes, but is already the Vaticans protector.
Rick Santorum. Wow. I mean really, wow. Youtube a Rick Santorum 2012 speech, and then youtube a Sarah Palin 2008 speech. Rick Santorum makes Sarah Palin look like a moderate.
They all have a very serious "brain to mouth filter" malfunction. The best and the brightest of the Republican Party.
Actually, I could have saved myself a few minutes of typing by just saying that any questions as to the state of the Republican Party of 2012 are summed up by the fact that whether you agree or disagree with his platform or policies, the most normal of the 2012 candidates is the guy that's not actually a Republican.
This is it. This is a liberal gotcha moment...Weak to say the least. I was looking for somthing juicy....
You guys are really reaching this morning...
But when don't the liberals take something small like this and try to grow legs on it...
Yup the liberal GOTCHA media doing everything they can to bring down Santorum by acknowledging the fact that he NEVER said that Mitt was the "worst Republican in the party".
Of course if you'd bothered to actually read the story.....
Hey moron, its the Righteous Right that have dug their own hole. They preach how much better they are than the average humanbeing so ya when they screw up and show they are not perfect, others will jump on it and say ha ha ha. They deserve it!!!!!!!!!!
I don't blame candidates or public officials for getting back or fighting back.This will never be an issue with Santorum of anybody running for office. What I do NOT like about Sanatarium is everything. His is another Tea Party, big mouth, no brains, no ideas, self appointed important person. He IS absolutely wrong. The ONLY republican who can beat Obama IS Romney because Romney is smart, is level headed, a very savvy politician and businessmand, and has proven he can balance a budget in office WITH opposition. I am NOT a big fan of Romney, but Santorum and all the other Tea Party wing nuts don't stand a chance with Obama. They may be loved by the right wing republicans and a few independents, but that's it. Romney is the ONLY one articulate enough to fight Obama, who is also intelligent, well spoken, down to earth, and can connect. Maybe you don't like him, but is is NOT dumb and is NOBODY's fool. He has been president for 4 years and I think he can take the heat from almost anybody.
That may have been true a year ago. But then Mitt sprinted away from his moderate record and the moderate voters who would have actually ya know, ELECTED him and to the right to try to get the wingers to accept him after they've been saying for 5 years they would never accept him. Romney sold his soul, his ethics and his chance to be President to the religious right who in turn, by the votes they cast said by and large that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum shared their values and visions for the country more than he did.
Do they make an Etch-a-Sketch for the Mouth? How about one for the mind so Santorum can map out his statements BEFORE he opens his mouth?
Web cannot, and should not, have a President who losses his cool. !!!!
Reporters in general and some reporters in particular can be very annoying. As such I do not fault Mr. Santorum for momentarily losing his cool and using a very mild expression of frustration. However, Mr. Santorum's religiosity has no place in the government, let alone the White House. Incumbents have all the advantages and yet the voters of Pennsylvania got rid of him 6 years ago. I am no fan of Mr. Obama, but compared to Santorum, Obama would be the much 'safer' candidate (lessor of two evils).
Let's hope the majority thinks like you.
There he goes again. Every time Santorum shoots his mouth off, he hits himself in the foot. I'm amazed he has any toes left. PR nightmare. Did Louisiana vote for him because of his Jerry Springer-esque potential?
Thanks for my first grin so early in the a.m. With all the trailer parks...er...I mean mobile estates, there is a combination of Jerry Springer-esque mentality combined with the radical rantings of an evangelist. Louisiana and 'Bama voted for him because its the Deep South and that's the way a lot of the natives think.... or don't.
Mirror, mirror on the wall......