GOP presidential bottle rocket Rick Santorum (R-Mommy Jeans) has recently latched onto a tactic first used by Sarah Palin in 2008: Barack Obama is not “one of us” and doesn’t love America. (Actually, she’s still at it.)
Back then, Palin quickly drew fire for the gambit, but that hasn’t kept Santorum from going down the same road.
The former Pennsylvania senator unveiled the ramp-up to this line of attack over the weekend when he said Obama’s out of step with mainstream Christianity:
Obama’s agenda is “not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phoney ideal, some phoney theology — not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” [Santorum] told a Tea Party gathering in Columbus, Ohio.
When challenged about the remarks, Santorum initially fell back on the non-retraction retraction: “If the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.” He then offered this:
“I am talking about his world view, and the way he approaches problems in this country. I think they’re different than how most people do in America,”
That essentially sidesteps the “phony theology” issue, but Santorum’s explanations are generally lamer than his wardrobe. What that response did do, though, was tee up the next part of the “not one of us” gambit. As the Daily Beast reported Monday, Santorum is now questioning Obama’s patriotism:
Beyond [questioning] the president’s policies . . . Santorum used stark language to describe the existential threat that he said the Obama administration poses to the country itself—one as dangerous as our enemies during World War II, but coming from within our borders, not from across the ocean. “Sometimes you have to ask the question, whose side is he on?” he said.
This is a dangerous game Santorum is playing, going all in on social issues to the exclusion of economic ones.
We all know Santorum is holier-than-thou. Turns out he may be riskier-than-thou as well.
Campaign Outsider 