Try to Contain Your Enthusiasm

Because it is the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fourteen, nine months before a midterm election and fully one million months before the next presidential election, we definitely need to talk about how Rick Santorum is totally running for president.

"Last time, we were having trouble getting our phone calls returned at this point," said John Brabender, Santorum's longtime political guru. "Now other people are calling that are credible consultants saying, 'Hey, is there space for me on the campaign somewhere?' We did not have that interest last time."

Those close to Santorum also point to Patriot Voices, a political advocacy organization he created after his exit from the 2012 primaries, as a kind of campaign-in-waiting. The group, according to an adviser, has roughly 350 chapters of volunteers. And as CEO of the Dallas-based EchoLight Studios, a film company, Santorum has also spent a lot of time in Texas—which, as one adviser knowingly put it, is the "ATM of GOP politics."

Of course, organization will take Santorum only so far. It's with his messaging that the avowed foe of abortion rights and same-sex marriage has traditionally run into trouble. Santorum briefly defined himself as a working-class Republican candidate after his 2012 second-place finish in Iowa (a state where he was later declared the victor). But in the ensuing weeks, questions over his conservative views dogged him.

Santorum, who is Catholic, prides himself on not dodging questions about his cultural beliefs, and his advisers say he won't avoid them in a future campaign, even to the detriment of his overall cause. "I think the answer is ... [to be] more proactive talking about the other things," Brabender said.

But many Republicans remain convinced that no matter how much enthusiasm the Pennsylvanian garners among primary voters, a Santorum nomination would yield a defeat in November 2016 unlike any the party has seen since Barry Goldwater's in 1964. They caution that electability should weigh heavily on Republican primary voters, who could be stuck with at least four years of Hillary Clinton if the GOP doesn't nominate the right candidate.

LOL OH NOES!

It's truly inconceivable to me that there are people who would rather have Rick Santorum as their president than Hillary Clinton. I would sooner vote for a Hot Pocket filled with diseased and unsound animals than Rick Santorum.

Anyway.

Good luck to Rick Santorum! I'm sure he's going to do great, especially by not talking about his social policies heinous bigotry, which is pretty much the only shit his base wants to hear.

Without the elaborate, intense, alarmist, hyberbolic defense of tradition bigotry for which he's famous, as far as I can tell, Rick Santorum is nothing but a middling dipshit in a sweater vest.