Santorum Story, the view from both sides of the state

Here's John Baer (Philly Daily News) on Lil Ricky. He's wondering why Ricky played things the way he did:

Could it be when one trails in a year primed to punish incumbents one seeks to shift attention from issues such as Iraq and support of President Bush to, oh, I don't know, charges that thugs are out to get his kids?

Could it be Santorum seeks any opportunity, however flimsy, to paint Casey in '06 as the negative campaigner he was in '02?

I'm thinking yes and yes - along with a hint of fear and just a touch of crazy.

A touch of crazy. Ha.

And here's Brian O'Neill (Post-Gazette):

One of the great non-issues of the Iraqi War Era has been the recent charge by some Penn Hills Democrats that the little home that U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum owns in a quiet neighborhood there is vacant and unfurnished.

Instead of ignoring it, the Santorums have made a federal case of it. When I drove to the house yesterday morning, two television crews were preparing for a noontime report about Capitol Police coming to make a security evaluation. The Santorum campaign Web site had the statement that a KDKA report "revealed the shocking news of a [Democratic candidate Bob] Casey campaign operative peeking into the windows of the Santorum home.''

KDKA never said that, as morning radio host Marty Griffin told Mr. Santorum in a cordial on-air conversation yesterday. The senator responded that peeking in windows was a reasonable inference when a man says there's no furniture in a house set so far back from the street.

His Web site should have said that.

Which, I guess, is a very nice way of saying, "By not telling the truth, the campaign lied." Also please note that O'Neill walked on the property and rang the doorbell. By Santorum's logic, the P-G is stalking the house - and O'Neill just admitted it! CALL THE CAPITAL POLICE!

I heard the Griffin interview yesterday and there were a few more relevations in it.

• Ricky admitted that he spent 90% of his time in DC "Because that's where I work," he said.
  
• And after "talking with his people" the decision was made to "move on" and so the ad has been pulled.

Back to Philly. Here's Tom Ferrick of the Inquirer. He begins thusly:

I've said time and again that if U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum loses reelection in November, a major reason will be the controversy surrounding his residency.

Someone else shares my view: the Santorum campaign.

It went up this week with a radio ad in Pittsburgh attacking Bob Casey for "stalking" the Santorum family by using campaign operatives to spy on his home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Penn Hills.

The allegation the ad makes is nonsense, but it is useful nonsense.

And then he goes on:

The issue resurfaced during the May 16 primary. When Santorum showed up to vote in Penn Hills, two of his longtime Democratic opponents, Ed and Erin Vecchio, took exception to it.

They said the house was vacant; ergo, he did not live in Penn Hills; ergo, he should not vote there. They threatened to file a suit over it.

Later that week, KDKA-TV did a report about Santorum complaining that someone was "stalking" his house. The report contained information that indicated the tip came from the Santorum camp.

The Santorum camp then used that report as the basis of its radio ad.

Now that's an interesting take on it.

Fennick also has a link to an excerpt of the Griffin interview here.

We all know the ad is BS and now (I guess) the ad has been pulled. But what have we learned about Ricky Santorum? It's been established that he's not above outright lying in his campaign ads - this will be something to watch in the coming months. If the first one is such a blatant lie, we shouldn't expect even an element of truthiness in anything that comes from his camp.

Nice to know this early on.