Take a look.
Waaaay down at the bottom of the column by "The Washington Prowler," after a re-telling of some of the problems facing lil Ricky's campaign, we see this:
And you won't hear Romanelli whistling, "It's Not Easy Being Green." When you're bought and owned by another party's candidate, it's the easiest job in the world. [emphasis added]Ha. The American Spectator in agreement with yours truly. Whodathunk it?
But enough about me. What else can we learn from the article?
Point one, the plan:
His polling numbers stalled out for almost a year, his campaign mired with miscues and poor performances, and operating under a threat of having campaign dollars cut off by the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Rick Santorum did what any desperate candidate would do: he got a third party candidate into the race.Rick knew - you mean Rick didn't think of it himself?
According to Santorum campaign insiders, Santorum knew about plans by his supporters to get Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli into the Pennsylvania Senate race, in hopes that Romanelli would siphon off votes from Democrat nominee Bob Casey, Jr.
Point two, the polling data:
Santorum continues to trail Casey by double digits in all polling done so far, but in those conducted in the past two weeks, Santorum had cut Casey's lead from the mid-20s to the low teens. Santorum campaign staff say they have seen internal polling that shows Santorum down only 10 percentage points, though Santorum's internal polls have been called highly optimistic.So the "highly optimistic" internal polling has him "only" 10 points down. Remember this is the American Spectator here, not some left wing rag.
I found this point (let's call it point three - just to keep things consistent) interesting:
Romanelli's arrival as a candidate comes at a critical time for Santorum. Across the country, Republican Senate candidates are showing competitive life in Washington state, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Maryland. Meanwhile the national party is committed to helping sitting Republican candidates in Missouri and Montana who are facing tough races in the fall.What are we to make of that last sentence? The money that Rick said he'd require from the national committee ($1 million a week, maybe more) is money that "would have gone to more competitive races"?
Santorum had informed party officials that he believed he'd require as much as $1 million a week, perhaps more, to win his race against Casey. "And he wasn't talking about footing that bill himself," says an RNC staffer. "He expected the national party and the Senate campaign committee to help. That's money that would have gone to more competitive races."[emphasis added]
Are they (or were they once planning on) writing Rick off?
And what happens if Rick looses and the money he got from the RNC (and if there's roughly 2 months left to the race, that means we're talking about roughly $8 million, maybe more) didn't go to those "more competitive races"?
Is Rick Santorum's campaign endangering other republican candidates?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Technorati Tags: Rick Santorum
2 comments:
No question Santorum is desperate...as is the head of the
PA Democratic Party. Here's
TJ Rooney's press release from
padems.com:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Abe Amorós
August 4, 2006 PHONE: (717) 920-8470
ROONEY: RAMPANT DISCREPANCIES IN
GREEN PARTY SIGNATURE GATHERING
Santorum Staffers Apparently Involved
HARRISBURG: Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney today said that he would challenge the nominating petitions of Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, who was unabashedly supported by Sen. Rick Santorum.
"As we looked at the validity of petitions line by line, we found that this was as bad as Ralph Nader in 2004,” Rooney said. "We have found excessive and serious instances of multiple signatures by the same persons, unregistered voters and fake names."
Rooney said that the Democratic Party is justified in being concerned given the Green Party's track record. In 2004, the President Judge of the Commonwealth Court said that the Green Party's signature gathering conduct "was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated on this Court."
He went on to say that the conduct of the Green Party candidates, through their representatives "shock(ed) the conscience of the Court" and that "there were thousands of names that were created at random and then randomly assigned either existent or non-existent addresses by the circulators."
Rooney said that a Florida-based firm, JSM, Inc., was hired and paid by the name to collect the signatures. This company has a history of fraud that it is now carrying out in Pennsylvania.
However, this company may not be the only one involved in this apparent fraud. Numerous Santorum staffers, including Luke Bernstein (Deputy Campaign Manager) and Julianne George (Deputy Coalitions Coordinator) worked for the Green Party candidate while another staffer allegedly drove all around the Commonwealth in a single day collecting signatures.
John Michael Glick, who follows Treasurer Bob Casey around in a duck costume, signed seven nominating petitions – on the same day – in Beaver, Washington, Fayette, Juniata (3 petitions) and Schuylkill counties.
"This person would have shattered every single land record for speed had he actually collected the signatures, driven from county to county in time to file in Dauphin county," said Rooney. "It would have taken him eight hours, not counting stops, for him to do this and file by 5 p.m. Instead of his duck attire, one has to ask if he wore a Superman costume that day."
In addition, new evidence shows that the GOP and Santorum have entirely funded Romanelli's operation. With the exception of a $30 check written by Romanelli, himself, prominent Republican donors funneled $66,000 dollars through the Luzerne County Green Party, according to available FEC reports.
"Romanelli is nothing more than a pawn and literally the 'Greenpublican' candidate," Rooney said "He was targeted by Santorum to get in this race, he broke federal election laws to pay for the signature gathering effort, and wouldn’t have broken 5,000 legitimate signatures if not for the illegal contributions from the GOP."
"Romanelli should withdraw and give up this sad charade," Rooney continued. "He may not have known the type of collusion and shennanigans that have been committed. But he and Santorum are making a mockery of democracy and will turn Pennsylvania into the laughing stock of this nation if this sham by the GOP and Santorum succeeds."
Rooney said that the Party will aggressively pursue every available action to ensure fraud is not perpetrated in Pennsylvania and added that the Green Party submitted approximately 85,000 signatures, far fewer than the reported 95,000-100,000 figures they originally gave to members of the news media.
"Given this rampant fraud and the lower number of signatures turned in, we are confident that Romanelli will be yanked from the ballot," Rooney said.
In another comic twist, Halliburton lobbyist Bill Wichterman admitted that his wife made a $1,000 contribution to the Luzerne County Green Party but refused to answer questions or make his wife available to comment.
Earlier in the week on KQV Radio (7/31), Santorum admitted his role in helping Romanelli calling it "politics" and then trying to cover his tracks by suggesting that it was good for democracy to have more than one candidate in the race.
"Santorum is making a mockery out of democracy with this foolishness," Rooney said. "You can't have it both ways. You can't call it political and then turn around and say that it's about ideas and the good of democracy. Real democracy is when a candidate organizes his or her own volunteers and campaign contributions without an opponent's help."
"Santorum created a puppet. What’s democratic about that?"
###
Rooney's attack on the Green Party
of PA is blantantly dishonest:
1) The Green Party candidates,
including the Green Presidential Candidate, David Cobb, were on the ballot in PA in 2004. PA Attorney General candidate Marakay
Rogers received over 70,000 votes and continued the minor party status for the Greens. The Green Party candidates for statewide office were never challenged...check the PA Dept of State website for the election results.
Ralph Nader ran as an independent in PA and was ganged up on by a large assortment of corporate lawyers and some misguided Democratic Party activists.
2) Where's the concern of Democrats regarding the repressive ballot access laws in PA? Each one of us should ask: what have i done TODAY to expand democracy in this state, to enfranchise more people, not less, in the political process?
Enormous amount of research
at: www.ballot-access.org
3) Response from the
Green Party of the U.S. is at
www.gp.org
ed
I think the Greens are a tad unhappy and testy about this whole thing. It might be better if the state democratic leadership toned down their language about the Greens themselves.
So Santorum is pretty far behind. I still say that it is too soon for democrats and liberals to start patting themselves on their collective backs, but I will acknowledge that Casey has a comfortable margin. I believe Doug Walgren has a judgeship now, but maybe Senator Casey can swing a membership on a commission for Doug or his former AA Jon Delano.
Meanwhile, I’ll the democrats and liberals want to ask the voters “What took you so long?”. Probably feeling a bit like the democrats did in 1973. By the way, look how well that turned out, with Carter and then eight years of Reagan.
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