Santorum campaign STILL thinks Pennsylvanians are idiots

Something we've written about before. But this time it's found its way into the Philadelphia Enquirer. Why hasn't it been written about in the P-G?

Pennsylvania's Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate calls himself Bob. Not Robert. And definitely not "junior," though he is one. Just Bob.

But Sen. Rick Santorum's proliferating TV and radio campaign ads refer to the challenger as Bobby Casey Jr.

If that makes Casey, 45, sound as if he's running for student council president, well, that may be the point.

Listen to any ad and that's what you'll hear: Bobby Casey. The Inquirer has an expert opinion:

An uninvited diminutive generally has a subtext, said Joseph Tuman, a communications professor at San Francisco University who has written about campaign rhetoric. It's an "attempt to diminish the other person, to marginalize them by suggesting they're young or immature," he said.

And the Santorum team's response?

Not in this case, said Santorum spokeswoman Virginia Davis. The senator is simply performing a service.

"Some people think he's the same person who was the governor," she said of Casey. "It's very important for voters to know the distinction." [emphasis added]

Well how nice of them to perform this "service." But look at what they'd want us to believe: They'd have us believe that some voters in Pennsylvania confuse the man running for Senator with his father who died 6 years ago.

A few months ago when little Johnny Brabender, Lil Ricky's media consultant, was on John McIntire's radio program, I called in to ask about this. Johnny Brabender's answer was the same given in the Inquirer article:

Bob Casey is known by many as Bobby.

But now the Casey campaign has an answer:

"Friends and family call him Bobby, and Rick Santorum is neither," (Casey Campaign Manager Larry) Smar countered. "Even his friends and family don't call him Bobby Casey Jr."

The most enjoyable part of this whole article is found way at the end:

If he continues to use the nickname, state Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney warned, the consequences for Santorum will be harsh.

"I'll have no recourse but to refer to the junior senator as Little Ricky."

Something we've been doing here at 2PJ for a long long time.