Rick Santorum

ST. PAUL—John McCain confidant Charlie Black told a private reception of conservative leaders Monday evening that in his first-ever nonpolitical conversation with the candidate earlier that day, McCain asked him to help solicit donations for the victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I deliver that message and hope for the best,” Black told the crowd, eating vegetables and wearing pro-life buttons in the atrium of the Hilton Garden Inn. “He always puts his country first."

In keeping with the Republicans' decision to scale back their activities and political rhetoric, Black kept his public remarks focused on the Gulf states and led a prayer asking for the protection of the people who live there.  read more »

In a move akin to firing Bobby Knight and replacing him with Woody Hayes, CBS Radio has at last settled on Don Imus's successor: Craig Carton.  read more »

I can't wait for the Republican fingerpointing to begin. I can't wait so much I want to start it myself!

My Monday-morning questions for Karl Rove: Why didn't you sacrifice everything else to try and hold the Senate? Howard Dean had a 50-state srategy, you should have had a 5-state strategy: Montana, Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, Rhode Island. Right now it looks like you won one of those, and you needed two. How bad was your polling—why didn't you understand ten days ago that you had lost the House and forget about it? Most important, you famously abandoned Mike DeWine in Ohio, and good for you, but why didn't you abandon Pennsylvania? DeWine lost by 12 points but next door, even as the conservative websites were saying he was competitive, Rick Santorum lost by nearly 60/40. Santorum got absolutely crushed—in the most expensive race in Pennsylvania history. Why didn't you know this? Why did you put one nickel in Pennsylvania when power was inching out of your grasp in smaller markets?

Democrats are now one-third of the way to claiming the Senate for the first time since 2001, with Sherrod Brown knocking off Mike DeWine in Ohio and Bob Casey, Jr. dethroning Pennsylvania'a Rick Santorum. Neither of these results are surprising -- Santorum has not led in a single public poll over the last 22 months, and national Republicans actually pulled resources out of DeWine's effort last month.

But the six-seat gain Democrats need to reclaim the majority is very much within sight right now. In New Jersey, Robert Menendez has held off Republican Tom Kean, preserving for the Democrats a seat that appeared to be in serious jeopardy last month, when news of a federal criminal probe of Menendez leaked from the U.S. Attorney's office.

All eyes are now on Virginia, Rhode Island, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee and Arizona. Win four of those, and Democrats have their majority-- assuming, of course, that they retain Maryland, where final results could take a few days.

-- Steve Kornacki

Rick Santorum explains the security situation in Iraq and how it affects the safety of Americans, using lessons he learned reading (or watching) The Lord of the Rings.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

It's the next logical step after Ronald Reagan's Star Wars defense plan, right? Daily Gotham thinks it's just crazy. More Santorum-Mordor musings are here.

-- Azi Paybarah

APS (who has kindly visited this blog before) nails me, on my Dershowitz and Catholics item, by pointing out that in 1960 John Kennedy was getting hit with innuendo so that's why he went to the Houston ministers.

The Protestant Ministers JFK was addressing actually had conservative social views similar to the Catholic Church... It was the smear of disloyalty and foreign allegiance that was being leveled against the Catholics, just as its now being used to smear the Jews.

OK, fair enough. I still call for more Jewish transparency, and point to the Catholic model.

Look at Sen. Rick Santorum, running for reelection in Pennsylvania. Just about every time he's in the press, people talk about what a devout Catholic he is, because of legitimate fears of religious geeks in politics.

Thus, the second paragraph of a recent story in The Hill calls Santorum, "The dedicated Roman Catholic and fierce opponent of abortion rights.." Or there is this dissection in the Jewish Exponent last week of Santorum's belief system:

Terry G. Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College...said that he considers Santorum to be an "evangelical Catholic," meaning that he is a practicing Roman Catholic but shares the worldview of certain evangelical Christians, including a strongly held belief in the importance of Jewish rule over the Holy Land.

The press will look at Christian evangelicals all day long, what they believe about blah blah blah. And generalize to a farethewell, make them sound like crazies. And maybe they are. But the press will not look for even an instant at Jewish beliefs surrounding the Middle East. The observant Jew David Frum helped to author our current Syria and Iran policy; he was the Bush speechwriter who collaborated on the Axis of Evil speech. In a recent sermon at a Washington synagogue, Frum described America as "this new Israel, this America, this haven and refuge for so many of the persecuted of the world, including Jews." And said that Israel's "neighbors" were "determined to repeat the work of the Nazis."

I would question the accuracy of that statement. I believe there is a religious component to it. I'd never know about it from the press, though. Frum, bless his openness, chose to blog it.

RudyBlogger noticed (via this website) the following passage as part of a Rick Santorum bio on Rudy Giuliani's campaign-y website.

Rick Santorum believes in a culture of life. He led the charge in the U.S. Senate to pass legislation to ban partial birth abortion, and also worked to pass the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which recognizes the basic rights of all children born alive.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but in Giuliani's bio on the Solutions America website - and in the section dealing with his record as a public official - there's no mention of his own, considerably more liberal position on the issue.

-- Josh Benson

The Times reports that Rudy Giuliani stumped for Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania; and Cory Booker says Newark is missing out on millions of dollars that could be raised by selling real estate at market rate.

The Sun reports on union spots that take aim at George Pataki's budget vetos.

The Albany Times Union reports on the next step in the CFE lawsuit for city schools; and George Pataki's federal fundraising picks up.

—Nicole Brydson

When uber-developer Gary Barnett is not too busy purchasing a billion dollar piece of land or working on numerous upscale residential projects (The Stanhope, The Orion), he's making political contributions.

The Politicker, out sister site, has a list of prominent New Yorkers who have been donating to Rick Santorum, the staunchly conservative Pennsylvania senator who's in the midst of a bitter re-election campaign.

Mr. Barnett's donation: $2,000.

- Michael Calderone

The first quarter fund-raising numbers are beginning to trickle in, and once again Hillary Clinton is the big winner, raising a hefty $2 million a month each month from January through March. In a distant second place: Rick Santorum, whose war chest now holds $10 million, thanks to large GOP cash infusions -- and a little help from some New York friends.

A quick Politicker once-over of past Santorum donors turned up lots of usual suspects -- think Rupert Murdoch, who has given $4200, and Henry Kissinger, who plunked down $500 -- as well as some genuine surprises, like die-hard Democratic fund-raiser John Catsimatidis. The list also includes baby neo-con Mark Gerson, failed would-be senator Rick Lazio, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, controversial businessman Kenneth Langone, and a piggy bank's worth of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns-ers (we're sure Mr. Santorum's plum position on the banking committee had nothing to do with that). Most impressive, however, was Mr. Santorum's ability to recruit a real, live Frank Sinatra and Robert E. Lee!

-- Lizzy Ratner

More names after the jump:  read more »

Naral-NY, the abortion-rights group, is about to endorse Mike Bloomberg. Freddy, receiving an endorsement at City Hall from Councilwoman Letitia James a little while ago, was asked about this, and pointed out that Bloomberg supported President Bush and has given money to anti-abortion Senators.

Ferrer said Bloomberg "can't have it both ways," supporting abortion rights personally while throwing his money and prestige behind anti-abortion pols.

But Chuck Schumer has recently complicated this argument for Democrats around the country, but particularly here in New York, by putting the weight of the Democratic Party behind Robert Casey Jr., the strongest candidate against Rick Santorum, and also anti-abortion.

Can Chuck have it both ways?  read more »

"Ask Senator Schumer," Ferrer said.

(Incidentally, at the press conference, we also learned from James that "most of the women who vote in my district are women." Just so that's clear.)

Democrat Bob Casey, the State Treasurer of Pennsylvania and a putative Santorum-slayer, has been bringing home the bacon... and upstaging one of his biggest boosters in the process.

Casey announced today that his campaign committee has raised $1.89 million for the quarter, setting a new record for a Democratic Senate challenger taking on a Republican incumbent. This comes on the heels of a new Quinnipiac poll, released yesterday, which gave Casey a double-digit lead over Rick Santorum.  read more »

So whose record did Casey break? The reigning cash champ had raised $1.5 million in the first half of 1997. His name was Chuck Schumer, and he was the one who convinced Casey to run in the first place.

Just as The Politicker was weighing the relative merits of two child-rearing manuals, Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village and Rick Santorum's competing It Takes a Family, the two authors staged a little debate in the basement of the Capitol:

"It takes a village, Rick, don't forget that," Clinton called out, according to the Associated Press.

"It takes a family," he countered.

"Of course, a family is part of a village!" she replied.  read more »

The two, the AP reports, continued on in opposite directions.

Wonkette has this exchange between Don Imus and Rick Santorum:

Santorum: Tom's a very good leader. I don't think anyone can question that...

Imus: He's a weird little dude.

Santorum: He's not a weird dude. He's a good guy.  read more »

Imus: He just looks to me like a guy that has some kind of weird, kinky, sexual thing going on.

Santorum: I don't think it's appropriate to talk about the majority leader of the House of Representatives that way.

After the Group of 8 summitmeeting in Genoa, President Bush met with the Pope, who asked him not to  read more »