HAS RICK SANTORUM JOURNEYED TO THE ‘DARK SIDE’???

Rick Santorum, while never having been a candidate that I was able to bring myself to vote for, has always been, or so I thought until just recently, someone who I thought was at least a man of principle.  However, it was his recent choice of whom would become the recipient of his endorsement for president that has caused me to call into question that perception, to not only question who this man really is, and has always seemed to be, but to ask if he has always been nothing more than a fraud.  Anyway, just in case you missed it, it was earlier this week that Santorum appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s ‘On The Record’ to declare he would be suspending his presidential campaign and to announce that he would be endorsing none other than establishment favorite, and amnesty advocate, Marco Rubio.

It was in so doing that Santorum said, “The best way I would do what I set out to do when we announced to run for president, to help working men and women in this country, to defeat ISIS and stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, to take on national security threats to our country, and to really help foster and support stronger families.”  And he went on to say, “We decided we really wanted to find a candidate that espoused the values we believed in, someone who had really focused their campaign on trying to help — I always talked about the 74 percent of Americans that don’t have a college degree, who are struggling on the margins, you know, the middle of America hollowing out, and understanding the central role of the family and supporting that opportunity.”

Santorum said, “Family breakdown is one of the key reasons it’s hollowing out. It’s not just the lack of opportunities.”  He continued, “You talk about manufacturing and that important thing…” before his voice began to trail off.  He began again by saying, “And the final thing, someone who has a real understanding of the threat of ISIS, a real understanding of the threat of fundamentalist Islam, and has experience — one of the things I wanted was someone who had some experience in this area, and that’s why we decided to support Marco Rubio.”  He said, “I don’t endorse lightly.”  Later added that he thought Rubio is, in fact, a “tremendously gifted young man” and a “born leader.”  Rubio, he said, can take the “wine I’ve been trying to sell and put it in new wineskins.”  I would like to respectfully disagree with Mr. Santorum.

Santorum’s endorsement of Rubio, whose Gang of Eight bill would have granted mostly third world immigrants 33 million green cards in 10 years while legalizing the estimated 11 million to 30 million illegal aliens present in the U.S., in addition to the 59 million immigrants admitted since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, starkly contrasts his earlier statements on protecting blue collar workers.  The day before the Iowa caucuses, Rubio set himself apart from the rest of the GOP field by boasting about his La Raza-backed Gang of Eight bill, calling it the “best that could be done.”  I would disagree with that assessment by saying that ANYTHING that Chuckie Schumer had a hand in is about as far as you can get from anything being the “best that could be done.” And yet Santorum still provided his endorsement.

And oddly enough Santorum’s endorsement of Rubio comes at a time when the Trump campaign recently revealed that Fox News’s vice president of news and Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, just happens to be the father of Rubio’s press secretary, Brooke Salmon.  And it’s been reported that Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch is deeply invested in a globalist agenda.  Murdoch, is a co-chair of what is arguably one of the biggest immigration lobbying firms in the country, The Partnership for a New American Economy.  And via his lobbying firm, Murdoch endorsed Rubio’s 2013 amnesty bill, as well as Rubio’s 2015 immigration expansion bill. Murdoch has also endorsed Barry “Almighty’s” trade agenda, which Rubio has said would be the “second pillar” of a President Rubio’s three-pillar foreign policy strategy.

And then Santorum made an appearance on yesterday’s MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to continue on with his vocal support of Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.  And despite his enthusiastic endorsement, he seemed to be unable to name one accomplishment the Florida senator has achieved while in office.  Of course, that would only be because other than working with Chuckie Schumer, Rubio has achieved nothing of significance since being elected to the Senate. Santorum said, "If you look at being in the minority in the United States Senate in a year when nothing got — four years where nothing got done, I guess it's hard to say there are accomplishments."  He went on to say, "I mean, tell me what happened during that four years that was an accomplishment for anybody?"  And he added, "It was complete gridlock."

But show’s host, Joe Scarborough, who was apparently not buying any of what Santorum was trying to sell, shot back claiming that the Republicans had been in the majority in the Senate for two years and wanted to know what, if anything, Rubio had accomplished in that time. To which Santorum responded by saying, "Joe, the Republicans have been in the majority for one year and one month, of which, as you know, he was running for president primarily."  He then went on to say, "The first four years he was in the minority, and nothing got done. And by the way, what happened this year under the Republicans?"  Scarborough then argued back, telling Santorum to "list one accomplishment. Just one — that Marco achieved. Maybe a bill that he wrote. Maybe a moment in a committee."

It was then that the show’s co-host, Mika Brzezinski, offered Santorum a "finish the sentence" option.  She jumped in to make it a bit easier for Santorum by offering a fill-in-the-blank question.  She said, "Jeb Bush ran Florida. Donald Trump built a company, Marco Rubio — finish the sentence."  Santorum replied saying, "OK, Marco Rubio was, No. 1, the speaker of the Florida House, which is not something that's a minor deal."  He went on to say, "I mean, he was elected by his colleagues to be the speaker of the House. No. 2, yeah, he spent four years in the United States Senate being frustrated like everybody else that nothing got done, and then you can't point to him and say well nothing got done and therefore he has no accomplishments."  Santorum then went on to call the argument completely "bogus.”

Scarborough in choosing to further challenge Santorum one more time, disagreed, and finally, Santorum was essentially forced to admit that Rubio didn't have many achievements.  Santorum said, "I know he included something that went after the insurance companies in the most recent omnibus."  And then went on to say, "He fought for that, to stop bailing out insurance companies, that's one thing I'm familiar that I just saw recently. Again, he was on the campaign trail and accomplished that."  Santorum concluded by saying, "The bottom line is there isn't a lot of accomplishments, Joe, and I don't think it's a fair question to say over the last four years nothing has happened and then blame one person because he didn't get accomplishments done."  And he said, "Neither did President [Barack] Obama."

Santorum said he dropped his own bid because the public changed how it supports candidates.  He said, "They're not looking at someone with accomplishments and a track record, but someone who is considered an outsider, someone who could talk on the establishment in the case of [Donald] Trump and [Ted] Cruz."  He said, "I think the case of Rubio, he is anti-Trump and anti-Cruz. He has a vision for this country that was like mine, which I appreciate.”  So I’m curious how it is that a man like Santorum, who has for quite a long time now presented what were very conservative positions on a whole host of issues, can suddenly declare that he now shares Rubio’s vision of America.  If that is in fact the case then I can only assume that much, if not all, that we have heard from Santorum over the years, was nothing but a lie.

So as this election season moves along, I’m beginning to wonder if there is anyone among our current cast of characters, Republican or Democrat, who is actually worthy of the position that they are working hard to acquire.  Frankly, I’m beginning to doubt it.  Because in looking at the supposed frontrunners what we have is a sophomoric real estate billionaire, we have a guy whose campaign spread lies about how another candidate was suspending his campaign, when he wasn’t, we have a supposed conservative who willingly teamed up with a hardcore leftist in an attempt to provide those in this country illegally with amnesty, we have a candidate about whom it’s been reported that they may soon be unable to possess a security clearance and then, of course, we have candidate who is an admitted Socialist!  WTF??