Rick Santorum = a Carbon Copy of Barack Obama! Except ...

I’ve noticed many folks have been comparing Rick Santorum to Barack Obama and other pro-life Democrats.

Such a comparison is worthy of “the weirdest claim made yet against Rick Santorum” award. They seem to have forgotten that there are no true pro-life Democrats for even Democrat “staunch pro-lifer” Bart (Mark) Stupak had agreed to put his pro-life stance aside in order to provide Obama with the final vote for Obamacare. Those who compare Santorum to Democrats like Obama have also obviously not watched this video in which Senator Santorum fought against federal funding for partial-birth abortion in 1998.


Social issues aside, let us see just how similar Santorum is to Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. We all agree that to beat Obama one must be able to draw a strong contrast between their record and Obama’s. Is Santorum able to do that?

Let’s check it out:

TARP - Government Bailouts

Rick Santorum had opposed TARP right from the start. He didn’t merely pay lip-service in opposition, but railed out against it several months later in ’09 at CPAC.

TARP had received support not only from then-candidate Obama but also by a majority of the GOP establishment including Newt and Mitt. Santorum also opposed Obama’s stimulus, the auto bailout, and the Fannie-Freddie bailout.

Needless to say, Obama is the King of the Bailouts.

Next.

Government Reform – Reducing Spending and Dependency on Government

In the 1990s, when he was only a freshman Senator, Rick Santorum was a leading author on the bill that completely overhauled the country’s welfare system.

Yes, you read that right. As a Congressman, Santorum had started the fight for welfare reform in the House, and once in the Senate he combined forces with his old buddies, actually wrote the bill, and successfully fought the left and ensured its passage. To give credit when credit is due, Newt who was speaker of the House at the time, voted in support of the bill.

Santorum also voted for the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996 that started the process of ending direct farm subsidies. When Congress decided that it couldn’t live up to that promise, it voted to re-establish the subsidies in 2002 with the Farm Security Act, a bill that Santorum rightly opposed. Santorum voted for a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto in 1995.

Santorum strongly believes in a bottom-up economy and in keeping government out of the private sector in most cases.

Obama obviously strongly opposes all reform to the federal government since, as we all know, he wants us all dependent on government for our health-care and every-day needs. He has successfully vastly increased the number of individuals collecting unemployment, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.

Okay, they clearly differ on role of government. All right, let’s try something else.

Health Care Mandates – Obamacare

Oops! Here’s a video from Rick Santorum in 1994 where he clearly and passionately spoke against government mandating individuals into buying health-care or anything else for that matter. This is a direct quote from Rick Santorum spoken in 1994 when health-care mandates were on the table;

“I think what the role of the federal government is to provide opportunity for everyone to get what they want, to live their dreams and not to dictate what everybody should have.”

Sounds like Obama to you? Not to me. Let’s also remember that in 1994 both Newt and Romney amongst many other Republicans had heavily supported and pushed for health-care mandates.

Still convinced he’s a carbon copy of Obama at least in some way? Let’s continue!

Global Warming Hoax

The entire Democrat Party has adopted “saving the environment from us bad people” as the reason they’ve been created, and many Republicans have also fallen for the hoax including … Mitt and Newt once again. Newt in a debate with John Kerry actually took the more liberal position than Kerry, arguing that government intervention is necessary in order to effectively regulate the environment while Kerry wanted the private sector to do it!

Rick Santorum, though, is included in the minority of people who had always opposed global warming, as is Rush Limbaugh and many other prominent conservatives. His record shows he’s always voted against it. As the years go by, increasingly more information keeps on surfacing which prove that global warming was a hoax from the start, and even a decade or two ago one was able to see the truth if they searched for it.

Barack Obama and his henchman in the EPA are still in the belief that the polar bears will die if you don’t use their energy-saving light-bulbs.

Polar opposites indeed.

However, Santorum MUST have something in common with Obama; I’ve seen folks here on Red State say so! All right; let’s move on!

Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

Hmm. Santorum opposed Bush’s amnesty plan, something a majority of the GOP establishment had supported, and had received an A+ rating for his stance against Amnesty. Newt, no longer in the Congress, attempted to convince members of Congress to vote for it.

Obama’s stance? In 2010, during the mid-term primaries, Obama sneakily whispered to Latinos that they should punish their enemies on November 2nd. He also believes he’s done all he can to secure the border according to original Republican demands, and that Republicans won’t be satisfied until he puts a moat filled with alligators at the U.S.-Mexican border.

We covered all the major issues of the day, and they don’t seem to agree on anything!

Oh, wait!

National Security

Surely they think the same in regard to the defense of this country? Umm, Obama wants to cut our nuclear heads to a number lower than that of China. He has bowed and apologized to all our enemies, while alienated and insulted all of our allies.

What about Santorum? Rick Santorum has warned about Iran over a decade ago and is very clear with who our enemies are and who our friends are. He doesn’t think Ahmadinejad will love us if we’d only bow a bit deeper and understands the importance in keeping a positive relationship with our allies like Great Britain, Canada, and Israel.

Sorry, strike that one out as well.

Perhaps they are similar in position on the next vitally important topic? Let’s see!

Energy Independence

Obama is doing all he can to create jobs yet refuses to allow the Keystone Pipeline to go into effect due to environmental concerns. Never mind that we already have numerous pipelines running beneath our grounds for many years. Who cares that it would employ tens of thousands of unemployed Americans? What difference does it make to Obama that it would help lower the price at the pump or that we’d be less reliant on foreign oil from hostile countries?

Where is Rick Santorum in this picture? Rick Santorum’s grandfather worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania and Santorum speaks strongly about the importance for energy independence for the multitude of reasons involved. Santorum is aware of the dangers in being reliant on foreign oil which funds terrorism. He is also highly attuned to the need of manufacturing good here in the US, and explains that energy creation has been and can be once again a major source of jobs.

He’d therefore grant permission to execute the Keystone Pipeline immediately and also increase permits for Hydraulic fracturing, offshore drilling, onshore drilling, and everything else that will help us become energy independent and isn’t really dangerous; not “liberal/environmental-style” dangerous.

What’s left?

War against Terror

Obama refused to credit the surge in Iraq for its success even when directly questioned about it and the facts were clear to (almost) all. In Honduras, President Obama joined Chavez and Castro in siding with the bad guys. In Iraq and Afghanistan he provides timetables that fit his political calendar ignoring the advice of his generals who are on the battlefield.

Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and helped oust our decades-long ally Mubarak who helped keep the region stable in the name of Democracy yet looked the other way when Iranian protestors pleaded for freedom from Ahmadinejad.

On the flip side, Rick Santorum supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start and expressed strong support for the surge which Obama and Newt opposed. He warned of the dangers of allowing terrorist reaction go unanswered and warned about the threat Al Qaeda poses to the U.S. several months prior to 9/11. He criticized Obama’s handling of Iran and Egypt as appeasement for terrorism and stifling of Democracy.

Sorry but I raise my hands in defeat. Santorum is the direct opposite of Obama and not at all similar to the Democrats. Those who have made this silly comparison have also called Obama a socialist and the worst president ever. Making such a comparison minimizes all the bad Obama has done, for it leads one to think that perhaps Obama not so bad-after all … he’s like Santorum.

False.

Leon H. Wolf from Red State and many others have also been greatly bothered by Santorum’s lack of executive experience in comparison to Romney’s 4 years of Governor in Massachusetts. Executive experience is truly an important asset to any candidate but in this scenario it needs a bit of closer inspection. Romney ran for Senate and lost. He then ran for Governor, won one term, and didn’t run for reelection since he knew he wouldn’t win. He was an executive but not a very successful one.

Rick Santorum ran for the House, and won twice. As a freshman and newcomer to the House, Santorum was appalled at the level of corruption taking place, and he together with six others stood up and exposed the actions of senior members of BOTH PARTIES in what become known as the “Gang of Seven.” Compare Santorum’s actions to that of the over three hundred others who either took a part in the corruption or turned a blind eye towards it. Santorum then ran for the Senate and won twice as a conservative in the blue state of Pennsylvania. In the Senate he took the initiative and led the fight against the left in many scenarios including stopping funding for partial-birth abortion, reforming welfare, and reforming social security.

Rick Santorum is human, has made mistakes in the past, and isn't perfect. No one is. However, after reviewing all of the above, it is clear he provides the strongest contrast to Barack Obama and I wish to go as far from Obama as possible. This therefore leads me to support Rick Santorum in the primary and definitely in the general election.