A divisive Rick Santorum references the 17th Amendment cloture provision in a “curious closing argument” in Polk City, Ia., also says President Obama more divisive than Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan never left the White House on Christmas, which was not true.

Rick Santorum References 17th Amendment's Cloture Provision in "Curious Closing Argument" in Polk City, IA (Wikipedia)

Rick Santorum is rising eyebrows again with comments on the campaign trail. During a stop in Polk City, Ia., he said, “I’m not disagreeing with the 17th Amendment,” but added that obscure 1913 provision that established the direct election of senators had the side effect of creating “ something called cloture,” the Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post. What’s amazing to me is that the room got quiet, but those Iowans who were present when he “singled out blacks” who rely on entitlement programs, it was business as usual, even though the vast majority of those Iowans who are on welfare are white.

It is painfully obvious that if this is the crap that emanates from the lips of Rick Santorum, he won’t be a top tier candidate for long. His game is shady and shaky at the same time. Why bring up a century-old legislative procedure at this juncture? The “Santorum Surge” will abate when he starts to get serious media scrutiny. He was too close to the Washington process, as was Newt Gingrich, to be considered for the “new” Washington he talks about creating. This “Santorum Surge” has little to do with Rick Santorum and more to do with the voters not sure about which candidate to get behind and all the negative advertising blanketing the airwaves in Iowa.

In Perry, Santorum gave his opinion that President Obama was more of a divisive figure than Richard Nixon, keeper of the enemies list: “I suspect President Nixon, although I don’t know, would talk and work with people and wouldn’t go out and demonize them as this president has done.” Santorum doesn’t know it, but that doesn’t stop him from asserting it.

At the same stop, he played loose with the facts when contrasting Ronald Reagan’s vacation schedule with Obama’s.“I don’t know if it’s true, but somebody told me this,” he began, “that Ronald Reagan never left the White House at Christmas, and the reason was he wanted all the staff to be able to spend that time at home.” A check of the record would have revealed to Santorum that in 1988, Reagan was in Los Angeles during Christmas, and that he spent the week after nearly every Christmas (and more than a year of his presidency) in Santa Barbara, Calif. Source: Washington Post

So what if the president leaves the White House for Christmas? Didn’t former presidents George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush? Um, what’s the big deal? It just goes to show how petty these GOP presidential candidates are and that they are certainly not ready for the presidential stage. There’s a reason why he was defeated in his last election — he was a neophyte who had nothing good to offer the people of his district and that same thing applies to his presidential aspirations. The people in his district in Pennsylvania know him better than the people in Iowa. His 2006 loss shouldn’t be dismissed easily by Iowa voters because the margin of loss was as much as 18%. So, this “Santorum Surge” is unsustainable when the voters realize who they are dealing with. Even Sarah Palin would bring more to the table than Rick Santorum. It’s amazing Rupert Murdoch expressed support of him as the GOP presidential nominee. This has to be a gimmick. There is no way on earth Rick Santorum can beat President Obama. Either that or he’s coming out in support of someone who used to work for Fox News, a part of his media empire.