Santorum, Women & more

In an article published March 6, 2012 by the website Mother Jones: During his first US Senate campaign, Rick Santorum in a February 1994 town meeting in Clairton, Pennsylvania (PA) warned voters of a growing menace that was "breeding more criminals". "Most people agree a continuation of the current [welfare] system will be the ruination of this country," "We are seeing it. We are seeing the fabric of this country fall apart, and it's falling apart because of single moms." "Open up the current periodicals—study after study, article after article, children having children is destroying the fabric of our country," Santorum said. "If you want to close your eyes to it, if you don't care about it, if you don't want to solve it, if you want to continue the system, to let people stay and spiral—go ahead. Not with me." Single mothers, Santorum argued, needed politicians who weren't afraid of "kicking them in the butt." According to Mother Jones, it wasn't just single moms that came under assault from Santorum; he told his audience that the welfare program's ballooning costs were also due to "aliens," "drug addicts," and children "who have learning disabilities" as well. Santorum went on to suggest that cases of attention deficit disorder were being faked to bilk the government. "You have a lot of testimony indicating that parents are coaching their children to stay in that situation in order to receive benefits" he said. It wasn't just a matter of cutting government spending and playing life coach, though. One month later, at an appearance in Erie, Pa., Santorum framed welfare reform as a public safety issue. "What we have is moms raising children in single-parent households simply breeding more criminals," he said. When Santorum wasn't comparing single mothers to animals, he still pressed the issue of out-of-wedlock births and crime. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1994 that "we will never solve the crime problem unless we solve the welfare problem. They are deeply intertwined." (Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley did not respond to a request for comment.) The solution to poverty, crime, and moral decay, he insisted, was to turn off the money spigots. "We have programs right now that pay children to have children," he explained on the CNN's Crossfire in 1994. Santorum, who as a second-term congressman described his views as "moderate," continued to make single mothers a focal point of his welfare policy. Santorum, who often trumpets his role in pushing through landmark welfare reform did introduce legislation that would have required single mothers who had been on welfare for more than two years to work at least 35 hours a week in order to receive benefits. They would also be denied benefits if they could not identify their child's father. "If they don't give the name, they don't get any welfare," Santorum told the Inquirer. Under his plan, which did not pass Congress, unwed teen mothers would not be eligible for welfare at all. Santorum conceded his rhetoric—and his policies—wouldn't go over well with some audiences. "This approach can be described as 'tough love,'" he said of his welfare reform proposal in 1996. "But the operative word is 'love." Santorum has since toned down his broadsides against single mothers (if only slightly), but he's singled them out during his presidential campaign. In October 2011 he told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins that single moms are "the political base of the Democratic party." He continued, "Why? Because it's so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they're going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two-parent families; you eliminate that desire for government." In an effort to encourage people to get married, Santorum has proposed eliminating head-of-household exemptions for unmarried parents, while tripling their value for married parents. "We shouldn't have incentives for people not to be married," he said. On March 11 Santorum took Kansas with 51% of the votes (40 delegates); March 13 he took Alabama with 35% (Gingrich and Romney got 29%) and took Mississippi (delegates were split). On March 9 Romney received the Mississippi Governor’s endorsement; March 10 he picked up 18 delegates from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; March 11 he took Wyoming; March 13 he took Hawaii and American Samoa; and March 18 he took Puerto Rico.

The HBO movie Game Change was based on the book written by political journalists that covered the 2008 Republican campaign and said to contain quotes by anonymous staffers breaking confidentiality. I did not see the movie but excerpts were shown on ABC News; shows McCain being told that if he’s trailing by more than 5% of the women voters he’d lose so to get votes the Republican Party found Palin who was pleased to help out. Unfortunately she was not knowledgeable and therefore unprepared for what was to come. There are some things I’ve heard Palin say that I totally agree with and others I do not. Nicolle Wallace a former campaign advisor said it (the movie) was true enough to make her squirm. Chris Lehane said he felt Palin’s book Going Rogue compelled people to defend themselves or give their own perspective. A politician told ABC News that there really is no money in being politically honest but there is money in being dishonest. I find that vote getting seems to be more important to the Republicans than the real issues at hand. I also find Santorum’s dishonesty gets him votes over Romney’s honesty and somewhat clean campaign.

In October 2011 I heard that in the last 10 years women have been looked at differently; women’s clothes, makeup and more is brought up to discredit them. If women voters are needed to win an election I don’t know why they let things continue as they have been. FYI - It wasn’t until 50 years after Blacks got the right to vote that women with the 19^th Amendment to our Constitution in 1920 received the same right.