Steve Rodich – 11/28/05

This page was last updated on November 29, 2005.

Race already heating up; Steve Rodich; Beaver County Times; November 28, 2005.

Mr. Rodich appears to have a thing for Sen. Santorum. Going back to September 2004, this is his fourth anti-Santorum letter in a row. The previous letters were entitled “Santorum flip flops,” “It’s Santorum’s turn to lose,” and “‘Nuclear’ option and Santorum.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Have you noticed the TV ads praising U.S. Senator Rick Santorum? Looks like the campaign has started and the Republican right-wingers are off and running. They are obviously running scared, since the polls show Bob Casey with a huge lead.”

[RWC] Where’s Mr. Rodich been? Both Messrs. Casey and Santorum have been running campaign ads for weeks.

I’d like to know what Mr. Rodich considers a “right-winger.” If Mr. Rodich really believes Mr. Santorum is a right-winger, Mr. Rodich himself must be barely to the right of Karl Marx.

“The ads, costing close to half a million dollars, are paid for by the Americans for Job Security headed by David Carney, a Karl Rove protegé. Their lawyer is Ben Ginsberg, who resigned from the Bush-Cheney campaign after his connection to the ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ was revealed. Don’t be surprised if the so-called jobs for security ads don’t eventually revert to smear tactics similar to the Swift Boat Veterans. We all saw the damage the Swift Boat Veterans did last year. They will stop at nothing to get rubber-stamp Santorum re-elected.”

[RWC] The SBVT didn’t use smear tactics. If they had, the Kerry campaign would have provided proof to kill the SBVT credibility. The problem for the Kerry campaign was the SBVT corrected Kerry campaign misstatements and the campaign had to acknowledge the errors.

Regarding “rubber-stamp Santorum,” it’s true he’s pretty much a lock to support any Republican Party position. In some cases he’s even more liberal.

“Santorum has over $10 million in his war chest. Couple that with the money these right-wingers will throw into the election, there will be a media barrage like we never saw before. Santorum is their hope for a future run for the Presidency. They must get him re-elected at all cost.”

[RWC] I hate to break it to Mr. Rodich, but Mr. Santorum is not my hope for president, ever. I’ll write in a true conservative rather than vote for a Rockefeller Republican like Mr. Santorum.

As of the most current FEC reports, Casey has over $4 million in his “war chest.”

“Well, I got news for them. The only way that he could get re-elected is for Democrats to vote for him. The vast majority of registered voters in Pennsylvania are Democrats. We need to band together and support Bob Casey in every way possible, including financial support but more importantly; we must get out the vote.”

[RWC] It’s true more voters are registered as Democrats, but it’s nowhere near a “vast majority.” Total PA voter registration is about 9 million and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by several hundred thousand. Even if registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 1 million, Democrats would be only about 56%. That’s not a vast majority. Also, Mr. Rodich seems to believe that all registered Democrats are really liberals. In fact, many rank-and-file Democrats are more conservative than the Democrat candidates.

Mr. Rodich is correct to state that the only way Santorum can win is with a chunk of Democrat voters. Given Casey’s pro-life position, it’s likely a lot of anti-abortion Democrats who previously voted for Santorum will vote for Casey.

“I mailed his committee a campaign contribution and urge each of you to do the same. It may be impossible to match the funds in Santorum’s campaign, so we must do everything possible to provide support through volunteerism. The campaign for U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania has begun.”