Steve Rodich – 8/11/06

This page was last updated on August 11, 2006.

Who is Santorum fighting?; Steve Rodich; Beaver County Times; August 11, 2006.

This is at least the sixth anti-Santorum letter by Mr. Rodich since September 2004, and the second in five weeks. The previous letters were entitled “Voting records tell all,” “Santorum flip flops,” “It’s Santorum’s turn to lose,” “‘Nuclear’ option and Santorum”, and “Race already heating up.” It would have been six in a row except Mr. Rodich took a timeout and attempted to bash Lynn Swann in “Swann lacks experience.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is sitting on a $10 million campaign war chest, and we are going to be subjected to a constant barrage on television with his rhetoric and phony campaign snippets from now to November.”

[RWC] Bob Casey is sitting on a $5 million “campaign war chest,” so what?

“In one ad, he claims he ‘fought hard’ to get more boarder [sic] patrol officers. In another ad he claims he ‘fought hard’ to secure funds for a coal-to-liquid fuel plant in Pennsylvania.”

[RWC] I assume Mr. Rodich supports Bob Casey. Does anyone care to guess why Mr. Rodich failed to note Mr. Casey supports the amnesty-based immigration bill passed by the Senate and opposed by Sen. Santorum?

“Who was he fighting with? Did he fight with George Bush? I don’t think so. He supported the Bush administration policies 98 percent of the time. Did he fight with members of the House of Representatives? No, the Republican Party controls it. Maybe he fought with his colleagues in the Senate. Can’t be. The Senate is also controlled by the GOP.”

[RWC] In case Mr. Rodich didn’t notice, President Bush and Republican leadership in the Senate has clearly supported amnesty vs. border security. Sen. Santorum’s position has been the opposite.

Regarding the allegation that Sen. Santorum “supported the Bush administration policies 98% of the time,” that should be no surprise even if it’s true. President Bush and Sen. Santorum aren’t exactly “full-blown conservatives” and tend to agree on most topics.

Why do folks like Mr. Rodich seem to have a problem when Republicans tend to agree on issues but don’t have the same problem when Democrats agree with each other? Indeed, if you don’t vote 100% with liberals, Democrats will boot you. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is an example. Sen. Liberman’s 2005 Americans for Democratic Action voting record was 94% and he was the VP candidate in 2000. Though he supports and votes for just about everything liberals live and breathe for, and opposes almost everything President Bush wants, he isn’t liberal enough for Connecticut Democrats so they booted Sen. Lieberman in the 2006 primary because he supports most – though not all – of the war on terror as it’s being conducted.

Regarding the “coal-to-liquid fuel plant,” wouldn’t Sen. Santorum have had to fight President Bush and Republicans in general? After all, this plant would provide unwanted competition for “Big Oil,” and doesn’t “Big Oil” run the Republican Party and the White House? Come on, Mr. Rodich, keep your stories straight! <g>

“His only fight is for his political life.

“In another ad, he claims to be protecting senior citizens’ Social Security benefits.

“What a joke. Last year, he conducted meetings all over the state supporting Bush’s plan to divert money from the trust fund to personal accounts at a cost of $2 trillion dollars. What happened to that?”

[RWC] “What happened to that?” was that folks like Mr. Rodich completely misrepresented the plan. From the beginning, the plan would have protected existing and near-term Socialist Security beneficiaries and Mr. Rodich knows it.

It’s interesting that Mr. Rodich refers to allowing Socialist Security taxpayers to control the investment of some of their Socialist Security taxes as a “plan to divert money.” When did allowing people to control investment of their own paycheck become a diversion of money?

Oh, by the way, “Bush’s [evil] plan” for Socialist Security was first proposed by Democrats in the late 1990s. As below, Mr. Rodich opposed this plan only because President Bush supported it. Had a Democrat president made exactly the same proposal, Mr. Rodich would be telling us how wonderful it was. In fact, for the last few years I’ve thought the quickest way to get rid of the government’s socialist programs would be for President Bush to announce his support for all of them. By definition, that would require Democrats to oppose them and push for their elimination. <g> Of course, the problem is President Bush is a fairly liberal Republican so he really does support most of these programs.

“The U.S Chamber of Commerce runs an ad proclaiming his concern for seniors with support for the Medicare Prescription Plan. This plan was projected to cost $400 billion; it is now more than $800 billion. Who does it really benefit? The pharmaceutical and insurance companies.”

[RWC] Make no mistake about it. Mr. Rodich doesn’t oppose a Medicare drug plan. Democrats had been lobbying for such a plan for years. Does anyone doubt Mr. Rodich supported a taxpayer-funded national healthcare system, a plan that would be far more expense.

Mr. Rodich is angry only because Democrats can’t take “credit” for it. As I’ve mentioned ad nauseam, I oppose any government involvement in healthcare.

“What’s with the ad picturing him with his children? I can’t say anything bad about that because he is a good family man. However, it does remind me of the fact that he ripped off the Penn Hills School District for $100,000 in cyber-school tuition for his kids claiming he resides in the vacant home in Penn Hills when he, in fact, resides in Virginia.”

[RWC] Gee, a candidate pictured with his family. I’ll bet Sen. Santorum is the only politician to do that. <g>

“He did fight Penn Hills over that.”

[RWC] Talk about beating a dead horse. Please go here and here for my comments on this “issue.”

Did you notice Mr. Rodich didn’t provide one reason why we should vote for Bob Casey, Sen. Santorum’s opponent? That’s not a good sign for Mr. Casey.