Poor rick Santorum. Four years ago at this time he had the world on a string. Now, he’s hanging by a thread. See, this is the problem with being a one trick pony, it’s only cute the first couple of times around. Sooner or later a newer, cuter pony shows up, with a neater trick, and the next thing you know, you’re back in the barn with a bag of oats strapped to your head. It’s starting to look like Ricky doesn’t particularly care for the taste of his oatbag, and he’s whinnying up a storm about it.
A recent report on MSNBC.com summed up his situation perfectly;
There are candidates you’d like to take out for a cold beer after watching them speak. In Rick Santorum’s case, you mostly just want to give him a hug.
What more can you say? If he wasn’t such a disagreeable turd you could almost feel sorry for him. He’s trying, he really is. He’s been in Iowa, he has a ground game from 2012 to drum up some support, he has name recognition in IA, hell he won it four years ago, but he’s nowhere to be seen in the polls.
I think Rick got spoiled the last time around, by his surprise victory in IA, and by how long he was able to hang in there in the primaries, giving Mittens a real run for his money. But times, they are a-changin’ and if you don’t change with them, you get left behind.
The news just keeps getting worse and worse for him. Not only can’t he get a vote as “most likely to fail”, but his national spotlight has just gone out. He has been “religious" (pun intended) about showing up for every undercard debate for free face time, but now the announcement came out that the next host of a GOP debate has done away with the undercard altogether. No more free face time, and expanded speaking due to the smaller size of the group. No more hanging out in the “spin room” trying to get more face time.
Little Ricky is not taking this well. But he’s handling it in a very unlikely Santorum way. He’s going full whine crybaby. Now that Trump has shown that you can twist Fox’s tail, they’re the target of Santorum’s obvious and bitter bile. As quoted in an article in RawStory.com;
Santorum complained after a GOP debate on Thursday night that neither O’Reilly nor his colleague Megyn Kelly have invited him onto their programs despite announcing his candidacy last May.
“They won’t put me on the show. And this is a guy that won the Iowa caucuses four years ago, and when you look at their biggest primetime shows, we haven’t had access to their shows,”.
Unfortunately for him, Rick Santorum is not Der Donald, and Fox has no intention in brooking any of his shit, they’re still stinging from the outcome of the Trump spanking. Bill O’Reilly was immediate and replied with some bile of his own;
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly confirmed on Friday that his program has not offered Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign any attention, but insisted there was a good reason for doing so.“
“Honestly, we looked for a reason to put the senator on, but we couldn’t find any,” the Factor host said. “His poll numbers are very low. His campaign strategy is what it was four years ago. There is simply nothing new.”
Ouch! News flash, this isn’t the first time Santorum has made nasty or sarcastic references to Fox’ preferential scheduling, why wait until now to kick a dog who’s already halfway to the back gate? But O’Reilly wasn't nearly done yet, he’s still stinging from his own little brouhaha with his “friend” Der Furor, so he put the heel of the boot down;
O’Reilly did not dispute the candidate’s argument, saying, “I feel Rick Santorum’s pain,” and saying that voters “could do worse” in choosing him. At the same time, he added that his show was “not in the campaigning business.”
“We don’t put politicians on the air simply to spout their slogans,” O’Reilly argued. “That’s what political ads are for. We cover the news. And when a politician is in the news, they get on the program.”
That was the reason, he said, why Donald Trump has received more coverage than Santorum and other candidates.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I almost lost my eyes laughing so hard. “We cover the news”. Uh-huh, and the Teletubbies are high grade preschool education providers. Since when has Bill O’Reilly ever given a shit about the news?!? But this is a clear warning shot across the bow to anybody on the GOP side who isn’t named Trump about committing the unpardonable sin of questioning the regality of King Roger and his Fox fiefdom.
Now, it’s only fair to remember, that 4 years ago Santorum was mired in the back of the pack, and only surged under the radar in the last weekend before the caucus. But this isn’t then, this is now. In 2012 the field was much smaller, and there were a lot fewer “authentic” evangelicals. Santorum had name recognition and a history in the state. The front runner was a Mormon, and Huckabee was just plain too batshit crazy for evangelicals. This time you have Trump actually leading with evangelicals in some polls, Cruz pushing hard on his religious creds, and Carson is already very popular with the bible thumpers. The evangelical vote in Iowa is just too fractured this time for him to be able to cobble together a miracle comeback within that group.
As I said in the photo caption, Alas poor Yo-Ricky, we knew you too well. Quit your whining, take the lesson that you’re now officially a has been and slink off back into obscurity, you sure as hell ain’t gonna get a show on Cluster Fox now!
Thanks as always for reading!