var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};Rick Santorum is already planning and organizing his campaign for the Republican 2016 presidential election season. Santorum, who lost badly this year, ran on a platform of religious anti-gay and anti-immigrant hate — exactly the positions that some in the GOP are now just starting to realize hurt Mitt Romney‘s chances, however small they were, of winning the White House.
Santorum is a questionable candidate among younger voters, women, the LGBT community, the African American community, the Hispanic community, and other minorities, and his abrasive and condescending demeanor doesn’t help either. By 2016, America will be so over the Rick Santorums they’ll have to find another country to try to rule.
“A leading evangelical leader who is close to Santorum and asked not to be identified, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that Santorum is ‘organizing and making all the necessary preparations’ for another run in the 2016 Republican primary,” the Christian Post reports:
“Rick’s getting ready organized and is not going to be behind the eight-ball when it comes to fundraising and building a grassroots organization,” the anonymous source said. “I think you’ll see and hear a lot from Rick in the next 12 months.”
Santorum fought off a number of fellow conservatives that included Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and restaurant executive Herman Cain to be one of the last standing against Mitt Romney. Only Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) stayed in the race longer but he was never considered a major contender to win the nomination.
“As a result of this election,” Santorum wrote, “we now need to engage with even more energy and commitment not just in politics, but in our daily lives, to ensure that the values upon which our country has prospered will continue.” And here is the kicker: “Karen and I look forward to working side by side with you to make that happen.”
Last week, Santorum told CNN’s Piers Morgan that “Romney, in my opinion, didn’t do was go out and vigorously defend the beliefs that he said he espoused and didn’t go on the offense.”
“And when you’re playing defense, which is what I believe the campaign was doing and Republicans were doing generally throughout the course of this campaign you’re not going to win.”
“He didn’t make it about those two fundamentally different visions for America,” he said of Obama’s re-election campaign, “and I don’t think we did a very good job either as Republicans pointing out those fundamental differences and what type of freedom we’re talking about.”
Also last week, as Politico reported, Santorum jumped on the Hispanic bandwagon. “Santorum acknowledged that the GOP’s efforts with Hispanic voters fell short.”
“Yeah, I think we did lose a lot of [the] Hispanic vote,†he said. “I think one of the reasons [is], we didn’t talk about all the issues that that community, which, as all immigrant communities are, there are a disproportionate [number who are] middle and lower income who are trying to struggle to rise. We didn’t have a strong message for those folks. And I’m not just talking Hispanics, I’m talking writ large.”
What not a single Republican seems to understand is that Hispanics don’t have a problem with the GOP’s not having “a strong message for those folks.” The GOP has had a very strong message for the Hispanic and Latino communities: “self-deport, you illegals.”
Santorum 2016!
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