While former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to be dogged by an 18-point reelection loss in 2006, his support of Sen. Arlen Specter may be more troublesome for GOP voters,
The Washington Post’s political blog The Fix reported.
Santorum supported Specter in 2004 when he was facing a primary challenge from the more conservative Republican Pat Toomey. Toomey went on to eventually win the seat in 2010, after Specter switched parties, became a Democrat in 2009 and provided a key vote for President Barack Obama’s health care legislation, the Post noted.
“We’ll forgive incompetence, but not Arlen,” GOP strategist Dina Fraioli told the Post.
Others charge that Santorum went beyond a mere endorsement of a party colleague. “He made it a crusade,” Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich told the Post. “He left no stone unturned. He went out of his way to try to prevent Toomey from winning.”
While Santorum campaigns as the one true, uncompromising conservative, his political expediency in endorsing Specter calls it into question. Romney is now running an ad on that very point.
“If Rick Santorum couldn’t say no to liberal Arlen Specter, can we really trust him to change Washington?” the narrator says in the ad according to the Post.
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