Rick Santorum Tells Iowa To Vote for Him Because He Sticks it to the Man

Apparently, Rick Santorum has decided that his “constituency of one” is insufficient for the highest office in the land: he actually wants people to vote for him rather than have God simply appoint him. More to the point, he says that by voting for him, you can “stick it to the man.”

And he’s desperate that you do that, because the Iowa Caucus is on January 3. Running in the number four slot according to the admittedly dubious Rasmussen poll, the man best known for a substance polite people don’t talk about, is running out of time (A week ago, Public Policy Polling had him tied at fourth with Perry and Bachmann). If Santorum is rising, it is only because Gingrich is falling, and not through any great deeds of his own.

Watch the video from Crooks and Liars’ Video Cafe:

Santorum was, of course, like all GOP candidates these days, speaking to the conservative fringe in Iowa, the woman-hater Evangelical fringe. Saying that President Obama has made some “nasty, personal, divisive, unfair accusations” he had a request of make of voters:

“That’s why I’m asking for your help and support. “Obviously you’ve got a big decision to make in a week’s time, a week from today. And I would very much like your support. If you want to send a message to the man, those are the folks that are the experts, the folks that are trying to shape this race.”

The problem for Santorum and for other Republican hopefuls is that the “man” in question is not some mythical “liberal elite” but the Republican establishment itself, which prefers, shall we say, saner candidates, even men who drive to Canada with their pet dogs tied to the roofs of their car.

Take a look at Santorum’s assertion. “The man” by any accepted interpretation represents the “establishment.” He is an oppressor, and he is most definitely not a Democrat. Look for example at the definition of “the man” offered by the Urban Dictionary:

The Man is the head of “the establishment” put in place to “bring us down.” Though nobody has physically seen “the man,” he is assumed to be a male caucasian between the ages of 25-40 and is rumored to have a substantial amount of acquired wealth, presumably acquired by exploiting those whom his “establishment” is “keeping down.”

This does not sound like a liberal or progressive to me, but the 1% represented by the entire GOP field in 2012. Inarguably, nobody is keeping the 1% down. Rather, the reverse.

Pattering on, ignoring these, one would think self-evident facts, he told his listeners,

“If you want to stick it to the folks who want to shape the debate and think they can tell you who you should pay attention to, as opposed to you who have been on the ground listening to all the candidates, this is where you step up and say, ‘No, you don’t get to decide. You in Washington and New York, you don’t decide this race by who you have shined your light on and said who the American public should pay attention to.”

The debate, alas, has been shaped by the very extremists Santorum represents. And Democrats hardly need to involve themselves in the Republican debates and could hardly do so in any case. Tea Party extremism set the table back in 2010 and the script was largely determined at that time. Since then it’s been more a matter of who can up the ante of craziness, and all Republican candidates have participated eagerly in that unholy orgy, even the supposedly moderate Huntsman and Paul.

Santorum is putting his hopes in the misogynist GOP base and in a VH1-style pop-up video set to run leading up to the Caucus:

It seems a forlorn hope to an outside observer. Santorum is not saying anything more or less crazy or extreme than any other Republican hopeful and there is nothing he has said or done that will set him apart from the crowd as his polling numbers have consistently shown.

At this point it seems almost as if the deciding factor will be who is the least scandal-ridden candidate. We have already seen Gingrich founder on his divorce accounts and we have seen Ron Paul hoisted on his own racist petard (though that racism is actually helping him in Texas). With a week to go, it’s anyone’s guess who will be put through the grinder next. Even a friendly mainstream media can’t entirely avoid the facts, as the recent scandals have shown. The only sure bet is that the GOP pucker factor is high and will get only higher as we count down to January 3.