Last updated on February 9th, 2013 at 02:01 pm
Gee, Toto, we aren’t in 2008 anymore. Democratic House candidate Alan Grayson stood with President Obama tonight and called out Rick Santorum’s veiled comparison of Obama to Hitler.
Here is the video from MSNBC:
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Ed Schultz asked Alan Grayson if Rick Santorum should be held accountable for his comparison give us a name for who he was talking about when he compared Obama to someone in Europe in the 1940s, the Democratic candidate for the House said, “Well of course, but Rick Santorum says things like that every day. In the very same speech, Ed, he said among other things that President Obama is the worst president we’ve had on security, the very worst. The worst president we’ve had on the economy, and he said President Obama wants higher gas prices. This is part of the vilification and demonizing of the president that you hear all the time on Glenn Beck. You hear all of the time on Rush Limbaugh. You hear all of the time on Sean Hannity’s show, and he’s simply articulating that for the same audience, the tea party fanatics that determine the Republican primary.”
Grayson called it a deliberate strategy to vilify the president, “It’s a deliberate strategy to vilify the president to make it seem he’s an illegitimate president. We’ve seen this since before he was elected, and it won’t work because sixty seven million Americans voted for him last time, and more than sixty seven million will vote for him this time. But what he is doing is playing to that particular paranoid audience in The paranoid style of American politics, and trying to make them angry and fearful of Barack Obama to the point where they will support him. That’s what he’s doing, and I think he’s doing it consciously.”
Grayson called out Fox News and hate radio, “Again, it is no different from what you hear all the time on Fox News and on hate radio. Rick Santorum like millions of other Americans has been immersed in hate radio and Fox News for years, for decades, and now this is the result of it. He is the tea party candidate. He’s the one they really want, and this is what you see. But there is a gaping chasm between the tea party and the rest of America, and they are going to generate the next Republican candidate whether we like it or not. I think people would like to see an honest debate between two honest people with different points of view, but you’re not going to see that because the tea party is going to choose a candidate that spews nothing but hatred. That’s exactly what Rick Santorum is doing, has done, and will continue to do.”
Former Rep. Grayson had this diagnosed perfectly. Santorum was comparing Obama to Hitler, and he was doing so in order to shore up his support with the tea party. His comments were primarily an attempt to differentiate himself from Mitt Romney, but they were also aimed at getting rid of the other Obama hate machine in the race, Newt Gingrich. Even though Gingrich’s campaign is on life support, Santorum would like nothing more than to finish him off and rally the paranoid evangelical tea party vote around his campaign.
Santorum and his spokesperson were courting a particular voter with their remarks. They are courting the talk radio listening, Obama hating, Fox News viewing extremists of the Republican Party. As we have seen, this is a contest where extremism wins. (Grayson also deserves mad props for the excellent reference to Richard Hofstadter). These were not misinterpretations or slips of the tongue. This is a calculated strategy to both win the nomination and delegitimize President Obama.
Santorum may be cleverer than John McCain and Sarah Palin were in 2008, but this strategy didn’t work then and it isn’t going to work now. It is a sign of Republican desperation that they are being forced to resort to failed tactics in their attempt to defeat Obama. The stupidity of trying to delegitimize a president who has been in office for over three years is mind blowing, but Rick Santorum is simply pandering to the fringe right and giving them what they want.
Unlike the 2008 campaign, Democrats like Alan Grayson are ready to stand up and call out Republicans like Santorum when he or his campaign compare the president to Hitler or hint that he is not a Christian. The American people have also had enough of the othering of President Obama. They aren’t going to take it anymore, and if Republicans insist on going down this path again they will be soundly rejected in November.
Former contributor.
