Don’t Vote for Rick Santorum

So it happens that I don’t like Rick Santorum.  And it also happens that this rant probably isn’t about what you think it’s gonna be about.

Unless you think it’s gonna be about how you shouldn’t vote for Rick Santorum.  In which case, congratulations, you read the fucking title of the post.  Woo-hoo.

No, I don’t really care that Santorum is such an out-and-proud Christian.  From what I’ve heard, he actually seems to live his faith, which is so strikingly unlike most of those people who claim to be faithful that it makes me admire him a little.  And I don’t think he’s homophobic.  To the best of my knowledge, I’ve read most of Santorum’s major words on the subject of gay people, and I don’t believe he hates them, and I don’t believe he’s afraid of them.  So he’s not homophobic, and if you think he is, then either show me something to back yourself up or just admit you made a fucking boo-boo.

But I do care that he’s not a conservative.

The fact is, actually, that none of the Republican candidates this cycle is really a conservative.  You have Mitt Romney, who’ll say anything if it’ll get him elected — pro-life, pro-choice, yay health care freedom, boo health care freedom, Justin Bieber is so hot, whatever.  You have Newt Gingrich, who has at times been very conservative in the past but has a tendency to go so far off-script that he starts to make Zero Mostel look restrained.  And then you have Ron Paul, who is half-sane but also half-Ron Paul, which means that at times he sounds like Milton Friedman and at times he sounds like he’s pissed off that the mothership Godot is thirty years overdue.

So I’m not gonna get what I want…which is someone who’s actually conservative.  Fortunately for me, there’s something I want more, which is to get rid of Barack Obama before he does so much damage to this country that it couldn’t be fixed in the lifetimes of my unborn children.  And it just happens to be that the only realistic choices to win the Republican nomination, and so the only people who could potentially get rid of Barack Obama, are Romney and Santorum.

Now I can understand if you can’t pull the lever for Romney.  I don’t think I’ll be able to, so I’m gonna waste my vote.  But for the love of God, if you can vote in the GOP primaries coming up on Super Tuesday, vote for Romney.  Or Gingrich.  Or Paul.  Or Perry, or Bachmann, or Cain, or Huntsman, or Darth F’n Vader if you have a write-in line.  (And seriously, you should write it in exactly that way — Darth F’n Vader.)

But do not vote for Santorum.

There are lots of reasons you shouldn’t vote for Rick Santorum.  You shouldn’t vote for Santorum because Santorum loves big government, and that’s exactly the type of president we don’t need for the next ever.  You shouldn’t vote for Santorum because as it turns out, Santorum wasn’t always all that pro-life, which means he’s as much of a hypocrite on the issue as Romney.  I could go on until we found out whether the Vulcans were gonna make First Contact in Montana on schedule.  But the two reasons I particularly want to talk about come from last week.

First, Santorum flagrantly misrepresented some JFK comments on religion.  What JFK said was that the government shouldn’t interfere with the way churches run themselves, and vice versa.  What Santorum said JFK meant was that people of religious faith had no place at all in the public square.  This is such a staggering misinterpretation from a fucking presidential candidate that it leaves me with no choice but to draw one of two possible conclusions:

1)  Santorum has no idea what JFK meant.  That’s because he either can’t read or can’t understand what he’s read.  Either way, he’s too stupid to be president.

2)  Santorum knew perfectly well what JFK meant, but chose to misrepresent it, either because he wanted to make a point of his own and needed the straw-man to do it …or because he secretly doesn’t believe that what JFK actually said is true but didn’t dare attack it directly.  Either way, he’s too much of a fucking liar to be president.

Second, Santorum actually solicited Democratic votes in Michigan’s primary on the grounds that Mitt Romney had opposed the Detroit bailout.  That a Republican presidential candidate would solicit votes from outside his party because another candidate wasn’t PRO-UNION enough is just fucking unbelievable.

Look, I bear no illusions about Romney being conservative.  He’s not.  But he’s self-interested enough to get in line if he thinks it’ll bring him some success.  And Gingrich, if he actually got back in the race, could be ignored when he goes crazy.  But this is who Santorum is.  This is how he chooses to use his not-Romney status and demonstrate his rock-ribbed conservatism.  He is not acceptable.

So if you’re a Republican, don’t vote for Santorum.  And if you’re not a Republican, but you can vote in the Republican primary, don’t vote for Santorum, if only because you would hate him as president.  And if you know that, and you want to vote for him because you just want the Republicans to get stuck with a shitty nominee, then you’re trying to force other people to act the way you want — so you’re a dick, and you should lose.

And so should Santorum.