Rick Santorum on February 13, 2012 in Tacoma, Washington. Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
KEITH OLBERMANN: Rick Santorum, rising in one national poll, slipping in another in Michigan, and hoping to ascend to the White House — or perhaps the heavens — by attacking President Obama for his quote, “phony theology.” This, as a Santorum speech from more than four years ago surfaces and chips away at the former senator’s attempt to walk back the implication that the president is the wrong religion.
In our fifth story on the “Countdown” — Santorum insisted to Ava Maria College in Florida, in August 2008, that Satan had attacked the United States and had already defeated such areas as education, culture and politics.
(Excerpt from audio clip) SANTORUM: The Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies, Satan, would have his sights on — a good, decent, powerful, influential country. The United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?
OLBERMANN: Karl Rove?
If you’re a Matt Drudge and People for the American Way, together for perhaps the first time, it’s Rick Santorum. The liberal group posting Santorum’s speech on its Right Wing Watch site. And conservative aggregater Drudge doing the same on his eponymous sludge fest.
Perhaps Matt Drudge does not want Rick Santorum to get the GOP nomination. Neither does Ron Paul. The Texas congressman doing Mitt Romney favor with a Michigan attack ad:
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN: Santorum voted to send billions of our tax dollars to dictators in North Korea and Egypt. It even hooked Planned Parenthood up with a few million bucks.
OLBERMANN: Romney, piling on with something similar:
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN #2: America is drowning in national debt, yet Rick Santorum supported billions in earmarks.
(Excerpt from audio clip) SANTORUM: I have had a lot of earmarks, In fact, I’m very proud of all of the earmarks I put in those, because I think I’m allowed earmarks.
OLBERMANN: Santorum, firing back at President Obama:
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN #3: Obama’s reckless agenda must be stopped, and there’s only one principle candidate with the courage to do it — Rick Santorum, father, husband, a champion for life.
OLBERMANN: And a champion to right-wing voters, at least some of them.
Santorum leading Romney among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents by 10 in the latest Gallup poll, but trouble for him. Those same groups finding Romney more electable against the president by no less than 26 points. This, while Santorum slips to just four points ahead of Romney in the Public Policy Michigan poll, one week ahead of the state’s GOP primary.
While another pair of polls may have progressives reaching for their own prayer books. After weeks of improving numbers, the president now trailing Romney by four percent in a USA Today/Gallup poll of registered voters — not likely voters — leading Santorum by just one percent, same caveat.
Santorum maintaining his focus on the president with a Bible-based attack on his environmental policies last Saturday:
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible.
OLBERMANN: Santorum tried to clear that theological mess up on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: I was talking about the radical environmentalists. This idea that man is not — is here to serve the Earth, as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth, and I think that is a phony ideal.
OLBERMANN: Perhaps an ideal that could be linked to the Koran, as suggested by no less a figure than Santorum’s press secretary, Alice Stewart.
STEWART: There is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what he was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies in terms of the radical Islamic polices the president has.
OLBERMANN: Ms. Stewart later apologized, “misspeaking there.” Saying she really meant to refer to the president’s radical environmental policies because, obviously, most people think of “Islamic” and “environmental” as synonyms.
Santorum having previously assured the nation he didn’t doubt Mr. Obama’s faith:
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: I’ve repeatedly said I don’t question the president’s faith. I’ve repeatedly said that I believe the president’s a Christian. He says he is a Christian.
OLBERMANN: Good enough, perhaps, for Rick Santorum, though apparently not for the Reverend Billy Graham’s son and heir, the Reverend Franklin Graham. The evangelist passing on a chance to affirm the president’s chosen religion, tying him instead to Islam.
(Excerpt from video clip) REVEREND FRANKLIN GRAHAM: You would have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. President Obama — the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them, than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries.
OLBERMANN: Why a man who, more than a year ago, insisted Obama was quote “born Muslim,” is still given national airtime is as much as a shock as is that man’s own prejudice.
If Republicans are, excuse me, secretly smiling at Graham’s remarks, Mitt Romney should not take too much comfort from that, because Graham isn’t too sure about his religion either.
(Excerpt from video clip) GRAHAM: Most Christians would not recognize Mormonism, no. Of course, they believe in Jesus Christ, but they have a lot of other things that they believe in, too, that we don’t accept.
OLBERMANN: Hope it’s nice up there on that high horse.
We’ll look at the poll numbers in depth in a moment.
First, for more on the increasingly theology-tinged GOP race for president, I’m joined now by Joe Williams, the White House reporter for Politico. Joe, good evening.
JOE WILLIAMS: Hi, good evening, Brother — Brother Olbermann. Nice to meet you.
OLBERMANN: Thank you very much.
WILLIAMS: Nice to see you.
OLBERMANN: And let’s keep saying, “Satan behind thee,” or something.
This speech — this Santorum speech from four and a half years ago — a lot of candidates get close to that kind of rhetoric. I mean, Pat Robertson ran on it. But is there a sense of how something that fiery and brimstone-y plays when it’s interjected into a race like this right now?
WILLIAMS: Well, certainly, the polls tell part of the story. You have Santorum leading Romney by 10 percentage points, nationally 36 to 24. Romney’s still stuck at that 20 percent ceiling, more or less. And you have Santorum making these remarks openly, and that gives some heart to conservatives, who see that sort of language coming from him as authentic. I mean, he’s got the authenticity and the passion that Romney lacks.
And the more they’re talking about this, the less they’re talking about economic recovery, the less they’re talking about the environment, unemployment, globalization and wage inequality. I mean, these are basically things that they’re not talking about because the religion is taking all the air out of the room.
At the same time, you have the GOP elder states people pulling their hair out, because this is a conversation they don’t necessarily want to have at this time because it raises, as you mentioned, all sorts of other issues — not only about Santorum, but also about their preferred candidate Mitt Romney.
OLBERMANN: Santorum’s attacking the president’s environmental theology obviously preceded the release of that tape, and also preceded the release of his press secretary’s slight error, in which she meant to say “radical environmentalist” and instead said “radical Islamic.”
WILLIAMS: Simple slip of the tongue.
OLBERMANN: Sure, everybody — I mean, everybody says that. It’s, you know — very often you’ll point at an elephant and go “mouse.” Is — is — speaking of animals, is that the proverbial dog whistle for conservatives? It can’t just be people spouting off at the mouth in the middle of a race. Santorum had to have been saying that and using term “theology” regarding scientific practice intentionally, didn’t he?
WILLIAMS: Well, in recent weeks, the two descriptors for Rick Santorum on the campaign trail were “disciplined” and “irrelevant,” almost in the same sentence. That he’s been a very disciplined campaigner, yet he’s fallen way behind in the polls for just these sorts of reasons, because he doesn’t have any kind of an economic plan that anyone can quote from memory.
But, certainly, this kind of language is not just a dog whistle, it’s an air-raid siren. He’s certainly a candidate as disciplined as everyone says Rick Santorum is, is no accident spouting this kind of rhetoric. But certainly, other people are saying, “This is who this guy is. He has talked about this — he has talked this way for years in the Senate. He talks this way in his personal life. These are things he actually believes,” which, again, lends itself to a sort of authenticity argument, courting those conservatives that don’t really believe in Mitt Romney.
OLBERMANN: The Ron Paul campaign, airing this attack ad that was aimed right between Santorum’s eyes, why is it aimed at Santorum and not Mitt Romney?
WILLIAMS: Well, because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and in this case, it really happens to be true.
In Romney’s case, he and Ron Paul have this relationship, or a “bromance,” it has been described, where they believe in, you know, even past politics of one another. They can attack one another, and they don’t necessarily do it all that much in the debates, but they’re still very good friends. They like each other personally. Their world views are somewhat similar, so it’s all good as far as that’s concerned. That’s why you see this ad coming from Ron Paul and not Mitt Romney.
And also because Mitt Romney doesn’t have the authenticity to speak on these issues. There are all kinds of questions about his moderation, about his faith, about his past as governor, so he really can’t be calling out Rick Santorum as a fake conservative when many people feel the same thing about Mitt Romney.
OLBERMANN: And just to close it off, not to leave Gingrich out of this equation. He called President Obama a threat to national security. Have we reached some sort of ceiling on this kind of rhetoric, or is the national campaign likely to actually get worse?
And how can it get worse, unless the Republicans actually accuse the president of, you know, having a past in which he held up liquor stores?
WILLIAMS: You know, I think it’s probably going to get — I mean, you ain’t seen nothing yet, because this is only the primary, and we have the dog whistles being rolled out. We have a lot of mud being slung interparty, as well as against the president.
This is the influence of money. Money allows these sorts of things to be said without the candidates really claiming ownership of them. Money produces the ads. Money produces the opinions and gives license for these opinions to be swayed, because anything goes. And if money is going to continue to be an issue — we had some donors write some really huge checks on the right today, and not necessarily on the left side. You’ll see more of this going out towards the president, than coming in from him, if you’re on the Republican side.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it might be a little early, though, to play the satanic card. It’s sort of peaking when you get Satan into this.
WILLIAMS: Never too early for that sort of thing. I mean, it’s always good to go.
OLBERMANN: I guess you can come back to it.
Joe Williams of Politico. Thank you again, Joe.
WILLIAMS: My pleasure.
