KEITH OLBERMANN: After spending months touring Iowa in his pickup truck, Rick Santorum managed a strong second-place finish in the caucus.
In our fourth story — moral people in Iowa don't have Google. But while Santorum was successful in selling himself to the people of Iowa as a blue-collar family man with a plan for the economy, it seems important to remind everybody who the real Rick Santorum is. Last night, he completed his accent to "Not-Romney" front-runner, receiving more than 30 thousand votes and a second-place finish in the caucus.
But even in the face of success, he could not resist sticking his foot in his mouth — talking about helping African Americans by discontinuing welfare payments to them. More on that in "Worst Persons."
But that's simply the latest in a long line of Santorum sound bites that seems to call into question his — well, whether or not he is crazy. We're only an hour-long show, so we had to limit our Santorum lowlights to just the past year, but — oh, what a year it was.
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: If you look at the report on Friday, the president's own economic advisors said that the jobs-stimulus package actually created fewer jobs as a — over the period of time since the stimulus package went in place, than it did when they reported back in December, there's 30 million less jobs.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN: That's not a loss of jobs Senator, that's a smaller aggregation of jobs.
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: There is no such thing as global warming. . . Family is the bedrock of our society, unless we protect it with the institution of marriage our country will fall. . . . One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked before, I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. . . I would advocate that any doctor who performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN 2: Do you have any gay friends?
(Excerpt from video clip) SANTORUM: Yeah. In fact, I've had gay people work for me. . . And so the gay community said, "He's comparing gay marriage to incest and polygamy. How dare he do this?" And they have gone out on a — I would argue a jihad — against Rick Santorum since then.
OLBERMANN: To tread carefully but deeply into the mind of Rick Santorum — the editorial director and sex-advice columnist for The Stranger, as well as author of "The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and my Family," Dan Savage. Dan, thanks kindly for your time tonight, sir.
DAN SAVAGE: Thanks for having me Keith. Good to be back.
OLBERMANN: What happened in Iowa? Did he do a better job of covering up his gaffes, or were those his people?
SAVAGE: I think he was just the last man standing. You know, Cain and Perry and Bachmann all had their rises and then they collapsed. It's just that his collapse didn't come before the vote happened. His collapse is coming, however.
OLBERMANN: We assume that. And I think anybody looking at this, and looking at what's ahead in New Hampshire, would assume that, too. I mean, it's a guy who lost his last Senatorial race by 18. And yet, we have this report tonight in Bedford, New Hampshire — he announced that, today, his campaign, in the wake of the Iowa caucus — not only did they declare that a victory by eight votes but they raised a million dollars. Is that — is there something indicative of him having more longevity than we thought he was going to have?
SAVAGE: He will stagger along. Mike Huckabee raised millions of dollars in the wake of his victory in the Iowa caucuses and nobody refers to Mike Huckabee as President Mike Huckabee, because the American public isn't interested in electing a scold, a moralist, a man who — in Rick Santorum's case — says that, as president, he would allow states to ban birth control. Ninety-nine percent of Americans, including overwhelming majorities of Catholic Americans, use birth control.
One of the things I am constantly reminding people about Rick Santorum is that he doesn't have merely an anti-gay agenda. He has an anti-straight agenda too. He is against birth control, he's against abortion, he's against pornography, he's against all sorts of things that straight people use and enjoy frequently, almost once a week at least. And you need to know, heterosexual Americans, that the gay bashing isn't his only hobby. The straight bashing is part and parcel of Rick Santorum, too.
OLBERMANN: Yes, as an aside on behalf of America, I would like to thank you for characterizing that as "once a week" as opposed to whatever the correct statistic is, which is a shorter duration.
But moving on, it isn't just sex, obviously, because we are not just talking about this man having these pronounced, deep-seated and, unfortunately, apparently deeply sincere prejudices, but he literally said — I will run the quote later, he literally said it would be a good idea to help black people by ending welfare. And not just saying — if you said, "it's going to help poor people to end welfare," there would be something at least tolerant about that in a bizarre, kind-of-perverse way but he specifically targeted black people, as people he thinks he can help by cutting off any government funding.
SAVAGE: Pushing that conservative, false idea — the big lie that welfare is only for black people — the overwhelming majority of people who receive federal benefits, state benefits, food stamps in this country are white people. He is just stoking all sorts of fears and prejudices out there on the campaign trail. Over 90 percent of the people on welfare and who receive food stamps in Iowa, where he was campaigning when he said that, are white people.
OLBERMANN: The premise of where Santorum stands, relative to the Republican Party, has he — has he changed his views? Has he gotten worse as time has gone by, or has the party just shifted so much to the extreme that he seems closer to being in the middle than he actually is?
SAVAGE: Well, there is no room for moderates in the Republican Party any more. The Republican Party has doubled down on anti-gay bigotry. They are for big government when it comes to your private life. Or maybe they are for small government. They want to shrink government to the size where they can put it in your vagina and they can control what you do and who you are doing it with. No IUDs, but a congressman implanted in your vagina.
OLBERMANN: Fitted not in your bathtub, but in your bed to see if —
SAVAGE: Yeah, absolutely.
OLBERMANN: Lastly, I must ask you, and I didn't want this — and it hasn't been the focus of the interview, but since you are inexorably linked with this man, do you think the Google thing helped him tie for the lead in Iowa, or did it keep him from winning the damn place outright?
SAVAGE: I think it may have hurt him. You know, there's been — Rick Santorum, or Santorum, is the number-one Google search right now, and my website, santorum.com — or spreadingsantorum.com — is the number-one return.
So, all sorts of people — we are getting letters from people. I am getting letters from people who think that the neologism came first — this is actually what Santorum meant, and that Santorum is burdened with this unfortunate last name, and why didn't he change his name before he ran for President? Which is pretty hilarious when you pause to think about it. Hilarious if you are not Rick Santorum.
OLBERMANN: Right, or Doctor Spooner, who — people don't realize there really was a Doctor Spooner who gave birth to spoonerisms. It means something —
SAVAGE: Or the Quislings in Norway.
OLBERMANN: Right, exactly.
SAVAGE: Pretty sad after the second World War, when their name become synonymous with lickspittle, toadie betrayers.
OLBERMANN: Right, they changed their name to Santorum.
The editorial director for The Stranger and the author of "The Commitment," Dan Savage. Google it. Thank you for your time, Dan.
SAVAGE: Thanks for having me, Keith.
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