Santorum

From Chris Welch at CNN:

Prior to making his endorsement, influential Iowa conservative Bob Vander Plaats approached Rick Santorum and asked him to consider dropping out of the Republican presidential race, the candidate said Wednesday.

CNN first broke the news Tuesday evening that Vander Plaats, the president and CEO of The Family Leader, asked Michele Bachmann to consider dropping her bid or joining forces with another candidate.

On Wednesday, Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, also said he understood Rick Perry and Bachmann were approached by Vander Plaats.

Although The Family Leader did not make an endorsement, Vander Plaats announced his personal support of Santorum Tuesday.

From Shannon Travis at CNN:

One of the most influential Christian leaders in Iowa asked for help in raising money to promote his endorsement of Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, according to the Des Moines Register Tuesday. The request came prior to Bob Vander Plaats’ announcement backing Santorum on Tuesday.

Yet the president and CEO of The Family Leader, whose endorsement was personal and not of his organization, vehemently denied any notion he would ask a candidate or a campaign for money.

The old Iowa shakedown.

From Wikipedia:

In 2010, Vander Plaats successfully lead the campaign against the retention of three members of the Iowa Supreme Court who had voted to overturn Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act in Varnum v. Brien.

From Christian Heinze at The Hill, on Santorum‘s recent appearance on FOX News:

VAN SUSTEREN: How are you going to get the gay vote?

How can you convince them that despite, you know, your views and his [Bob Vander Plaats] views, that you could — I mean, is there any way that you could convince them to vote for you?

SANTORUM: Well, look, I have nothing against gay people. They have rights of every other citizen. But what they did in Iowa and what some are trying to do, not all gays, but some are trying to do is change the laws of this country with respect to what the definition of marriage is.

…. But if there are differences, I’m certainly going to speak out on those differences when I think it’s in the best interests of our country to have laws that reflect having men and women raise children and form solid marriage bonds.

VAN SUSTEREN: Can you understand the heartache that many of them have when they hear you speak on something that’s so near and dear to them, and your policies against them, and then at the same time, you want their votes?

I mean, can you understand the heartache for many of them?

SANTORUM: Well, you know — you know, we can have a public policy discussion that says that, you know, certain things — our laws should be certain ways without seeing it as a personal attack. It’s not a personal attack. It’s what we believe is best for the country. And I believe what’s best for the country is to give children their birthright, which is the best opportunity for them to have a mother and a father.

From Wikipedia:

In an interview with the Associated Press (AP) taped on April 7, 2003,[1] and published April 20, 2003, Santorum stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. Santorum described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states’ ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behavior, such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual…

Dan Savage, a widely syndicated columnist who was offended by Santorum’s remarks, hosted a contest in his Savage Love column for readers to create a definition for “santorum”.

From Wikipedia:

He announced the winner as “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” He created a web site to promote this definition, which became a prominent search result for Santorum’s name on several web search engines. He offered in 2010 to take the website down if Santorum donated US$5 million to Freedom to Marry, a group advocating legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

In June 2011 Santorum said of the situation that “There are foul people out there who do horrible things. It’s unfortunate some people thought it would be a big joke to make fun of my name. That comes with the territory.” In September 2011 he asked Google to remove the definition from its search engine index. Google refused, claiming that it would compromise the integrity of its search results.