Regarding Rick Santorum

[Brittain33]

What was Santorum's line about kids going to college? Something unspeakable, right?

[Brittain33]

Who knows. Maybe the economy turns 2016 into the election the Republicans thought they'd have in 2012, and even Rick Santorum can win.

[Brittain33]

People also underestimate the likelihood a bad economy hurts the Republicans even more than the Democrats.

Talk more about that. If the economy stumbles again heading into 2016, I think that "change" is going to be very hard for any Dem to fend off.

[Brittain33]

Supposing that Santorum's original point was valid in context—that it's not reasonable to expect everyone in America to succeed in college—well, it takes a special skill set to take a viable criticism and position it so artlessly that it engenders sympathy for your opponent even as your own party disowns your remarks. John Kerry was good at that, too, but not as good as Santorum, who was spinning out comments like this daily when he was the front-runner.

[Brittain33]

Phil, is the fact that Obama never said that, and Santorum was misrepresenting him, relevant?

Or is it ok because you can sort of make his statement defensible if you take it out of that context?

[Brittain33]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

[Brittain33]

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

It's honestly hard to understand your faith in his electability against so much disagreement, and to keep writing it off as people being personal or emotional or whatnot.

[Brittain33]

Ryan is a viable candidate for President. Rubio appears to have some baggage but I'm not too familiar with him. Neither one has had the experience Santorum had of being in the spotlight and pretty much discrediting himself as a viable candidate, both at a state and federal level. Ryan can and will blame Romney for his loss, while Santorum owns his loss in Pa. in 2006 and his inability to defeat Romney in 2012.

[Brittain33]

In what year with Santorum announce his acceptance of SSM? Assume for the sake of argument he runs in the 2016 primaries, doesn't get much traction, and retires to a conservative think tank and Fox News while remaining a spokesman for conservative politics.

[Brittain33]

It looks like the GOP is going to reap what it sowed in its elevation of candidates like Rick Santorum. He may make it hard for Republicans to avoid this issue in 2016 just like he pushed Romney to the right in 2012 (with lots of help, of course.)