Congrats, Phil: Santorum announces presidential candidacy

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Santorum's always been a Republican, always been pro-life, always been socially conservative, always been generally conservative, with some concessions to being from PA. 

Not everyone can be a "non-Philly" Pennsylvanian, so we keep the price of admission into the club pretty high. Concessions are mandatory. Having a hard on for steel, coal and rail is non-negotiable.

[CountryClassSF]

Give him a chance.  Think about it. He was denied momentum out of Iowa. Think about how he almost defeated a well funded candidate. That should tell you everything. There's some "there" there with Santorum. I am convinced he would make a great president. But you have to give him a chance.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

To be honest, I actually thought it was a good speech. If he can stay on message and avoid the gaffes, he might get another chance.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

On C-span most of the callers who criticized were ones doubting his sincerity on his committment to workers, they mentioned trade deals, opposing the minimum wage, and bailing out the banks/corporate welfare in general. As far as I can recall Santorum voted against NAFTA, voted for raising them minimum and supports doing so again, and was opposed to the bailouts or at the very least criticized them.

That is why staying on message is critical and emphasizing his record on these issues. This is where Santorum's votes are and the votes he can gain in a general that Romney did not. I thought he had a strong line saying they need someone who was neither from big gov't or big money, veiled hit on Romney though it was it has a ring of truth about what cost Romney the election. Its a similar line to that of Rand Paul when he said, "not a dime from welfare until all the corporate welfare is cut".

[CountryClassSF]

Epic interview on Hannity. Impressed.

To be honest, I actually thought it was a good speech. If he can stay on message and avoid the gaffes, he might get another chance.

WEEE! There's hope!

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Santorum has a better chance than say, Fiorina or Pataki, but that's not saying much. Him winning would be a bigger surprise than Eric Cantor's defeat last year was.

[Mr. Morden]

Herman Cain is not a fan:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/herman-cain-criticizes-rick-santorum-2016-bid-118376.html?hp=lc3_4

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[IceSpear]

Will Cain endorse Carson?

[Vega]

Something must have happened between Santorum and Cain behind the debate stage last cycle.

[Mr. Morden]

Will Cain endorse Carson?

They were spending some quality time together about a year or so ago:

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

"Wow, you can't even tell them apart!" - Southern Rac----I mean Republicans

[PPT Spiral]

Hopefully he'll CUM this time too

[Dazey]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well for starters, Reagan governed as a pro-abortion, pro-tax increasing liberal, then flip flopped on those issues to win a primary. Then ignored the issues in the general.

FTFY