What's so wrong with Santorum?

[Lyin' Steve]

I know he's pretty extreme in his religious/social conservative views.  But so are a lot of the candidates in the field right now, including Fiorina/Huckabee/Rubio.
Other than that, though, he never comes across to me as such a bad guy, and I always see him talking about economic issues, never his controversial social stances.  People act like he's some religious crusader, but in the debates all he talks about is issues from the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.  Personality-wise, he's not exactly charismatic but he's not off-putting or a slouch, he just seems earnest.
So why so much hate for Santorum?  Is it residual from 2012?  Did he do something a long time ago that people are still mad about?

[IceSpear]

He really isn't doing significantly worse than Huckabee, and they both have the same problem: old news.

[Mike Thick]

He really isn't doing significantly worse than Huckabee, and they both have the same problem: old news.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

They're angry white men what do you expect? They're old news.

[Lyin' Steve]

I'm not really asking about the polls.
It seems like people significantly dislike him, much more so than Huckabee.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I'm not really asking about the polls.
It seems like people significantly dislike him, much more so than Huckabee.

He was never liked to begin with, he just slightly better than Romney.

[Torie]

I'm not really asking about the polls.
It seems like people significantly dislike him, much more so than Huckabee.

He's a self righteous, hectoring, not all that bright (he once won the stupidest person in the Senate award where staffers vote for the winners in various categories (with his colleague at the time, Arlen Spector, winning the biggest SOB award)), boring, intolerant asshole. Does that help?  He also doesn't want me to be able to get married, because I might abort my babies, but I digress.

[This account no longer in use.]

I'm not really asking about the polls.
It seems like people significantly dislike him, much more so than Huckabee.

He wants to BAN PORN. Think about that for a while.

[Phony Moderate]

Incapable of not sounding whiny.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Incapable of not sounding whiny.

You mean like the oompah loompah in the race?

[RR]

Same-sex marriage is not comparable to slavery. That was where he lost me.

[IceSpear]

I wonder how Keystone Phil is feeling about Santorum's performance. RIP.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Same-sex marriage is not comparable to slavery. That was where he lost me.

Comparing it to anything bad is inexcusable

[Pyro]

He's a religious nut when there's already too many of those.

[Lief 🗽]

He lost re-election by seventeen points to a bald guy.

[Dorko Julio]

He's too far-right for my tastes. He's also strongly religious, which isn't bad, but his policy ideas based on his religious beliefs are bad. I actually think he seems like a good guy, good father and all that, but I would never vote for him. Also he lost in a landslide in his last Senate race as an incumbent, and the last election he won was in 2000 (!). So like others said, old news.

Also, he's Frothy, but I prefer the nickname Tricky Ricky. It's no surprise him and the Huckster showed up at Trump's event during the main debate. Just like he came out of SCENIC NOWHERE to win the Iowa caucus in 2012, you never know what he's up to. OK, I'm exaggerating. But still!

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

Santorum is a bit of a chimaera. He's a radical social conservative, occasional populist, and a Pennsylvania Catholic. Unlike Huckabee, he has no natural constituency and that is why he's stuck in the margin of error.

[pho]

Google it.

[Alcon]

Same-sex marriage is not comparable to slavery. That was where he lost me.

Comparing it to anything bad is inexcusable

I hate to be defending Santorum's bad SSM analogies, but the point of an analogy is to compare one thing to another thing, in one or more attributes -- comparing SSM to something does not mean you're claiming they ALL have the same attributes.  Analogies, by definition, compare unalike things.  You could say that the analogy is so weak that you assume Santorum's only intention was to draw an unreasonable association, which is fair, but that's different than "you can't compare x to y because y is worse."  Sure, you can, if the particular comparison is apt.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I wonder how Keystone Phil is feeling about Santorum's performance. RIP.

He seemed to me more distressed with Walker's collapse. Lil' Scotty was his guy this cycle.

[Fuzzy Bear]

He lost re-election by seventeen points to a bald guy.

What Lief said.

The last candidate to be elected President after losing a Federal or Statewide election was Abe Lincoln, who was defeated for re-election to the House in 1848, after serving ONE (1) term.  I can't think of anyone else.  If I'm wrong, please correct me, but I can't think of a more recent example. 

Santorum's defeat for reelection to the Senate in 2006 was YUGE, even by the standards of a wave election.  He's moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia since, so folks in Pennsylvania's ties to him have faded.  His socially conservative views aren't beyond the pale for Republicans, but the "loser" image remains. 

The other negative for Santorum that hangs on is his lack of ideological purity.  Santorum was always conservative, but not really a "movement conservative".  He supported Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in the 2004 GOP Senate Primary, and defended this in 2012 by saying "Politics is a team sport!".  There's a real degree of truth to that, but that statement does not reflect the mood of the GOP grassroots.

[MM876]

Well, Cruz has done a good job of portraying himself as the evangelical choice, which combined with his other appealing factors, puts him way ahead in that field.

Huckabee is nothing special, and in a field with half a dozen people heavily competing for the evangelical vote (Cruz, Carson, Huckabee, Santorum, and Fiorina to some degree), he doesn't hold any new appeal.

Nobody ever liked Santorum. By LIVING in Iowa for a month, and by being the last person in 2012 to be the beneficiary of the anti-Romney vote, he barely eked out a victory. He got very, very, very lucky in 2012. It's no surprise that he's dead last.

[Broken System]

He lost re-election by seventeen points to a bald guy.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Difficult to clean up.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

He wears sweater vests, for one.