Santorum Goes Bonkers

No, no need to protect your pet dogs, he didn't go bonkers over THAT. Our current Senator Rick Santorum (R-VA) is going bonkers over the fact some people from Penn Hills have cauhgt him being a hypocrite. If you recall Tricky Ricky ran for Congress in 1990 by smearing his opponent for actually living in Virginia instead of Pennsylvania. As we fast forward to 2005 it was discovered that the Santorum house in Penn Hills, which they use as their legal residence for voting purposes, was being rented. Not like the Santorum's with their six children could live in a two bedroom home anyway. No, they're comfortably settled into their expensive home in Leesburg, Virginia. Leesburg, where the Senator buys his coffee every morning from the local Starbucks using money from his charity.

Last week I wrote about an email I got from the Santorum campaign accusing Casey operatives of trespassing on his Penn Hills property and threatening his family by looking in the windows of that abode. Seems a story came out mentioning that the house is now empty. Santorum also launched an commercial in Pitsburgh making these accusations. The problem is there's no evidence whatsoever to support his wild accusations.

From a story by John Baer in today's Philadelphia Daily News:

Casey's camp denies it. Local police find no evidence of trespass. Yet here we go.

The story began when a Penn Hills couple, Ed and Erin Vecchio, challenged Santorum's right to vote in the May 16 primary election, saying he doesn't live in the district. Erin Vecchio is a local Democratic official and school board member who in '04 questioned Santorum's using local resources to cyber-school some of his children.

The Penn Hills police say there is no evidence that anyone trespassed. As I mentioned in my previous post it's possible someone used a pair of binoculars to ascertain there are no curtains or furniture presently in the house. This is desperation politics by a desperate candidate. Santorum is so far behind and sees the obvious handwriting on the wall for incumbents, especially incumbent Republicans and is reacting in a way that make syou wonder if he's gone bonkers.

John Baer points out the stupidity of this strategy:

But the mystery to me is three-fold.

Santorum got to Congress by beating then-incumbent Doug Walgren in 1990 hammering the fact Walgren lived in Virginia; why draw attention to the fact that he lives in Virginia?

Why, after a flap over Penn Hills cyber-school costs, remind voters of that controversy?

And why, if concerned for the safety of his kids (any parent's priority, and, I believe, Santorum's), draw attention to his house and his kids?

Could it be when one trails in a year primed to punish incumbents one seeks to shift attention from issues such as Iraq and support of President Bush to, oh, I don't know, charges that thugs are out to get his kids?

Good points.