Rick Santorum is a native of Virginia, who grew up in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. In school, he was nicknamed “Rooster” because of his hair’s tendency to stick up and the fact that he did not back down. After his parents, who worked for the VA hospital system, were transferred to Illinois, Santorum graduated from high school there. His father was an Italian immigrant and his mother was half Italian, half Irish.
After high school, Santorum returned to Pennsylvania to attend Penn State. He graduated with a degree in Political Science and then went to the University of Pittsburgh for an MBA. Santorum then returned to Penn State to attend the Dickinson School of Law. He graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1986.
While in graduate school, Santorum became administrative assistant to a state senator, and then served as director of the Pennsylvania Senate’s local government and transportation committees. In 1986, Santorum entered private legal practice with a Pittsburgh firm. While at the firm, Santorum represented the World Wrestling Federation and argued that the WWF should be exempt from federal steroid rules since it was not a sport.
While he was practicing law, Santorum met his future wife, Karen, who was living with a cofounder of Pittsburgh’s first abortion clinic. According to the Philadelphia City Paper, at this point in his life, Santorum was pro-choice and not religious. Santorum married Karen and was first elected to public office in 1990 as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1992, he was a member of the “Gang of Seven” that exposed the House banking scandal.
In 1994, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. The City Paper details how, at the same time that Santorum was leading the fight to override President Clinton’s veto of the partial birth abortion ban, Karen was pregnant with a child that was revealed to have a birth defect that would be fatal after birth. Karen became ill with a 105 degree fever and doctors warned that she could die unless they induced labor. Since this would undoubtedly kill the 20 week unborn baby, the Santorums considered inducing labor equivalent to an abortion. Before they made a decision, Karen went into labor. The baby, Gabriel Michael Santorum, died two hours after his birth.
Gabriel’s short life changed the Santorums. Karen later published a book of letters to her unborn child. In one, she exhorts the senator to “proclaim God's message for life with even more strength and devotion to the cause.” For his part, Rick wrote that “after Gabriel, being a husband, being a father was different, being a legislator was different. I was different" (as quoted by the City Paper). Santorum keeps a photo of newborn Gabriel on his desk.
Santorum was re-elected to the senate in 2000, but lost in the Democratic landslide of 2006. Because of his outspokenness on socially conservative issues, Santorum was a prime target for Democrats. With Santorum’s loss, the senate tradition of the candy desk, a stockpile of sweets maintained by Pennsylvania Republicans, came to an end.
After leaving Washington, Santorum returned to practicing law with a different firm in Pittsburgh. In 2008, he campaigned for John McCain. Santorum also became a member of the Board of Directors of Universal Health Services and a member of the Ethics and Policy Center, a conservative think tank. He has also been a contributor to Fox News.
Santorum is a stalwart supporter of the pro-life cause. He believes that life begins at conception and that abortion should be banned, even in cases of rape and incest. Even though most Americans now consider themselves pro-life, most also support some exceptions to an abortion ban according to Gallup.
He is also an opponent of homosexual activism. He is an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and supported the right of states to enact sodomy laws (which have since been struck down by the Supreme Court) in a 2003 USA Today interview. Santorum correctly pointed out that the right to privacy is not found in the Constitution.
Santorum’s outspokenness has earned him the ire of homosexual and pro-choice activists. For the past eight years they have engaged in a campaign to name a deviant sex act for him. By driving up “clicks,” the activists have placed their definition of his name near the top of the Google search list according to ABC News. Santorum is a target for mainstream Democrats as well. The Georgia Young Democrats tweeted in June “Rick Santorum, an attorney, thinks he knows more abt [sic] science than scientists?” in reference to his skepticism of global warming.
Further, Santorum has also been a vocal opponent of Islamic terror. In 2006, he was one of only two votes against the confirmation of Robert Gates as secretary of defense, citing Gates’ belief in diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria. He strongly supported the War on Terror and has spoken out against “Islamic fascism.”
Most recently, Santorum was reportedly peripherally involved in the sex scandal and resignation of Republican Senator John Ensign. Santorum was sent an email from Doug Hampton, Ensign’s former chief of staff and husband of the woman with whom Ensign had an affair. Santorum allegedly forwarded the email to Ensign as a warning of the impending scandal. Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson was one of the senate investigators who found that Ensign probably violated federal law in an attempt to cover up the scandal. Santorum faces no charges.
Nationally, Santorum placed last in the most recent Real Clear Politics average of polls. His average rating was only 1.8 percent. In an August poll of Georgians by Insider Advantage, Santorum did not rate at all. His support was counted among the four percent of Georgians favoring “other.”
Georgians have much to like about Rick Santorum. The former senator’s social conservatism and religious beliefs are something that most Georgians agree with and his history of government reform and fiscal restraint should endear him to the Tea Party. Conversely, Santorum’s long history as a political insider and his landslide loss to Bob Casey in the 2006 senate re-election campaign may lead many conservative voters to look for new faces.
Read this article on Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/elections-2012-in-atlanta/meet-the-candidates-rick-santorum
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