Career Change?

I recently wrote about the soon-to-be former Senator from PA, Rick Santorum, in Tricky Ricky, which referred to the article published in the American Prospect by reporter/blogger Will Bunch. His blog Attytood also has a number of follow up pieces on the brewing Santorum Scandal.

One item that I noticed in an article published by the Philadelphia Inquirer on this issue, Santorum defends his home mortgage, gave me pause. Bunch's article focused on the mortgage that Santorum received from a private bank in Philadelphia, questioning the ethics of the loan.

According to the Inquirer, the $500,000 loan was "a five-year interest-only balloon loan at 5 percent in 2002 from Philadelphia Trust Co.," and did not include points. The main focus of the article was the reasonableness of the mortgage itself, but at the end of the article, it noted:

Interest-only mortgages are "pushed aggressively nowadays by lenders and brokers," but they are generally for people who might earn more a few years down the road, according to Bankrate.com, a financial Web site. Homeowners make monthly interest payments on the mortgage for only a fixed term - usually five to seven years, after which the loan is refinanced or paid off.

Made me think back to Neil Weyrich's observation in Philadelphia Magazine. He opined that Santorum intentionally has not curbed his zany right wing antics, even though he is trailing in the polls against his expected opponent, Bob Casey. He thinks Santorum wants to lose so that he could go over to the dark side, become a lobbyist for some extremist conservative Christian type organization and cash in with a big boy salary.

Let's see. 5 year mortgage in 2002. That would come due sometime in 2007. These types of loans are usually done with the expectation of future big bucks. The election is November of 2006?