The Ultimate Carpetbagger

I should have known that once I mentioned his name, that he'd make an appearance. My favorite ex Senator, Rick Santorum, is playing ball boy these days, tossing the first pitch at a recent Barnstormers' game in Lancaster, Rick Santorum is having a ball. In town for a fundraiser, like the original carpetbaggers who headed South to make money, Ricky has been busy since leaving Congress:

Santorum has remained active in law and foreign policy since his departure from the U.S. Senate, where he rose to the rank of Senate Republican Conference chairman, the third-highest rank in the GOP's Senate leadership.

He now works as an attorney for Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott in Washington, D.C. He's also a senior fellow with Ethics and Public Policy Center, which is "dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy," according to the group's Web site, www.eppc.org.

"You know the old saying, 'When God closes a window, another one opens,' " Santorum said. "Well, I've been jumping through a lot of windows."

No -- he said he was jumping through not out a window. Don't get your hopes up.

The Intelligencer Journal article concluded with this tidbit: "Santorum has said he doesn't plan to run again for office."

Being a true conservative Republican, that surely means he's already planning his next campaign. Fancy that! Brett Lieberman of Pennsyltucky Politics hears otherwise, First he'd have to move back to Pennsylvania:

But after the inevitable challenge over his residency, Leesburg, Va.-resident and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is considering running again for statewide office in Pennsylvania.

This time it would be for governor in 2010.

Santorum's interest in becoming governor, a good launching point for a potential national run, has been speculated about long before his defeat last year at the hands of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa."

The latest speculation comes from the pages of this week's conservative American Spectator magazine . . .

"Rick is a politician. He loves the competition and the process of running. He's getting back in and he's young enough that a gubernatorial run would set him up for greater opportunities politically down the road," one Santorum adviser is quoted as saying.

The inevitable press releases and stories can almost write themselves. There's the cyber school controversy in which Pennsylvania taxpayers footed the bill to educate his kids while living in Virginia. The residency issue alone will fill enough newspaper stories to kill a decent size forest. President Bush won't be in office, but there will no doubt be plenty of reminders of his unyielding loyalty to the unpopular president, the Iraq war and calling former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a great leader. There's his role in the K Street Project.

Oh, we could go on...

We sure can. There is definitely something off about this guy, besides the fact that he a hypocrite and a liar. See e.g., Simply False. Besides his membership in the conservative Catholic Cult Opus Dei, I just can't get past the feeling that he has some hidden demons. At some point, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about Santorum's scandal: whether it's a Larry Craig moment, a George "Macaca" Allen gaff, or Mike Vikers foray.

In the meantime, Santorum's trying to scare us in other ways. As Lieberman says:

Santorum's been keeping up his profile exactly where he left off at the end of the 2007 campaign -- by scaring people. His "Weekly Threat Roundup" at the conservative Ethics & Public Policy Center, where he runs the "America's Enemies" program, and his upcoming book, "The Gathering Storm" that's due out next year should help remind Pennsyltucky voters what he's all about.

Tags: Santorum, Pennsylvania, Politics