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Did Santorum Handle This Right?

Did Santorum Handle This Right?

  • Yes, he had no reason to correct the woman

    Votes: 8 38.1%

  • No, he should have stood up and stated Obama is not a muslim

    Votes: 10 47.6%

  • No, He did not need to correct, but he should have handled the question differently

    Votes: 3 14.3%

  • Obama is a Muslim

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    21
There is no way to know if Obama is a Christian or not, nor reason to defend on the topic of where Obama was born.
 
misterman said:
Yep, McCain had his flaws, but he actually told his own people when they were being assholes sometimes.
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It sure helped him, didn't it? McCain's campaign was basically declaring he wasn't W Bush, defending Obama and siding with both against Republicans for the mega-bailout. His campaign is a model in what not to do.
 
Redress said:
Santorum ignores charge Obama is a Muslim – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs



Now, the pundits I am seeing are making a big deal of the fact that Santorum did not correct the woman. Do you think he should have corrected the woman in the audience, do you think he handled it correctly?

Patients, poll incoming.
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Honestly?

I tend to overlook the delusional aspects of people's opinions too, with far less at stake.

Less so on the Internet.

I would have considered it a mark of good character if he had corrected her, but good character doesn't have a lot of currency in politics.
 
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joko104 said:
It sure helped him, didn't it? McCain's campaign was basically declaring he wasn't W Bush, defending Obama and siding with both against Republicans for the mega-bailout. His campaign is a model in what not to do.
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Most Republicans then weren't against TARP. Correcting a falsehood is not "defending Obama", it's defending the truth, something honourable in a person. McCain got a lot of independent support initially, what he did wrong was asking Palin to be his VP and then making a series of mistakes during the bailout, coupled with Obama running a great campaign, it was the inevitable result that he loss.
 
To answer the question I posed here: to my mind he handled it quite well. He is a man running for office. It's not his job to defend one of his opponents, and to do so in this case would have goten him booed, which would be counterproductive to his goal. All things being equal, it is nice when people stand up for the facts, but in this case, all things where far from equal.
 
Redress said:
To answer the question I posed here: to my mind he handled it quite well. He is a man running for office. It's not his job to defend one of his opponents, and to do so in this case would have goten him booed, which would be counterproductive to his goal. All things being equal, it is nice when people stand up for the facts, but in this case, all things where far from equal.
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Really. It's not like he said, "That foreign-born Muslim bastard - and by 'bastard' I mean his mother was a total ho - that foreign born Muslim bastard has no respect for the constitution, as these so-called 'recess appointments' prove."

That might have been problematic for some, and would very likely have been called into question by the blogosphere, if not the MSM.
 
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So here's my question? Why does it seem it's only the person on the right that needs to be so careful to handle situations so as not to offend anyone? When was the last time somebody suggested a left wing candidate "tone it down" or speak up for his/her political opponent?
 
X Factor said:
So here's my question? Why does it seem it's only the person on the right that needs to be so careful to handle situations so as not to offend anyone? When was the last time somebody suggested a left wing candidate "tone it down" or speak up for his/her political opponent?
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The Right is always held to a higher standard. Cons do not expect libs to observe them, and libs will always fault cons for failing them.

It's just American politics.
 
X Factor said:
So here's my question? Why does it seem it's only the person on the right that needs to be so careful to handle situations so as not to offend anyone? When was the last time somebody suggested a left wing candidate "tone it down" or speak up for his/her political opponent?
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Because no major Democratic candidate would ever allow somebody to express hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatever on their mic at their event without denouncing them absolutely and immediately. You also just don't have as much of that kind of thing coming up at Democratic political rallies. People that are prone to hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatnot mostly congregate around the Republican or Tea Party events.

Nobody is asking the Republicans to do something the Democrats don't already do. We're asking the Republicans to at least make 10% of the effort the Democrats do on that kind of stuff. To a Democrat that just seems like obvious, basic morality. If I was at work and somebody said something like that I'd denounce them. So would pretty much anybody I know. So when even a presidential candidate doesn't, that raises serious alarms.
 
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X Factor said:
So here's my question? Why does it seem it's only the person on the right that needs to be so careful to handle situations so as not to offend anyone? When was the last time somebody suggested a left wing candidate "tone it down" or speak up for his/her political opponent?
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You realize that if the situation had been reversed, there would be those on the elft who would have complained about the handling of it?
 
teamosil said:
Because no major Democratic candidate would ever allow somebody to express hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatever on their mic at their event without denouncing them absolutely and immediately. You also just don't have as much of that kind of thing coming up at Democratic political rallies. People that are prone to hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatnot mostly congregate around the Republican or Tea Party events.

Nobody is asking the Republicans to do something the Democrats don't already do. We're asking the Republicans to at least make 10% of the effort the Democrats do on that kind of stuff.
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Right, no crazy conspiracy theories or hate on the left at all. :roll:
 
X Factor said:
Right, no crazy conspiracy theories or hate on the left at all. :roll:
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Do you have any examples of something like that happening with a Democratic presidential candidate where they didn't speak up?
 
I can't really blame him for the way he acted and it was likely the wisest. From experience even just here on the forum, attempting to correct ignorant people who buy into the birther nonsense accomplishes nothing but giving yourself a headache and lowering the entire discourse. Rather than focusing on that and derailing the town hall for all the rest of the people there, Santorum defly side stepped it and moved onto more important legitimate things. A perfectly acceptable move imho. The same I would've expected Kerry to do had someone made accusations of Bush "Stealing the election" or "9/11 being an inside job" in 2004.
 
teamosil said:
Because no major Democratic candidate would ever allow somebody to express hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatever on their mic at their event without denouncing them absolutely and immediately. You also just don't have as much of that kind of thing coming up at Democratic political rallies. People that are prone to hate speech or crazy conspiracy theories or whatnot mostly congregate around the Republican or Tea Party events.

Nobody is asking the Republicans to do something the Democrats don't already do. We're asking the Republicans to at least make 10% of the effort the Democrats do on that kind of stuff. To a Democrat that just seems like obvious, basic morality. If I was at work and somebody said something like that I'd denounce them. So would pretty much anybody I know. So when even a presidential candidate doesn't, that raises serious alarms.
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That's....funny....and completely distorted. Did I miss a "/sarcasm" tag somewhere, because surely anybody grounded in reality would realize that's a bunch of crap.
 
I think addressing the useful part of the question and ignoring the smack-worthy crap was the right decision, given context. There was limited time for questions and spending time arguing with a troll would not be smart or respectful to anyone.
 
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X Factor said:
So here's my question? Why does it seem it's only the person on the right that needs to be so careful to handle situations so as not to offend anyone? When was the last time somebody suggested a left wing candidate "tone it down" or speak up for his/her political opponent?
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I didn't know honesty and leadership was only a liberal issue. Anything I would like here, I would like it from both sides. :shrug:
 
X Factor said:
Yeah, look how well that worked for McCain. :D
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In a political context? I guess not so much, but right is right. I applauded McCain at the time for being a stand up guy.
 
Gina said:
In a political context? I guess not so much, but right is right. I applauded McCain at the time for being a stand up guy.
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I'm sure that was his big take-away from the campaign. "Libs think well of me for talking nice about him."
 
Gina said:
In a political context? I guess not so much, but right is right. I applauded McCain at the time for being a stand up guy.
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I hear you Gina. Sorry about the sarcasm. I was glad he said something too (but then, I'm like the one conservative in the world that likes John McCain).
 
Boo Radley said:
I didn't know honesty and leadership was only a liberal issue. Anything I would like here, I would like it from both sides. :shrug:
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Yeah, that all sounds good, Boo, but I just don't see the same kind of dissection of every single little word a liberal candidate uses.
 
X Factor said:
I hear you Gina. Sorry about the sarcasm. I was glad he said something too (but then, I'm like the one conservative in the world that likes John McCain).
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No! That was fine X! :) I didn't vote for nor care for McCain, but that has nothing to do with praising him for doing the right thing.

What I don't understand, is why correcting her might have lost him the presidency. There seems to be an agreement it might have though, so I went with it.
 
Gina said:
No! That was fine X! :) I didn't vote for nor care for McCain, but that has nothing to do with praising him for doing the right thing.

What I don't understand, is why correcting her might have lost him the presidency. There seems to be an agreement it might have though, so I went with it.
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I don't think what he told the crazy lady had anything to do with him losing the election. On the other hand, it sure didn't help him win it either. I think LuckyDan has a point, if McCain said it to curry favor or maybe even votes, it...well...didn't.
 
LuckyDan said:
I'm sure that was his big take-away from the campaign. "Libs think well of me for talking nice about him."
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LOL, I hope that wasn't it, Dan. :)

X Factor said:
I don't think what he told the crazy lady had anything to do with him losing the election. On the other hand, it sure didn't help him win it either. I think LuckyDan has a point, if McCain said it to curry favor or maybe even votes, it...well...didn't.
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It probably didn't help, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt X, that he didn't say it to get votes, but to correct a mistaken impression and maybe calm that woman. She seemed quite upset in the video.
 
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