Have you heard of Rick Santorum? Not many people have, according to recent polls, despite the fact that he is running for President. The former senator for Pennsylvania has extremely low name recognition among potential Republican voters. Unlike the eponymous Sarah Palin and the current favourite for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, not many recognise Santorum. That is the first problem.
The second problem occurs when a voter goes, “Hey, I wonder who this Santorum fella is…” and pops the former senator’s name into Google. The first result – above Santorum’s official presidential bid website – is a definition of a neologism called “santorum”.
Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum.
Spreadingsantorum.com, the website that contains this definition and nothing else, was set up in 2003, after the columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage decided to get his own back on Santorum after the senator made some very distateful comments about gay people. Having negative views of gay people is not necessairly a vote-loser in the Republican primaries – dominated as they are by the religious right – but having your name associated with that probably isn’t an election-winning gambit.
Thus Santorum is in a pickle. Not many people know who he is, and when they try and find out, they are faced with a description that Santorum would rather voters didn’t associate him with. Will it scupper his chances of being President in 2012? Almost certainly not – the comments that inspired the website, mixed with the fact he got spanked by an 18-point margin when he attempted to defend his senate seat in 2006 are far more damaging. It is only a prank, but it’s another hole in an already sinking ship.
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