The debate, which aired on Meet the Press, was simply a breath of fresh air. Santorum proved why he is one of the best senators in America, bar none. Santorum was considered to surely lose this election, as Casey once led Santorum by as much as 15 points in the Rasmussen and Quinnipac polls, which his support hovering around only 35%. Just after Memorial Day, Santorum trailed in the Rasmussen poll by 23 points.
However, he's fought back, and now Quinnipac has him behind by a 6-point margin, and Rasmussen has him down by 8. This past week hasn't been kind to Casey, starting with the quasi-endorsement given to Santorum by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell. After the Meet The Press debacle, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Santorum has made this race a toss-up, moving the race into the margin of error.
On MTP, Russert threw everything but the kitchen sink at Santorum, but Santorum batted it right back. He was a little defensive at first, but Santorum laid out his beliefs and was totally unapologetic for what he supports, and most importantly, who he supports.
Here's a prime example of what I'm talking about (via transcript):
SEN. SANTORUM: What I would say is that we have found weapons of mass destruction, they were older weapons, but we have found chemical weapons. The report was just released not too long ago that, that said that there were over 500 chemical weapons found in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, the president has accepted the report of his two task force and said, "That the chief weapons inspector has issued his report. Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there."
SEN. SANTORUM: Well, there were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. They thought that they were new weapons. So far we, we did not—we have not found any new weapons. But we have found old weapons, weapons from the Iran/Iraq conflict, and we found over 500 and the report says that there were more.
This marks a key difference between Santorum and most of the congressional Republicans running for reelection. Santorum did not back down from Russert's assertions; instead he confronted them with the facts. I hope RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman was paying attention and taking notes, because this should become gospel to Republican candidates throughout the country: stand your ground, and hit them with the facts.Here's another one:
Do you believe you should have the same standard for President Bush? He should give a defined objective, he should give an exit strategy, he should give a cost, and he should give a timeline for Iraq, just as you were demanding President Clinton give for Kosovo?
SEN. SANTORUM: No. Because, because Kosovo and, and Slobodan Milosevic were never a security threat to the United State of America. No way. There—I mean, it wasn't even close.
MR. RUSSERT: But these are men and women at war.
SEN. SANTORUM: We had, we had—excuse me—we had no business, in my opinion—and I felt this today—we had no business going in—into that area. We had no national security interest. We are up against an enemy that every single day in the streets of Iran they're out talking about how they want to destroy the United States, how they want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Meanwhile, Bob Casey came in and spouted the usual talking points from the DNC. Here's Casey on fiscal responsibility:
MR. RUSSERT: Over 10 years.
MR. CASEY: Over 10 years, that's right.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, but, but if you rolled back the top 1 percent, it's about $56 billion in a year. Our deficit is 200...
MR. CASEY: That's true, Tim, absolutely.
MR. RUSSERT: How you going to balance the budget? Which, which programs you going to cut?
MR. CASEY: Tim, you can't, you can't balance a budget in one year. They've put us in such a fiscal hole, it will take many years. I hope it doesn't take 10 years, it took...
MR. RUSSERT: Well, but give me a couple ideas. Which programs would you cut?
MR. CASEY: Tim, there are a lot of things. I—in, in state government, I've already done this. Sometimes you, you try to limit the number of, of consultants, that's one idea. Sometimes you limit the size of, of, of the federal government. I've already done that in state government. There are a lot of ways. Especially some, some tax loopholes, off-shore tax loopholes that are in there right now.
There are lots of ways to cut. But the first thing you have to do, I think, is—and let me just outline these quickly. First of all, the tax cut. Over 10 years, if you repealed it for 200,000 and up, you could get $730 billion. The second thing, on the estate tax, if we set the general estate tax exemption level at $3.5 million for an individual, 7 million for a couple, maybe even carve out a $5 million exemption for family farms and businesses, you could get a savings just on that alone of $300 billion over 10 years. You're already at a trillion. It's a step along the way. A corporate welfare commission, over—conservatively over 10 years could get you 200 billion. And finally, you've got to make sure that we have a pay as you go strategy, just like a family has.
Out of that long, convoluted speech - which, ironically, Casey criticized Santorum twice during the debate for - there wasn't one thing within what he stated, that actually sounded anything like fiscal discipline. Everything consisted of either repealing tax cuts, restoring taxes, closing loopholes, and raising revenue; none of which actually addresses the problem of runaway government spending. I wished Santorum would have jumped on Casey about this; but his response was still good.Casey had the nerve to attempt to criticize Santorum for his virtually unwavering support of President Bush and his policies, but it's very clear after Sunday morning that Casey will essentially be a clear supporter of the Senate Democratic leadership on an overwhelming majority of issues, if not more than Santorum's support of Bush. It showed whether he was talking about abortion, or Social Security, or the debt. At least Santorum supports a number of Bush policies because he actually believes in most of them, while Casey came off as another voice of the Democratic machine.
It's no wonder that Casey refused to have ten debates with Santorum (he did agree to four), as he got his clock cleaned on Sunday morning, and there isn't any reason for him not to get it again in the next debate. I think there are some Democrats are starting to panick, because the Senate seat of one of their hated rivals thought months ago to possibly be a relatively easy pickup has possibly made this a neck-and-neck race that will be decided down the finish.
