"With A Little Help From His Friends" (Rick Santorum)

Exclusive: An investigation into the private and public finances of Rick Santorum suggests that the Senate GOP might want to reconsider making him its ethics czar.

By Will Bunch
Issue Date: 03.10.06

“In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to.”

-- U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, in his 2005 book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good


The estates at Shenstone Farm sprawl over 500 acres of steeply rolling, barren hillside, at the point where northern Virginia’s traffic-clogged suburbs finally surrender to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. On an unseasonably warm January day, this former horse farm is shrouded in fog so dense that a visitor could imagine a band of gray-clad rebel soldiers emerging from these hilltops in the heart of Civil War country.

Instead, what slowly takes shape from the gloaming are well over 100 McMansions, with more on the way -- massive brick structures jutting out like solitary fortresses, each surrounded by roughly four acres of treeless, lunar-like landscape, with three-car garages and sconce-topped brick monument pillars at the foot of each long driveway. Most sport pricey wood playsets in the backyard.

It is here, some 43 miles by car and a world away from Capitol Hill, that Pennsylvania’s junior U.S. senator, Rick Santorum, and his wife, Karen, bought a home on November 14, 2001, for $643,361 (now assessed by Loudoun County at $757,000). It is here that the most outspoken social conservative in the Senate is raising his six children in the manner he described in his book last year, which caused so much controversy back in the state where he is seeking a third term this fall. And it is here that Santorum departs most mornings for his newest mission: crafting a package of Senate ethics reforms aimed at removing the stain of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

The Santorums bought their oversized Shenstone “estate” even though his financial disclosure forms since 2001 have shown little family income beyond his Senate salary, now $162,100, and he admits that life hasn’t been financially easy. The senator made a startling remark to The New York Times Magazine last spring: “We live paycheck to paycheck, absolutely.” But he explained that his parents help out. “They’re by no means wealthy -- they’re two retired VA employees -- but they’ll send a check every now and then,” he said.

Link:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11174
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A long, but VERY thorough, investigative piece on Senator Rick Santorum's dirty laundry, by a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News.

If not, it requires a closer look.

Visit -

http://santorumcybergate.blogspot.com/

Along the right side, under "Best of Santorum Cybergate" is the link to the pics.