PA People: BGlobe column today: "Right Back at ya, Santorum"

Back at you, Santorum
By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist | October 3, 2006

Please allow me to offer Senator Rick Santorum a hearty Boston welcome to the world of the depraved.

It wasn't all that long ago when Santorum, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania, was blaming our entire city and seemingly every resident within it for the Catholic priest pedophile scandal that was unraveling all across the country.

Those were dark days, here and elsewhere, though we were fortunate enough to have someone like Santorum shed a little bit of his moralistic light. Specifically, here's what he wrote:

``When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

A Santorum spokesman was kind enough to provide even more clarity last year, telling me, ``It's an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases. I think that's what the senator was speaking to."

So do I. Priests rape young boys, the church hierarchy hushes it up for years, and academics and other assorted Democrats in Boston are to blame. That fact should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, which I think Santorum may have.

So, of course, I find it surprising -- no, make that shocking -- that the center of the storm has shifted from Boston to, of all places, Capitol Hill, and not just any part of Capitol Hill but specifically the offices of the Republican congressional leadership.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/10/03/back_at_you_santorum/?p1=MEWell_Pos2

A Globe-CBS4 poll published Sunday said that Romney's popularity in Massachusetts has plummeted, and that Healey may be suffering for it.

Forty-eight percent of voters viewed Romney unfavorably, while 40 percent viewed him favorably. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said Healey's role as Romney's lieutenant governor made them less likely to vote for her; 25 percent considered it a point in her favor.

Healey has spent little time campaigning with Romney this fall. She has distanced herself from him on some social issues -- she favors abortion rights and he opposes them, for example -- and she said she would seek to establish her own identity in the campaign.

She insisted she was proud of their administration's accomplishments, but she said voters ``have to understand that I will be a new governor, I will be a different kind of governor than we've had in the past."

The new RGA ad does not emphasize Healey's independence. Instead, it describes how ``the Romney-Healey team" transformed the Massachusetts of 2002, with ``an economy in a tailspin, a $3 billion deficit, people out of work," to the Massachusetts of 2006, with a $1 billion budget surplus , more jobs, and, soon, healthcare for everyone.

Healey appears by Romney's side through most of the ad, except for a few seconds at the end where she is on her own.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/10/03/romney_tie_may_cripple_healey/