Saw an election sign this morning for “Rendell/Santorum” – three of them, actually, clustered together, for those of us still not awake enough to be sure we’re not hallucinating.
It’s gotta be Santorum trying to jump on Rendell’s coattails – but how on earth could he align himself with Rendell?
But no, I don’t get it. Haven’t seen them around here either. Strangely, I’ve seen far more anti-Santorum posters (rICK, Santorum Sucks, etc) than pro-Casey posters. Which makes sense since almost nobody will be voting FOR Bob Casey, he’s the Kerry of this election.
Yeah, it’s not a particularly inspiring array – but leaving aside your opinion on any individual candidate, doesn’t it seem really freaking odd that Rendell and Santorum would appear on the same campaign sign? Who amongst either one’s supporters would have the stomach to vote for the other?
You can see a photo of one of the signs about two-thirds of the way down on this page. Small print on the placard indicates that Local 98 of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) was behind the campaign.
I am assuming you saw it in Philadelphia or the Southeast.
Essentially, the Santorum campaign divorced itself from Lynn Swann pretty early on. Governor Rendell is an electoral god down this way and they knew that Swann was going nowhere. The four collar counties voted very heavily for Rendell in the 2002 election but remain majority Republican.
There was also a belief that Rendell and Casey are not all that close given the bitter 2002 Democratic Primary. Rendell, despite his endorsement of Casey, even made complimentary statements about Santorum at one point in the campaign.
The Santorum strategy was to let work to convince Republican voters that its ok to vote D at the top of the ticket as long as you return home for the rest of the campaign.