Scranton Time-Tribune - Santorum's Support of President Draws Attacks from Casey

Scranton Time-Tribune - Santorum's Support of President Draws Attacks from Casey

By Borys Krawczeniuk
Staff Writer

HONESDALE — Bob Casey Jr.'s voice booms through the Towne House Diner, filling it with the passion required of someone aiming to unseat someone as sure of himself as Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

The Democratic state treasurer is heating up his stump speech and as it reaches the war in Iraq, he tells a cramped dining room of supporters he'll be a Democrat with the spirit of Harry Truman rather than a "rubber stamp" like Santorum.

As a senator, Truman crusaded against war profiteering during fellow Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt's World War II presidency, he says.

Santorum, as Casey loves to say, hasn't asked President Bush "the tough questions" about the war's progress and when Americans might expect their troops' withdrawal. He won't say it's time for withdrawal, but blasts the Bush administration for largely failing to adhere to the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on homeland security.

"Rick Santorum has voted with the president of the United States 98 percent of the time," he says.

"Wow," a woman gasps.

"You know that when two politicians agree in Washington 98 percent of the time, one of them is not necessary," Casey says. "We could have a machine do that. Just set the dial on ‘Bush 98 percent' and that machine would just ratify everything that comes across."

The dining room roars its favor.

The stop is on the third to last day of a two-month "New Direction" bus tour that skipped days here and there but hit 83 events in 64 of the state's 67 counties. For the most part, the audiences are friendly and hand-picked, a campaign staple these days on both sides. Casey travels to far more counties, but then he has to.

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Despite a well-known political name, voters know more about Santorum, who says he visits every county annually as part of his job.

As Santorum's standard campaign speech on his early August RV tour hit heavily on matters that stirred his Republican base — fighting terrorism and illegal immigration — Casey's concentrates on issues that rile Democrats.

For a Democrat better known for breathy elocution, Casey's stump speech is blistering, though short on specific solutions. Nothing rouses Democrats more than hacking away at their favorite pinata, George W. Bush.

Casey, the son of an old-fashioned populist Democrat, sounds like one as he ties Santorum and the president to "the Washington crowd" more interested in taking care of "Big Oil" and "Big Pharma" (large pharmaceutical companies) than the little guy.

For five years, Casey says, Bush and the Republican Congress led partly by Santorum have let health insurance premiums skyrocket and stood by as 714,000 Pennsylvanians lost their insurance while handing the wealthiest 1 percent of American big tax cuts.

The Republicans, he says, adopted a Medicare prescription drug plan with a whopping "doughnut hole" that forces many to pick up huge costs. They cost Pennsylvania 181,000 manufacturing jobs through tax breaks that encouraged companies to send jobs overseas. They backed trade deals that did the same and advocated privatizing Social Security.

"We're going to take a new direction," Casey says.

His is largely the same menu of economic issues that Democrats leveraged for Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid, but polls show economic issues are hot with voters who are also unhappy with the war's progress.

One issue Casey talks about carried less weight two years ago — high gas prices. Another, legislative salary hikes, wasn't a factor.

Santorum, who accepted the second most in campaign contributions from Big Oil of anyone in Congress, Casey says, helped Big Oil ring up huge profits by backing its billions in federal tax subsidies.

"That's how our price of (gas) got over $3 per gallon, and they're getting record profits," he says, practically spitting out the words. "You saw what Exxon/Mobil got last quarter. The headline said $10.4 billion."

It was the state General Assembly that raised its salary, but, as it turns out, Congress did too, and Santorum voted three times to do that while opposing minimum wage hikes 13 times, Casey says, eager to connect the dots.

Santorum says he voted for smaller minimum wage increases 10 times.

Casey also makes a promise worthy of a conservative Republican: He says he'll be a fiscally responsible senator willing to attack the nation's budget deficit, which was gone but returned under Bush after 9/11.

"They're saying it might only be $260 billion. Isn't that great? Doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside when the deficit is only $260 billion or $296 billion or whatever they come up with this week?" he asks.

The only sign of dissent at his events is a Santorum campaign plant — a costumed "Bobby the Duck" mascot that follows Casey around to imply he's unwilling to take on Santorum head to head on issues.

In Bethlehem at the end of the week, the costumed duck joins a few Santorum supporters who wave the senator's campaign signs in Casey's face as the treasurer gets off his bus for a stop at a diner. When a Casey backer grabs a Santorum sign, a scuffle follows. No one is arrested.

It signals the growing dislike the two sides have for each other. Democrats are especially hungry to show Santorum the way back to his suburban Pittsburgh home.

Some speak about issues that Casey doesn't mention. They talk mostly about their dissatisfaction with the way things are rather than their love of Casey.

Marge Cusanelli, 62, a Nesquehoning housewife who watched as Casey spoke on the steps of the Carbon County Courthouse, is angry at Santorum for living in suburban Virginia, but asking the school district that encompasses his Pennsylvania home to pay for his children to attend an Internet school. After some controversy, the senator ended the practice.

"When are they going to pay this money back?" she asks.

Inside the Star City Restaurant in Bethlehem — the scuffle was outside there — Judith Deltuva, 59, a technician at the local public library, said Republicans are ruling through fear, trying to scare everyone with terrorist talk.

"We're being terrorized by the administration, not the terrorists," she said. "The administration is what's making us afraid."

Instead, she says, government should concentrate on helping people "take care of themselves." Several years ago, she and her husband, Chuck, 60, a sewage treatment authority laborer, lacked health-care coverage. When he required gall bladder surgery, the bill was $12,000, which they're still paying.

"I appreciate the fact that they saved his life. But it's terrifying. When you talk about health care, you're not talking about wanting a trip to Bermuda," she says.

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