Santorum Schools CNN's Crowley on What 'Moderate' and 'Willing to Work With the Other Side' Mean

June 17th, 2012 11:17 AM

Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on Sunday gave CNN's Candy Crowley a much-needed education on what "moderate" and "willing to work with the other side" mean in Washington today.

Appearing on State of the Union, Santorum correctly informed his host that the kind of Republican she wants in office "means doing what the other side wants only doing it slower instead of doing what is necessary for this country" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):


Toward the end of a lengthy interview, Crowley brought up Santorum’s endorsement of Dan Liljenquist over Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.).

The former Pennsylvania Senator said, “We need a different kind of actor in Washington, D.C. We’ve reached the point where we need people to say, ‘No,’ and have the backbone to say, ‘I’m not going to do less of a bad thing anymore. We are going to start doing good things instead of compromise doing less bad.”

“We saw the same thing play out in Indiana with Dick Lugar,” countered Crowley, “a man who was known, he had conservative principles, but he was willing to work with the other side.”

“Hold on,” interrupted Santorum. “What does that mean? When you say, ‘willing to work with the other side.’ This is the real key that I think Tea Party folks and conservatives generally have sort of had enough with.”

“Willing to work from the other side,” continued Santorum, “in this town means doing what the other side wants only doing it slower instead of doing what is necessary for this country which is scaling back government. Instead of growing government less fast, we want government to get smaller. Now, we’re willing to compromise on how quickly we do that, but the idea that we need people who just slow down this eventual growth and that’s the answer is wrong.”

“Just sounds like no room for moderates,” Crowley responded.

“What does ‘moderate’ mean?” asked Santorum.

“That perhaps you’d reach across the aisle and say, ‘I get where you’re coming from,’” replied Crowley.

“No, no, no,” Santorum countered. “Moderate in this town, a moderate understanding is doing more big government. In other words, ‘We’re still going to grow government, we’re just going to grow it less.’ We need to stop that.”

Indeed, but it really doesn't matter how many times liberal media members are told this. They just don't seem to catch on.

Bravo, Senator! Bravo!