David Axelrod: Rick Santorum Takes 'Divisive' Positions On Social Issues

WASHINGTON--A top adviser to President Barack Obama's re-election campaign said Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has taken "divisive positions" on key social issues.

David Axelrod told "CBS This Morning" he believes voters don't yet know Santorum very well. And he declined to speculate on how tough a race the former Pennsylvania senator could give Obama.

"I think when people really examine his economic policies, I don't think the average working person in this economy is going to look at his economic policies and say 'yeah, that's the ticket for me. That offers great hope for me,'" said Axelrod, according to The Hill. "Secondly, I think many of the policies he's taking on social issues are quite divisive. Not widely shared." He added, "People don't really know Sen. Santorum particularly well and when they do we'll get a better sense of where he stands."

Axelrod said when people begin to look closely at Santorum's positions, "we'll get a better idea" of how well he'll do. The former White House adviser also says the GOP race has been overcome by "negativism" and that has a "dispiriting" impact on voters.

As for the Obama re-election campaign, Axelrod said: "We don't get exhilarated by good numbers. We're not devastated by bad poll numbers. We just stick to our knitting and keep going."

More on Santorum's 2012 campaign:

Comments

[msstrick40]

02:57 AM on 02/16/2012

Thank you Mr. Axelrod....I'm glad someone finally said something about it. Amongst all of Sanctimonious Santorums rhetoric...he constantly adds verbiage that can be construed as nothing but divisive.

[l78lancer]

06:44 PM on 02/15/2012

Santorum is taking fire from the left. That fire also comes from independents and moderate republicans who have been left behind as the GOP pushes to the far right at lightspeed.

Santorum has yet to stop and figure out how to get those factions back should he actually win the nomination.

[JadedLady2]

04:23 PM on 02/15/2012

Ladies, listen up! When women won the right to vote that did not give our husbands TWO votes. These TeaPub politicians get elected by women not voting against them.

[KimCat]

04:16 PM on 02/15/2012

I am in shock that a candidate in 2012 is running on removing basic human rights! Gay marriage, freedom to decide on contraception, women in the military. Let's focus on the economy for Gods sake! And is it just me, or is his argument against women in the front lines more about a mans lack I ability to control emotion than a woman's. This guy is just flat out nuts!

[PickOneTwoThree]

04:06 PM on 02/15/2012

"divisive positions"

Actually, I don't think Santorum's policies are at all decisive - EVERYONE I know is very much united in declaring Santorum's positions horrible, awful, anti-woman, narrow-minded, 'over my dead body' - and just the worst of the 19th century bad!

[georgiablue79]

03:45 PM on 02/15/2012

Who supports this guy???? Has anyone listened to a word he says? Like women? Gays? non-whites? How in the world will he ever get any votes in a general election? Are we that far to the right that we can accept someone like him as a candidate?

[Ed C Atlanta]

04:27 PM on 02/15/2012

I agree, rick's train has already ran off the rails with the toxic rhetoric he spews,,
F/F

[Schalaine]

08:36 PM on 02/15/2012

I think Santorum should be the Republican nominee. The base of the Republican party has completely and totally consumed the party. Until they are soundly rejected by a majority of America, they will continue this insane path. Republicans, eat your peas. You allowed this to happen...deal with it!

Obama/Biden 2012.

[maspring]

03:45 PM on 02/15/2012

Everyone on both the left and the right seem to dismiss Santorum.

I don't know a thing about him. Why is he so easily dismissed?

The fact that he's undefined in many voter's minds is both a strength and a weakness. If he's able to define himself before anyone else does it then it's a strength.

If that happens then he may well be a tougher candidate for Obama than anyone thinks.

No one expected him to get this far.

[phal4875]

04:09 PM on 02/15/2012

In 2003, he told a reporter that gay marriage would lead to "man on dog" sex. One need know little more about this man.

[CharlieFoxDogs]

04:52 PM on 02/15/2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091170/Rick-Santorum-Rape-victims-gift-baby-pregnant.html

[maspring]

05:19 PM on 02/15/2012

That's not enough.

It's a single line (one of many I know) but insufficient to keep someone out of the White House.

I suggest that people take this guy seriously if he begins to knock off Romney.

It will be GWB all over again.

[Jill Press]

04:49 PM on 02/15/2012

Where have you been, Maspring? Dan Savage defined s&ntorum ages ago. Check it out on google and be prepared to laugh.

[maspring]

05:22 PM on 02/15/2012

I've known about Savage's Google bomb for years now.

It's not enough to keep a guy out of the White House.

If this is the primary reason why the guy can't be president, then I strongly suggest that people start taking him more seriously.

Otherwise mainstream Americans will still be laughing on the day when Santorum "surges" past Obama in the polls.

[byronic]

03:37 PM on 02/15/2012

I don't think Santorum is electable.

[packergirlie]

02:58 PM on 02/15/2012

Yay another point for the uniformed! Lets have a Republican President who's answer to the Iran issue is to go in and bomb their nuclear plants. Lets have yet another war to drain our economy and make us more in debt to China. Real smart Santorum. FAIL!

[packergirlie]

03:31 PM on 02/15/2012

Uninformed

[Ed C Atlanta]

04:29 PM on 02/15/2012

Agreed,we know some make grammatical errors,,but you got the point right and your first fan.

[MarkInEugene]

02:50 PM on 02/15/2012

Rick Santorum is fast asleep in the world of belief. He is incapable of being a representative of the people because he looks down upon so many of them. He disrespects the diversity in life and can only tolerate a narrow band of behavior that fits within his fundamentalist notions of right and wrong.

That so many Americans can justify supporting him is a testament to the ignorance of humanity and explains why we have fought 5000 wars in the last 3000 years.

[le marc]

02:30 PM on 02/15/2012

I've seen to many like Little Ricky, magic christians who say they have the keys to the "kingdom", but won't let jesus in. They are usually harmless unless they gain power over others, that is why Ricky is dangerous.

[phal4875]

04:11 PM on 02/15/2012

President Obama will lose to Rick when Hades gets cold.

[Cathy Venter]

01:59 PM on 02/15/2012

Everything I hear about the troops in a war zone is that they are fighting for each other not ideology. So when Rick says that male soldiers would want to defend female soldiers and that is bad , but defending male solders is ok, Isn't he saying Heteroprotection is immoral and Homoprotection is Good? He's for Homos? He's against protecting Women? Would you want to be in a fox hole with this guy?

[Stan DaMann]

01:47 PM on 02/15/2012

If Santorum is the Greedy One Percent Party nominee, we will see a Democratic landslide of epic proportions, reminiscent of the 1964 Goldwater debacle.

In 1964, Goldwater was the Republican nominee for President, and was seen as the far right conservative of their party. (If you read his books, you will see that today's tea people would consider him a radical leftist socialist.) Goldwater ended up losing in a historic landslide.

Santorum is way, way out there. He may do well with the tea people, but the vast majority of voters will see him as, quite frankly, ridiculous.

His latest rant about birth control leading to the French Revolution and the guillotine, should be replayed by Romney and Gingrich verbatim.

Steven Colbert did a classic bit about Santorum's guillotine speech yesterday, but I have not seen the Huff Post report on it at all. If you missed it, try to see it. Colbert has struck again with a screamingly funny rip of Santorum.

Axelrod very subtly pointed out that as Americans get to know Santorum better, they will like him less.

[sshelly]

02:16 PM on 02/15/2012

good post Stan! I also saw Colbert last night, The thing that stood out to me the most was that the government give's the Catholic church $2.9 billion dollars a year (# from 2010) of taxpayer's money!!!!! on top of them being tax exempt! Taxpayer subsidies account for 60% of their income! Did the American people vote on this?Talk about welfare..big oil,farm subsidies, Catholic church.Huff Po please tell us where to find out about all the subsidies we are paying for without our consent!

[pbr56]

04:30 PM on 02/15/2012

I wouldn't dismiss the money without knowing the purpose of it. There are many churches that do a lot of good helping people in need. The government supports those types of missions.

[Stan DaMann]

05:43 PM on 02/15/2012

The $2.9 billion was not to the Catholic church, but to the organization called Catholic Charities.

I agree completely with your point about corporate welfare, which the corporate media ignores. It is rarely reported or written about.

[Querent]

03:05 PM on 02/15/2012

Unfortunately, people said the same thing about Reagan when he ran for president. He was President for 8 years, and irreparably damaged the nation.

[Mitchell Horton]

03:56 PM on 02/15/2012

Reagan did less damage than the Congress. As always. The 80's and 90's Congresses (both Dem and GOP) actually set up the housing crash by forcing lenders to lend to subprime people.

[Stan DaMann]

05:47 PM on 02/15/2012

Reagan was "cooler" than Carter or Mondale, so he won the undecided vote, which generally votes as if it was a high school popularity contest. Every election since the TV age of 1960 has been won by the "cooler" candidate.

Santorum is not cool at all, but a nerd. He compared himself to Richie Cunningham of the TV show Happy Days. In that comparison, Obama is the Fonz. Obama would crush Santorum.

[Hoosierbrad]

01:47 PM on 02/15/2012

Mr. Santorum's mother tried abstinence, but it didn't work.

[Deborah H]

03:12 PM on 02/15/2012

FANNED!

[proudcalib]

01:03 PM on 02/15/2012

Divisive is an inadequate adjective to describe the hatefulness of Santorum's past comments. The quandary for Romney is that if he calls Santorum out for his extremism, he'll alienate much of the Republican "base."