Rick Santorum's 'Snob' Lob Against Obama Brings GOP Governors To President's Defense

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Some of the leading Republican governors are coming to President Barack Obama's defense against charges from former Senator Rick Santorum that the president's push for universal higher education amounts to intellectual and political snobbery.

Speaking to reporters outside of the White House after a meeting between the nation's governors and the president, Gov. Bob McDonnell went out of his way to praise the administration's education policy, calling it one of the few areas of bipartisan consensus. He added that the pursuit of a college education was something that all lawmakers should push students to consider.

"I wish [Santorum] had said it differently," said the Virginia Republican. "I'm pushing in Virginia this year 100,000 new degrees over the next 15 years. I want more college graduates. But that means community college and four-year universities, but not to the exclusion of realizing that some people are going to graduate from high school and be in the trades. What we say is we want somebody to be career ready or college ready. If we haven't done one of those two things for the young people, we have failed you."

McDonnell's comments represent the second time in as many days that a surrogate for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney sided with the president over Santorum. On CBS' "Face the Nation," Gov. Chris Christie was characteristically blunt in downplaying Santorum's criticism of Obama as a "snob" for wanting "everybody in America to go to college."

"I think that's probably over the line," said the New Jersey governor, adding that if Santorum was against the proposition of ensuring children are college educated or career ready, "I don't think that makes any sense."

Despite the pushback, Santorum hasn't wavered from his original objection. Appearing on several Sunday shows, the former senator distinguished his support for educational opportunity with what he argued was the president's belief that every student had to go to college to advance in life (something Obama has never appeared to have said). Adding a conspiratorial twist to the plot, Santorum argued that the president's encouragement of college education was being done as a form of political base building. Colleges, he said, were "indoctrination mills" for the liberal elite.

The fact that few, if any, governors have been willing to back this point underscores both its outlandishness and how education policy remains one of the few wellsprings of bipartisanship. McDonnell and Christie may be Romney surrogates -- they also may run states with moderate, if not progressive-leaning electorates -- but they are hardly the only ones siding with Obama.

"Bob is right," Gov. Phil Bryant (R-Miss.) told reporters as he stood next to McDonnell, just yards away from the West Wing. Arguing that students who didn't pursue college degrees shouldn't be stigmatized, the newly elected Mississippi governor (who hasn't endorsed Romney) explicitly acknowledged that the president wasn't doing anything of the sort.

"[I]f a child decides that he does not want to go on to higher education, we should not somehow think he has failed," said Bryant. "He or she can do a great job contributing to this economy coming out of community college. The president was behind that. I believe today he said he would help with the bully pulpit of encouraging more folks who want to go into that type of training, and I think we should all do that."

Comments

[med1067]

06:01 PM on 02/29/2012

Rick's education: He obtained an undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a law degree degree from the Dickinson School of Law.

Who's the snob now Rick?

[lawlibrarian]

10:22 AM on 03/01/2012

His MOTHER graduated from college, got her nursing degree and worked outside the home.
Yet, he STILL has the gall to make statements like this and saying that women should not work outside their home!!!! What the hell does his mom think of him???

[med1067]

05:55 PM on 02/29/2012

Why isn't the governor of Virginia running for president? He seems normal.

[MerhabaAbi]

08:04 PM on 02/29/2012

He has too much sense to run this cycle. Obama's a shoe-in.

[lawlibrarian]

10:25 AM on 03/01/2012

He seems "normal"??? He's the one who claimed he didn't know that a transvaginal ultrasound was a wand that would be insterted into a woman's vagina against her will!!! REAL normal....not.

[donbrown]

04:15 PM on 02/29/2012

Rick Santorum, Exhibit A:

The GOP certainly has a lock on the anti-intellectual vote.

Santorum's latest salvo against higher education and the constant Republican attempts to squelch both NPR and PBS are abundant evidence of their war on critical thinking.

They realize it is harder to control an analytical public. Democrats do not have that problem.

[cutesky]

03:02 PM on 02/29/2012

Santorum is playing to his base...... The ignorant, uneducated, hillbilly extreme right.

[MerhabaAbi]

09:18 PM on 02/29/2012

Hi cutesky,

Hillbilly is something one is born to. Please don't make it seem like something of which one should be ashamed.

Respectfully,
little brother

[lawlibrarian]

10:27 AM on 03/01/2012

A Hillbilly is a racist white cracker...it is a state of mind. A person can live in the hills of a Southern state and not be a hillbilly....it is not something one is "born to".

[cutesky]

02:59 PM on 02/29/2012

Santorum = the scary, creepy, angry home schooler.

[lawlibrarian]

10:28 AM on 03/01/2012

But, Santorum, himself, was NOT homeschooled....he graduated from Penn State! His mind must have been warped sometime after his "liberal" college education.

Santorum and Sandusky....TWO things PSU would rather forget!!!

[cutesky]

05:01 PM on 03/01/2012

I know Santorum wasn't hom schooled but his children are.....why? Has he become so paranoid that he won't allow his children to mix with other children in public school where they might be sujected to seeing the world as it really is....see people of different backgrounds and religions mix and mingle and get along???/ I wonder.

[everything news]

01:21 PM on 02/29/2012

Oops. I omitted :" that people who do NOT go to collegel" etc....

[everything news]

01:19 PM on 02/29/2012

No one has said that people in college should or are stigmatized. The President only wants to encourage young people to continue their education beyond High School. There comes a time and l have encountered them all, who did not pursue their education, now regret it greatly. Everyone of them. Snatorum's comment was the most ignorant speech ever made in the whole world. He will not win the election.

[AndyGra]

03:36 AM on 03/01/2012

READ, Read, read! Non-Fiction. Your Library Card is your most valuable possession. (OK, fiction may teach you something). You need to keep your mind ACTIVE. No television!

[metikulous]

12:10 PM on 02/29/2012

It just goes to show that Santorum is not ready for prime time. But to be fair to him, his anti-higher education messaging was intended to keep his home-schooled followers from feeling they're ill-prepared for the future. But we all know they will always have a job down on the farm.

[CertifiedApproved]

10:59 PM on 02/28/2012

My Dad used to always say: "If you let obnoxious people just run thier mouths they will tell you everything you never wanted or needed to know about them." Well, keep talking Ricky! You are practically handing the Dems a win this fall!

[jgthomas]

10:25 PM on 02/28/2012

He may actually believe this or he may just be pandering to the high majority of republicans with no more then a high school education. There campaigning you can't trust what they say right now. But you should not disregard it in november when its time to vote for real.

[DannyeSue]

07:42 AM on 02/29/2012

jgthomas, I don't trust any of them. They talk out both sides of their mouth and have nothing of validity to offer me. I never disregard their slick trickery either and I believe you are spot on in warning people about them.

[ajaniabadeet]

10:15 PM on 02/28/2012

Obama's has an impressive background, he and Mrs O were millionaires before Mr ran for pres, he has a beautiful family and the love between Mr & Mrs seems to be strong, he is the first black american to become pres., a great accomplishment our ancestors and blacks more or less 50 some yrs ago believed was an impossibility. No one believed such a thing could happen.

Please Obama, make me in yoir image! I beg you please! I have children, neices, brothers, mom and dad, friends, co-workers, w

[Dan-Ohio]

07:34 PM on 02/28/2012

If Calculus and Physics say that Liberals are correct and Conservatives are wrong then I'd be convinced that they were right since they don't tend to lie to me.

[DannyeSue]

07:49 AM on 02/29/2012

Dan-Ohio... fanned! Thanks for the great post!

[Jackie Gill]

07:28 PM on 02/28/2012

"Colleges, he said, were 'indoctrination mills' for the liberal elite."

So based on this logic, educating yourself and learning how to critically think results in becoming a liberal. Therefore, remaining ignorant and undereducated results in becoming a conservative? Okay, I have no problem with that logic. This fits right in with the study that indicated that conservatives tend to have lower IQ’s. Way to go Santorum for pointing this out. I guess he knows he has to appeal to the undereducated since he is trying to sell small government while discussing all of the many freedoms that government should remove and how government should control all aspects of your private life.

[jeffrow63]

08:34 PM on 02/28/2012

You are 100% right. Isn't he amazing? The things that come out of his mouth are very telling.

[lawlibrarian]

10:30 AM on 03/01/2012

Exactly!!! f/f

[jeffrow63]

06:26 PM on 02/28/2012

I know I was a flaming conservative until I went to college. I started as a political science major and quickly realized that I, like the founding fathers was actually a liberal. I am proud to be a Liberal. To me it means I support individual freedom and have empathy for those less fortunate than myself. I believe that everyone should work if they are able and it is our responsibility to help those who can't. Education also helped me overcome the racism I was raised with in B'ham, AL. I most certainly believe in the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms especially to protect us from governments and individuals who would try to force us to believe or live as they do. I do not think Santorum understands what it means to be an American.

[pbrunda]

06:01 PM on 02/28/2012

Well, there we have the image of the Santorum "Ideal American Woman" complete:
- Barefoot
- Pregnant
- AND...Ignorant!!

[med1067]

05:58 PM on 02/29/2012

Women are easier to control if they are not educated.