The Political Freakshow

As Rand Paul’s TSA detainment spirals into a cause to raise funds for his father to “end the TSA,” Rick Santorum has weighed in on airport security screening.

At a tea party event Tuesday night in Florida, Santorum told voters he favors “common sense” profiling that exempts senators, CNN reports:

“We are spending billions and billions of dollars, wasting money, wasting time, delaying people. A United States senator’s going to be secondarily searched? Oh everybody should be treated the same,” Santorum said sarcastically, referring to a recent incident where Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was forced to miss his flight after refusing a secondary search. “Use common sense. Please.”

He went on to say that the TSA should be profiling “the most likely folks” to be terrorists, but remained vague about what that sort of profile would look like.

“Now understand, because when people hear profiling they say, oh he’s going to profile based on race or religion,” he said. “No. Profile based on the profile of someone who does these things. Right?”

Read more here.

— Katy Hall

NBC News reports that Rick Santorum may leave Florida before the Tuesday primary:

Speaking to reporters here, the former Pennsylvania senator said was unsure if he would be in Florida the night of the primary, committing only to campaigning in the state over the next two days. On Saturday, he’ll head home to Virginia for fundraisers and to prepare his tax records which he plans to soon make public.

Santorum said this weekend will be the first time he’s slept in his own bed since Christmas.

Santorum’s possible move is likely based on a calculation that it is not worth it to remain in the state, given that it is expensive to compete in and will award all of its delegates to the first-place finisher in next Tuesday’s primary.

—Luke Johnson

On Wednesday, the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination, stating that the former Massachusetts governor would be a “steady and competent leader” and citing his electability.

“Florida Republicans have two compelling reasons to vote for Mitt Romney: He’s the best candidate, and he fits the late William F. Buckley’s description as the most conservative candidate who can win,” reads the editorial.

The paper also gave its opinion of Newt Gingrich, writing that they “admire his intellect, but when it comes to leadership, anger doesn’t trump a diverse and successful record.”

During the 2008 nominating contest, the paper endorsed John McCain.

Click here to read the full endorsement.

— Mollie Reilly

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro took shots at the Republican candidates hoofing it around Florida in a long opinion piece carried by official media, calling the race the ‘greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.” The 85-year-old Castro, whose brother Raul has led the communist island since Fidel stepped down in April, must have watched GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich wish him to an eternity in a lake of fire during Tuesday night’s debate. According to the AP:

Castro said he always assumed the candidates would try to outdo each other on the issue of Cuba, but that he was nonetheless appalled by the level of debate.

“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” said the retired Cuban leader, who has dueled with 11 U.S. administrations since his 1959 revolution.

…Castro didn’t refer to the comments specifically in his opinion piece, saying that he was too busy with other things to waste any more time analyzing the Republican competition.

— Janie Campbell

Sen. Marco Rubio is getting all of the VP attention in Florida, but Rick Santorum says he won’t take himself out of the VP running either.

“I’m not running for vice president. I would serve, if I thought I could be helpful with any administration,” Santorum told Megyn Kelly on Fox News Thursday afternoon, later saying that he would “do whatever I can do to help make sure that Barack Obama is not reelected as president.”

Watch a clip of the interview, cut by GOP12.com, below:

— Max J. Rosenthal

During a speech in Florida on Saturday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized college students as being too coddled, suggesting it would be better if they work more and take fewer classes. He praised schools that incorporate work into their financial aid packages.

Students take fewer classes per semester. They take more years to get through. Why? Because they have free money. I would tell students: “Get through as quick as you can. Borrow as little as you can. Have a part-time job.” But that’s very different from the culture that has grown up in the last 20 years.

But as Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post points out, Gingrich actually did not work while in college — from his undergraduate years all the way until he received his Ph.D. From a 1995 profile of the former speaker in Vanity Fair:

Newt, who avoided Vietnam with student and marriage deferments, resisted taking a job. During his college years, Newt called up his father and stepmother to ask for financial help. His stepmother, Marcella McPherson, can still hear his exact words: “I do not want to go to work. I want all my time for my studies. … Bob Gingrich told me he will not help me one bit. So I wondered, would you people help me?” Big Newt began sending him monthly checks.

Dolores Adamson, Gingrich’s district administrator from 1978 to 1983, remembers, “Jackie put him all the way through school. All the way through the PhD. … He didn’t work.”

— Amanda Terkel

Speaking to a Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach for the Palm Beach County GOP, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) got off this humdinger of a line that within minutes drew recriminations from Democrats on Twitter.

We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, (audience boos) and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of

economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America. (cheers) Yeah I said “hell.”

Moments after the quote was mentioned on Twitter, former Reid spokesman Jim Manley responded via his own Twitter feed: “Me to allen west. You first asshole.”

And they say politics is getting more acrimonious.

— Jon Ward

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — At a rally with supporters early Monday morning at the Hyatt Regency Riverfront, which featured an appearance by Ronald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan, Newt Gingrich made fun of the media for continually asking him what he was going to do after the Florida primary, saying he was in it for the long haul:

The last three national polls, I am ahead of Romney. Why would people have any doubt about what I’m going to do? I remember Michael’s father in 1976, he lost the first five primaries. He didn’t actually find the key issue that galvanized the conservative movement until North Carolina. He came within 70 votes of beating the incumbent president of the United States. The idea that the conservative movement is going to roll over and give up — not going to happen!

As The Huffington Post’s Jon Ward reported, Gingrich has repeatedly said he will take his campaign “all the way to the convention” in August.

In the latest Quinnipiac poll of Florida voters, Romney has a 14-point lead over Gingrich.

While many Gingrich supporters at Monday’s rally said they were confident their candidate would pull out a win on Tuesday, others admitted that it might not happen — but they all encouraged him to stay in the race.

“Fifty-five percent,” said Jacksonville resident Jim Davis when asked by The Huffington Post about how confident he is that Gingrich will beat Romney on Tuesday. “But I think after Florida, he’ll pick up the South, and that will give him the momentum to pick up the others. The red states, in the last election, I think Newt will ultimately get those. … I think he goes all the way to the convention.”

Davis chalked up Romney’s strength in the state to his “advertising dollars,” admitting, “I can’t say I’m seeing but two Newt ads on television.”

Claire Frank, an enthusiastic volunteer for the campaign who first became interested in politics after reading Gingrich’s books years ago, said, “I’m praying and believing that people will wake up and they will see what the real issues are in this country. This is the most important election we’ve ever had. Our freedoms are at stake.”

— Amanda Terkel

TAMPA, Fla. — A few moments after taking the stage inside a large airplane hangar here Monday, Newt Gingrich dropped a bombshell.

“The polls are all over the place. We just got word of a brand new poll that came out about an hour ago that says we’re now tied 35-35,” Gingrich said.

The crowd of about 200 people went nuts.

The only problem is that Gingrich was wrong. The poll was not released an hour before. It was released three days ago, on Friday, and the poll actually was conducted last week, from Monday to Wednesday.

Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond confirmed that Gingrich was referring to Dixie Strategies/The News-Press/First Coast News poll of 2,567 likely voters.

Every other poll that was in the field after Romney bested Gingrich in the first of two Florida debates last Monday has shown Romney leading. Most have Romney up by double digits.

— Jon Ward