I feel like everyone who lives in the state of Pennsylvania owes the rest of the country an apology for making Rick Santorum a Senator. And don't write and tell me you didn't vote for him. You should have tried harder to keep this guy from getting into office. This is the man who compared consensual homosexual sex to someone having sex with a dog. This is the man who is taking outright bribes from Wal-Mart to push legislation favorable to a company that already thinks it's above the law. This is the man who tried to gut medical malpractice awards even though his wife recently won a large one. His latest gambit is that he wants to block the U.S. Weather Service from making its weather data available for free on the Internet. This is the weather data that is paid for by our tax money. Santorum has introduced a bill -- and apparently, a vague and sloppily worded one, at that -- that would stop that because it cuts into the profits of private services like AccuWeather and The Weather Channel. Do I even have to explain what a rotten, unfair-to-us idea this is? Hope he got paid well for this one.

I do apologize. He is an ass. I think I may even have helped his campaign (in terms of sticking those obnoxious lawn signs in people's yards) back when he first entered politics and I was an easily-influenced Young Republican. Of course, now I vote against him every chance available, but that has yet to pay off.

Unfortunately, here in Pennsylvania, we don't elect politicians. We elect names and Rick Santorum turned himself into a name. Especially here in the rural sections (IE, everything that isn't Philly), where the average political discussion consists of a magnetic car ribbon off-tilted so you can read the text horizontally. Visit any parking lot out here and it looks like there's a cult in town. And there is.

But, Santorum is young and comparatively handsome when he's standing beside Arlen Spector, plus he's been obnoxiously vocal against homosexuality. (As some say around here, particularly near York Fair time, bag the fags but keep the sheep.) That's going to make him popular in PA no matter how many other bribe-influenced shadow deals he cuts.