During Thursday’s GOP Debate, Rick Santorum caused quite a stir that led to him momentarily trending on Twitter.
It all started when the former Pennsylvania senator — who has been hovering for months between zero and two percent in national polls, — attempted to answer a simple question about the economy from one of the debate moderators.
Without citing any sources, the moderator claimed that “40 percent of babies born today are born to single moms,” which, she noted, again without citing any sources, is “11 times as high as in 1940,” the era in which GOP thinking still seems to reside.
“From a policy perspective,” she asked Santorum, “should the government be doing anything about family formation?”
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The candidate wasted no time launching into his answer.
“You know we’ve had this debate about the economy,” he began, “but we haven’t talked about the one issue that now, increasingly, even the right and the left are coming to agree with me.”
That issue: gay people having kids.
For several minutes, Santorum ranted about how “single parent children” growing up in “single parent neighborhoods” and going to “single parent schools” don’t perform well — and it’s all because of political correctness.
Santorum then issued a call to action, urging Americans to use “the bully pulpit” to jumpstart a “national campaign” to “rebuild the American family” and insisting that the economy — which is doing very well, by the way — simply cannot be fixed until “every child” has “its birthright, which is a mom and a dad who loves them! That will change this economy!”
Later in the debate, Santorum encouraged folks Google him.
“Google Rick Santorum!” he commanded.
Twitter, of course, had a field day with this:
People who should never say “Google me” -Rick Santorum, and well, me. ?
— Sydney Leathers (@sydneyelainexo) January 15, 2016
Historic moment: Rick Santorum just told people to go Google Rick Santorum.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 14, 2016
Hi I’m Rick Santorum. I don’t need to introduce myself. Just google me. Just make sure your kids aren’t in the room. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaIdTromp) September 16, 2015
Do NOT Google: Rick Santorum. Don’t listen to him! It’s a trap! #GOPDebate — Nomiki Konst (@NomikiKonst) January 14, 2016
Oh no. Rick Santorum just said “Go google Rick Santorum.” Don’t.
— Fake Charlie Whiting (@charlie_whiting) January 14, 2016