America? Pennsylvania Here. We Know Rick Santorum. You Don’t.

Hell has officially frozen over, since a new Pew poll shows Rick Santorum edging out Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. Those of us who know the man best—those he represented in Congress for 16 years—are befuddled by this. Remember, we were happy to send him packing in 2007 by the largest margin ever for an incumbent Republican senator. The last guy to become president hot on the heels of a defeat in his home state was Richard Nixon. I’m just sayin’.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal quoted Jim Roddey, chairman of the GOP in Allegheny County—Santorum’s own home county—as saying, “Anytime someone is rejected by home-state voters, it will give other voters pause.” He said they’ll wonder: “What do they know about him that we don’t?”

Hey America! Here’s what we know that you might have missed:

Santorum hates the gays: “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. … It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”

He hates the blacks, too: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families.”

He gets the two confused sometimes: “There are people who were gay and lived the gay lifestyle and aren’t anymore. I don’t know if that’s the similar situation or that’s the case for anyone that’s black.”

And again: “You are black by the color of your skin. You are not homosexual, necessarily, by the color of your skin.”

He doesn’t believe in evolution: “What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution.”

He’s coming for your contraception: “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

He wants to outlaw premarital sex: “[Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal, but also procreative.”

In fact, he pretty much thinks about sex all the time: “Let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity.”

He thinks doctors who perform abortions should go to jail: “I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.”

He thinks women who are raped and get pregnant should make the best out of a bad situation: “We have to make the best out of a bad situation.”

He thinks all human life is sacred: “I believe that all human life is sacred.”

But he’s all for the death penalty: “We’re not talking about innocent human life.”

His grasp of world history is shaky: “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical.”

He wants to go to war with China: “I want to go to war with China.”

He thinks Obama didn’t get bin Laden: “He didn’t get bin Laden!”

He’s a liar: “Yeah, remember, under the Bush administration, welfare—I mean, excuse me, poverty among African-Americans and among single unmarried women, poverty was at the lowest rate ever in the history of this country.”

He doesn’t believe in global warming: “[T]he idea that man, through the production of CO2 … is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all the other factors.”

He says women should shut up and stay home: “The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”

Oh wait, no he doesn’t: “I don’t know—that’s a new quote for me.”

But women certainly are way too emotional to serve in combat: “I do have concerns about women in front-line combat, I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission, because of other types of emotions that are involved.”

No, sorry, men are: “When you have men and women together in combat, I think there’s—men have emotions when you see a woman in harm’s way. I think it’s something that’s natural, that’s very much in our culture to be protective, and that was my concern.”

And he’s still learning that you don’t make jokes using Hitler: “I’m still learning that you don’t make jokes using Hitler.”

Any questions, America?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s the December 1995 Philadelphia magazine feature on Pennsylvania’s “new senator,” in which Rick Santorum says, “I was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for congress.” And also, “The Contract [with America] is not supposed to help or hurt Pennsylvania per se.”