Hard Road Ahead for Man-on-dog Santorum

While it's still more than a year away and far too early to get your hopes up too far, The Hill has a report out this week which shows that early polling in Pennsylvania has Democratic Senate hopeful and state treasurer Bob Casey opening up a 14 point lead over Rick Santorum.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is losing ground to his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Bob Casey, a GOP poll to be released today shows.

The Strategic Vision survey, conducted Saturday through Monday, gives Casey a 14-point lead over the second-term senator, with the Democrat at 52 percent and the Republican at 38 percent. Seven percent of the 1,200 likely voters interviewed were undecided.

A poll released in early August by the same firm showed Casey leading Santorum by 11 points.

I saw Santorum when he appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a while back. At first, I couldn't believe that he would even have the nerve to show up on a show which has buttered its bread by skewering Santorum's right wingnut antics, but it turned out that he was there to promote a book he'd written on right wing values. It appears that the book, combined with sticking his foot in his mouth repeatedly of late, have shot him in the other foot.

As more people have heard about SantorumÂ’s book, It Takes a Family, and as the senator has come under attack for comments he made about Hurricane Katrina, a negative impression has begun to congeal, Strategic Vision CEO David Johnson said.

I can't identify exactly why, but using the word "congeal" when talking about Rick Santorum is just so... right.