Some of these are a bit tongue in cheek, reflecting what he does in his "nice" way to his opponents - a bit of holier than thou and rather disingenuous (i.e. not truthful, with suspicious intent). Some of these are 'tongue in cheek', as they are manipulating of information, fairly often.
BOTTOMLINE:
Individual mandate flip
Government spending flip
Earmark flip
Medicare Part D flip
Support of faith based charities
Pro-life flip
Not a Reagan Republican flip
Impartial on unions flip
Right to work flip
Social Security retirement age
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INDIVIDUAL MANDATE
He advocated the individual mandate as a conservative way to deal with health care.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING FLIP
He was a profligate spender, introducing 51 spending bills in one year, with no spending cuts.
EARMARKS
He supported costly federal programs in education and transportation and frequently used earmarks to fund Pennsylvania projects.
Though he once defended earmarks as a way to get federal money for needed state projects, he now opposes earmarks,[6] entitlements and big government programs.[5]
MEDICARE PART D
He now disavows his 2003 support for the unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit.
SUPPORT OF FAITH BASED CHARITIES
Despite making millions of dollars from using his Washington insider experiences (i.e. stealth lobbying), he contributes only 2.2% to charitable causes.
UNION DUES REQUIREMENT, VOTED AGAINST RIGHT TO WORK
I believe the state has the right. If they want a union dues requirement, that the state should be able to do that. As a president, I have a very different point of view. I have already signed a letter and sent it to the national right to work that I would sign a national right to work bill because now, I’m no longer representing that state.
PRO-LIFE STANCE
He says he is pro-life; yet opponents have labelled him a counterfeit conservative[126] pointing to his votes that continued the federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Now he says he does not support it.
1990 cast himself as a progressive conservative who did not have a firm position on abortion.
Called a "pro-choice Republican."
In a separate interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Santorum said he evolved into a more hardened pro-lifer once he gave the issue more thought. [And he blames Romney for doing the same thing. It's ok to form an opinion over time, isn't it!]
"That's where I am and where I've got to be," he said. "I can't give you an exact date when I arrived at a position. So it was a gradual evolution, I guess."
NOT A REAGAN REPUBLICAN
1990: this candidate promised not to be a Reagan Republican. "Progressive conservative"
(Yet, he criticizes Romney for saying he "didn't want to return to Reagan-Bush", whatever that means, said early on, long before he was actually in politics, other than a brief absence from business to run for the Senate against Ted Kennedy, who Romney, understandably, lost to.)
IMPARTIAL ON UNIONS
1990, said he was "impartial on unions"
Santorum sided with Democrats to block cuts to federally-funded food stamps programs and to raise the minimum wage.
SOCIAL SECURITY RETIREMENT AGE
More to come...
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CONTROVERSIAL, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION VULNERABILITIES
Santorum has stated that he does not believe a "right to privacy" is part of the Constitution.
"Santorum's Google problem
In an interview with the Associated Press (AP) taped on April 7, 2003,[1] and published April 20, 2003, Santorum stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. Santorum described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states' ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behavior, such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.
he did not have a problem with homosexuals, but "a problem with homosexual acts"
the right to privacy "doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution"
sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts which "undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family"
"I can't deny that I said it, and I can't deny that's how I feel."[
At another event, Santorum suggested that children would better off having a father in prison than being raised by lesbian parents.[
Vulnerability here: sharp criticism from Howard Dean that "gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral"
