There's something about Rick Santorum that's (when he's not campaigning) kind of goofily likable, in an "aw-shucks," Disney prince, high-school-boyfriend-who-wrote-you-love-poems-that-were-thinly-veiled-Fallout-Boy-lyrics sort of way. First, we discover that he's a secret fan of magazine tabloids when he gets caught snapping a photo of Lindsay Lohan at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (I know, I know, he says it didn't happen, but tell that to the Rick Santorum character in the 600-page erotic fan fiction I'm working on now). Then, we learn from NBC's Andrew Rafferty that when Santorum was campaigning, his budget was so tight that the one requirement he had for hotels was that they offer a complimentary breakfast. A man after my own heart. (Not to mention Ron Swanson's.)
In addition to revealing Santorum's predilection for microwaved scrambled eggs and sausage links that taste like the inside of a metal cannister, Rafferty's piece addresses just how little money the Santorum campaign actually had. In 2011, the campaign brought in a little over $2 million, the least amount of any GOP candidate; staffers and volunteers also didn't have any headquarters until the later stages of the campaign, and they often shared hotel rooms and traveled by rented RV instead of flying from state to state. The money was so scarce that Santorum often quipped, Groucho Marx-style, that saying his campaign was on a shoestring budget would be "an insult to shoestrings." (He makes jokes too! My heart = melting.)
After Santorum dropped out of the race on April 10th, his campaign is now mired in debt. Although he's hinted that he'd one day like to run for office again, I would like to take a moment to suggest an alternative career path for Rick Santorum, and that is a starring role on the upcoming seventeenth season of The Bachelor. Never mind that he's married with seven kids. (I mean, come on, it's not like Brad Womack was perfect, either, am I right?) Politics aside, Santorum's the ultimate catch: an avid reader of news publications with a good sense of humor, finely tuned business acumen, and a passion for free breakfast meats. Where do I sign up?