‘What is up with this guy? Why does he go down one stupid rabbit trail after another?” That was Joe Scarborough’s question on Tuesday’s Morning Joe. He and other MSNBC pundits were incredulous about Rick Santorum, who recently called President Obama a “snob” who “wants everybody to go to college.” On the Daily Show the previous night, comedian Jon Stewart was similarly shocked. “You’re against people educating their kids because it’s fancy?” he wondered.
But on the campaign trail, Santorum’s “snob” comment drew cheers from Republican primary voters. “It resonates,” says former Colorado congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave.
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Musgrave, who works for the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, traveled to small Michigan towns this week on a pro-Santorum bus tour. At every stop, she says, Santorum’s pugnacious rhetoric was embraced by Rust Belt conservatives.
“The last I checked, about a third of the people in this country have a college degree,” Musgrave says. Santorum’s remark, she says, connects with voters who are skeptical of Obama’s emphasis on higher education, which is a costly endeavor for many families and unnecessary for many workers.
“[Santorum] recognizes that people want to be valued whether they have a college education or not,” she says. “Just try to imagine your life without your plumber or your mechanic.”
John Brabender, Santorum’s senior adviser, agrees. And he shrugs off the media’s criticism. Brabender has guided Santorum’s political campaigns since 1990. In every race, he says, connecting Santorum’s working-class roots to the broader national narrative was instrumental to victory. Tough words for the president, he says, are part of the strategy.
“The reason people were offended by Obama’s remark is that it’s part of what bothers people about him,” Brabender says. “The president was saying that, okay, he’s already picked your health care and now he’s going to pick your career path.”
When Brabender and Santorum heard Obama heap praise upon the benefits of college, they saw an opening to frame the pro-manufacturing theme of their campaign as a broader critique of the president. In other words, the “snob” versus the blue-collar families that lack “establishment” credentials.
“Our argument is, look, if you want to go to college, that’s a great thing. We should help them and make sure that when they get out of college, they have opportunities,” Brabender says. “But there are people who will have other options. That’s what this country is about — the freedom to do what you think is best for yourself. If college isn’t for you, and you want to go into a trade or into the military, you should be encouraged.”
Santorum echoes that message on the stump. “Not all folks are gifted in the same way,” he told a Michigan crowd this week. “There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them.” He then praised those who work “with their hands.”
Rick Santorum is correct. We waste hundreds of billions and make our children debt slaves by sending kids to college who should be in trade schools. If kids want to go and want to work for it great. These people sneer because Rick Santorum resonates with average Americans.
Santorum will also crush Obama in the Midwest and all the swing states plus all the red states. I would bet that Santorum will also win NE states like NJ in November.
but probably not. You might want to check out some polling information.
If by "average American" you mean that vast pool of D and C students and the madding crowd filled to the brim with those folks of average looks, strength, athletic ability; of average intelligence, mechanical ability and prospects, living in average homes with numbingly average spouses and children, sitting around watching an average amount of television as they try and produce visions of a better America with their average imaginations... that seems like a very harsh indictment of Rick's appeal and a window into a dystopia of truly spooky scope.
The average American is a troubled psychologically repressed over-medicated dolt, an oversold and overfed cog in a company's outdated organizational chart. Mr. Santorum's great failing is that his daily campaign spew is a reflexive trope of average right wing American to try and attract average folks, and thereby his chances have been doomed to wither in a dissapointingly average way after an average shelf-life because the average American has that depressingly average attention span. Dohhhhh!.
Perhaps we really need a candidate who appeals to high achieving, exceptionally able way-above average individuals. The average Americans can then aspire to reach something better with an above-average leader who can drive the process to a better place than we are now. Hey, come to think of it, have the R's got anybody like that? If you think of anybody, let us all know because right now the R's are running on empty because there is NOBODY like that on the R team and it is looking grim for 2012.
Thank you. I am off to daydream about very above-average women and beverages.
If Santo hates college education so much, why did he get one?
I guess like a lot of feudalist Catholics, he would like to go back to the days when (1) education was for a select few and in the hands of the One True Church and (2) most people were peasants and artisans. This is a vision for America that's not going to bring in tons of electoral majorities in the general.
Not everyone is intellectually gifted and well-suited for college. Pretending that they are does nothing but dumb-down the educational system for students who are bright and geared for higher education.
Community colleges prepare students for a wide variety of careers - baking, food services, photography, journalism, programming, nursing, teaching, dental hygiene, hospitality, heavy equipment operation, plumbing, carpentry, etc. I don't think Obama was suggesting that everyone go to the Ivy League universities. I don't think there's anything wrong with the president encouraging the citizenry to become better educated. Sometime partisanship goes a little nuts, Santorum should back off on this one.
I don't think Obama was suggesting that everyone go to Ivy League colleges/universities either... but com'on... surely you don't believe he was talking about trade schools and professional certification programs as run by for-profit schools?
The evidence shows Obama as hostile to private, for-profit institutions offering skills training as opposed to governmental and private non-profit institutions focusing on the liberal arts.
Listen... bottom line... "college for all" is a cop-out on two levels: 1) It assumes that it's acceptable for a K-12 education costing anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 per (non-special-education) student per year to end up producing "the average American adult unqualified to enter the workforce at an entry level," and 2) That it doesn't defeat the purpose of college to lower standards and requirements to such an extent that the average high school graduate could possibly excel.
Surely you see this?
I mean... why not "Olympics for all?"
Listen... a miniscule percentage of people have what it takes to become an Olympic athlete - fewer still a professional athlete.
Those who might be able to hang on at the semi-pro level? A higher percentage. Those who can hack true "competitive" intramural leagues... higher still. But we're still talking few and far between when compared to the average population.
Let's just say that we expect MORE people to have the mental capacity to handle and truly benefit from a college education. What do you suppose that percentage of the population is? 10%? 15%? 20%?
Com'm, Notforcing... you KNOW that Obama no doubt believes that at a bear minimum at least 90% of Americans should be going to and graduating from college!
Now considering that by definition half of the population scores at below median intelligence...
(*SHRUG*)
Trying to smack square pegs into round holes eventually will break the hammer... as well as the peg... as well as the hole.
I agree with you, barker13, that degree granting institutions shouldn't lower standards to swell enrollment. But as FrustratedRepublican points out above, what Obama actually said in the Feb 2009 address was “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship.” Surely neither of us disagrees with that statement, do we? My father was a working class guy who went through a depression, a war, and worked very hard so that his children could have an education, as did many men of that generation. I think that's an ethic that should be encouraged.
Oh please. He doesn't hate college. I'm sure his full view is far more nuanced than a stump speech -- but he already gets grief for trying to explain everything all at once.
His is simply a statement recognizing that not everyone should go to college, which is true. It says, that perhaps this $1 trillion in college loan debt (paging Mark Steyn?) won't be a good idea to double down on. Also true.
It would be difficult to know exactly what number is the right number for college. Does the emphasis on college at HS negatively impact the education of those who do not have the desire or aptitude for college? It does. We already are seeing college course work skew heavily toward women except in those areas of work where the college degree gives you the most bang for your buck. The HS's are failing men in particular in moving them toward trades or providing them the skills to work on their own, but they aren't helping anyone much by the cattle herd mentality.
Based upon my interaction with college aged students and the product the schools put out I think it would be easy to suggest half of the people in college are wasting their time and money; by society forcing them to school for jobs that in reality don't require a college degree but for which businesses use it as a screen, or that they just don't have the aptitude to be there and learn anything of value. Most of the studies coming out now clearly indicate colleges are failing to teach much of anything to a significant part of their populations. College has become a four year vacation between HS and adulthood where there are a few tests and papers inbetween parties and extracurricular activities. Just because Santorum has picked up on the trend doesn't mean he is anti-college. It means he is pro-people. He is also absolutely correct. Uncomfortable for some like Rook to admit - but the truth will set you free.
I recall a presidential candidate in the sixties who had railed against President Kennedy, against "government regulation of our lives," and against "pointy-headed intellectuals." Santorum is the new George Wallace.
I can't believe a well educated commentator, the republican establishment and the President can be so clueless. Obama has created a myth, made it into a utopian goal, and then sold it to the elites. But he forgot that anyone who has raised more than one or two children feels derided by the elitist utopian view of education for sale in DC. Let me make this clear and simple for my college and law school classmates who forgot what common sense and rational thought can do for them: the post secondary education system in the US provides a wonderful place for leisure and recreation, but has little to do with serious scholarly activity. Or more pragmatically, who in their right mind believes than a child in college today is getting their money's worth.
Just as pragmatically: did you get your "money's worth" from your degrees? Try entering the professions without credentials. Did you learn to write your quite able prose entirely in high school? Did you learn to think, read, and write (aka "common sense and rational thought") without formal higher education?
Why can't we be honest about our populous? And why can't we respect all people for their unique abilities?
Not everyone is suited for a college education. Many (like half) have a below-average IQ. Others are gifted in non-academic areas, such as working with their hands, building things, repairing things, etc. Still others simply do not enjoy educational pursuits and would prefer to immediately begin working on a trade or career path when leaving high school.
I personally do not look down on anyone who works hard. There is honor and dignity in honest work, including "trades" such as cosmetology, plumbing, A/C repair, carpentry and more.
One of the downfalls of our educational system is that we attempt to prepare too many kids for college. Instead, many should be directed toward training for a trade of some kind.
The myth that all people should go to college is just that - a myth. The sooner we realize it, the better off we'll be in preparing all of our nation's children for careers that are appropriate to their individual abilities.
I'm a "blue-collar" worker and it offends me that Santourm of all people would try to paint himself as the working man's champion. He's never had a job that required him to work with his hands, unless you count reaching into our wallets to spend our money on stupid pork-barrel projects. Then he constructs this glass house and throws stones at others. I'm not sure why conservatives have latched on to this guy.
FOX NEWS -- Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum thinks parents should withdraw their teenage children from high school and let them "learn a useful trade."
"College isn't America's only hotbed of Satanism," says Santorum in an exclusive interview with FOX's Bill O'Reilly. "High school's no great shakes, either. You've got ruffians in baggy pants selling drugs. Girls in skin-tight miniskirts getting pregnant. And left-wing teachers teaching 'multiculturalism' instead of using three-foot wooden paddles to enforce discipline. It's destroying this country from within."
Santorum warns that President Barack Obama's "sinister tentacles" reach all the way down to the local level.
"My wife and I have home schooled our kids, but we realize that's not for everyone," says Santorum. "Reading, writing, and basic arithmetic are essential skills, even when you plan on spending the rest of your life working down at the lumber yard."
The comments centered around a speech President Obama gave in 2009 in which he said, “I ask every American to commit to one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever that training will be, every American will need more than a high school diploma.”
"It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."
President Obama, February 24, 2009.
I think it's fine to disagree with how President Obama wants to use the Government to assist Americans in attending colleges, but it's not true that he's focused only on four-year colleges.
It's easy to find speeches in which he's talking about helping Americans go to two-year community colleges, obtain vocational training, obtain credentials for certain positions, etc.
Maybe the Feds should have no role in any of this and it's fair to say he talks about college "more" than he does these other options or to say that he's wrong to argue that there's a need for either a high school diploma or for something more than a high school diploma.
But to say that he's unaware that or disagrees with the proposition that many Americans need not, ought not or don't want to go to "college" is to blithely ignore the references to all the other alternatives - references that are contained in the very same speeches in which he's talking about "college".
Bart...you do realize that it's pointless to try to actually reason with these sheeple, right? They're so blinded by the constant lies, halftruths, and just utter and complete BS that passes as Conservative "ideas" that they're incapable of coherent thought. Obama is an elitist snob because he wants kids to go to college? Cheese and rice these people are so full of crap.
We need to view Obama's college-for-everyone idea in the context of his statist aspirations. By and large, colleges these days are union factories producing Leftist voters and, if Obama has his way, public sector "workers". Obama wants to keep the union teachers fat and happy while they create their successors - and all on the dime of the middle class. In addition, the more people that attend college on government loans, the more control the feds can exert over the colleges. It's self-perpetuating, until of course, you run out of other people's money.
I agree that many students should not be pushed or expected to go to college. The sad truth is now the first two years of college are more akin to high school where the college has to teach the basics to high school grads.
There are many people who absolutely hate the thought of further schooling and there are many opportunities for them to succeed without the cost of college thrust upon them. An Art Theory or History degree won't give most graduates holding these expensive sheepskin documents the skills to be successful in life.
The sad truth is Obama wants everyone to go to college, to borrow the money, from him, then he can get many of them to take "social" jobs at very low salaries and skip paying back their tuition. Or even worse, he can excuse the cost of getting that MD degree when he forces the new Doc to work where he puts them. That makes the tax payer the suckers on the hook for that education.
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