I probably know the least about Santorum's politics...any suggestions on a site to get a fairly balanced summary?

Just don't google his name at the office.

Santorum is a hardline social/religious conservative, who acts more like an evangelical Protestant than any Catholic I know. For one thing, he thinks abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape.

Suzi, balanced? Probably not anywhere I read, but wikipedia, believe it or not, is more balanced than most on many political candidates: [link]

Also, I think Santorum is nuts and should be runover by a 18 wheeler. But, he does live out his some of his prolife stuff and his daughter has Trisomy 18 and she has been living longer than expected so she obviously has access to every aspect of insurance that poor people don't, but they are undoubtedly working hard to prolong her life (he left campaigning when she was hospitalized last month).

He and his wife also took a preemie stillborn son who did not survive home to "introuce" to the children before they buried him.

eta Good fucking grief. I have such thinking and spelling issues today. Der.

Pain question: Will a Tylenol with codeine do anything for a serious knotted muscle in my lower back? It's all I have aside from ibuprofen, which has done nothing.

What do you want it to do, Amy? Loosen the knot? No. Stop the pain by shutting down pain receptors in your CNS? Yes! So some relief, but it will be painful tomorrow.

Stop the pain so I can sleep, for now. And, uh, that's good, because I took it already.

It should make a dent, Amy. I took one earlier for my back and it at least distracted me enough so I could relax.

Chocolate

Hubby is annoying me for his lack of interest in politics. He has to keep asking me if Obama is a Democrat or a Republican, and which one is which anyway. "They're all the same, anyway," he says, "and it's not like voting really matters." I try to explain how the nuances play into other things, and he just goes "Eh." It's very frustrating coming from an intelligent man.

Heat, Amy! Choose heat!

Santorum freaks me out...but at this point I can't really see how any of the three left Would be electable, since Romney seems to very much bore people.

Santorum isn't just against abortions (he recently said he wishes we could go back to when abortions were "in the shadows) he's against birth control.

He's opposed to Griswold vs Connecticut which legalized birth control for married couples. Although I think he tried to backtrack a little and said his opposition was about the case in terms of states rights not birth control.

However, I'm pretty sure it is about birth control and his supporters would agree birth control should be illegal, he just tried to back off a little to make himself look less extreme.

askye, you're right, he's also against birth control. He thinks marriage is only about procreation.

It's weird--it's the official position of the Catholic church, but again, I don't know ANY Catholics who actually think that way. At least not in America. And to be fair, most of the Catholics I know are effete elitist urban-dwellers like myself.