Doggy Style

Via CapitalBuzz comes this insight into how "Pennsylvania Nuts" Ricky Santorum found a way to extract a cool quarter-mill in donations by going to Florida to show just how very, very much he exploited cared about Terry Schiavo.

On Wednesday March 30 Santorum said on national TV, "We canceled it on Monday."

Why? According to the Tampa Tribune, "out of respect" for Schiavo's family.

A spokesperson for the event said, "We just didn't think it was appropriate to go into the region and do a big policy event at this time."

Apparently, though, it was appropriate for a politician seeking re-election to go into the region and do political events at this time. Even if he didn't talk about them.

Santorum told MSNBC-TV, according to the March 30 "Hardball" transcript, he was in Florida because, "I had other plans to - and other meetings." (Schiavo died March 31.) What he didn't say was the plans and "meetings" were fund-raisers for his '06 re-election effort.

There was a luncheon in Orlando and a dinner in Miami on March 29 with Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a luncheon in Tampa March 30 hosted by Outback Steakhouse, which is headquartered there, and a dinner that night in Palm Beach hosted by execs from Revlon.

The trip was made on a Wal-Mart jet paid for by Santorum's campaign fund.

Total take, according to Santorum finance director Rob Bickhart, was about $250,000 (en route to an April 15 FEC filing expected to show the senator with close to $3 million already).

So he's against humping a dog, but not against humping the severely brain-damaged?