So Rick Santorum has finally dropped out of the Republican race for President, leaving the path clear for Mitt Romney to accept the nomination and go up against President Obama in the Fall.

Oh, sure. There’s still candidates left in the race. Ron Paul is vowing to stick in there, and for some reason crazy-assed Newt Gingrich still seems to think there’s some kind of logical reason for him to put up a show of being a candidate. This is a guy whose campaign is bouncing checks in Utah, folks. The proverbial fat lady is screaming in his ear but for some reason he’s refusing to listen.

Wow. I just re-read my last paragraph. You know someone is off his rocker when, compared to folks like Ron Paul I consider him to be the crazy one (and before you start your shit with me, Paul supporters, understand that while I agree with a lot of what he has to say you gotta admit that he’s a bit on the insane side for continually throwing himself into the grinder by trying to get elected on a Republican ticket).

But this post isn’t about Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. This post is about Rick Santorum. Frankly? The dude scared the shit out of me. The thought of living in a country with him as President was enough to make me seriously do some research into what it would take to move to another country. This is not an exaggeration. I looked things up.

Spoiler alert – It’s a real pain in the ass.

But with all of his insane religious viewpoints, his intolerance of homosexuality, his unrealistic view of the Middle East and why exactly some of the otherwise nice folks who live there would like to see us die in a fire, and his general lack of supporting pretty much anything that I hold to be precious as far as politics are concerned….

I’m going to miss him.

Not for the reasons you think, either.

Don’t get me wrong – The guy was comedy gold. Between his viewpoints and the way he acted during the debates I got a ton of material to mutate into entertaining tidbits for my readers. While Romney is no slacker in the comedy potential department himself (I mean…come on…Mormonism? How fun is that?), he doesn’t hold a candle to someone like Santorum. Not only that, but his inability to keep his shit together during a debate would have been priceless to watch next to the calm, level-headed style of President Obama. It would have been great to watch the POTUS rip Santorum apart in the debates, and there’s part of me that would give just about anything to see that happen.

Of course, that part of me gets its ass kicked by the other part of me that says “Shut the hell up, you idiot! That means he could have potentially been the President!”

But, no…I’m not going to miss Santorum for any of that. I am going to miss him because, on some level, I kind of liked him.

Shit…There go all my readers.

Hear me out, folks.

First of all – You have to admire a man who sticks to his convictions, especially these days. I vehemently disagree with just about everything that Santorum stands for, but I impressed by the fact that he doesn’t sugar coat what he considers to be his core beliefs in order to sway voter opinion. On many issues there could be no doubt as to what Santorum believed in. It’s the same thing I like about Ron Paul. Even when I don’t agree with these guys, I have no question about the fact that they are firm in their convictions. Romney? I don’t believe he’s firm on anything other than wanting to be the President. Hell, I can’t even say I believe that the guy I’m going to vote for is all that consistent. Santorum, though? You know where the guy stands.

It just so happens that I believe he’s standing the middle of a giant cesspool.

Beyond that, though? I admire Santorum because it’s very clear that he is dedicated to his family. His recent decision to pull out of the race is just one sign of that. Yeah, I’m sure that a large part of the decision was based on the fact that he knew there was no way in hell he was going to win and he wanted to get out while he still looked relatively good so that he could try again in four years. I get that. But the decision also came on the heels of his daughter having a pretty rough weekend, health-wise. From what I can tell, the well-being of his family played a pretty big role in his decision to initially enter the race and, ultimately, to pull out of it.

As a family man, and someone who understands the sacrifices that you have to make in order to do what is best for your family, I admire the hell out of that.

Still…None of this changes the fact that I think that Santorum would have been an absolute train wreck of a President. Not that I think he would have stood a snowballs chance in hell next to President Obama to begin with. Hell,  I kind of wish that he’d gotten the nod simply because had he done so I wouldn’t have had to worry about whether or not the President would have been re-elected.

I hardly think this will be the last time we hear from Mr. Santorum, though. He’s still young, and right-wing religious conservatism in this country is currently in the death throes. That means that people like him are going to become more prominent as the old guard fight tooth and claw to permanently entrench their archaic, ignorant, and downright barbaric world views on those of us who actually have the ability to think for ourselves. I don’t see that ending in the next four years, so I’m sure we’ll see Rick up there again…and he’ll probably be even nuttier the next time around.

But for now let us sing a song. Ding-Dong, the Rick is dead. As I sit here on my back porch enjoying the lovely Florida weather, I am thankful that in August it will not be Mr. Santorum up on the stage here in Tampa accepting the nomination. Still, I raise my lukewarm coffee in a silent toast to men of conviction like Santorum. I can only hope we see more candidates like him (of all political stripes) in the years to come.

For I, my friends, am pretty freakin’ sick of not believing a god damned word that any of these people say.