Rendell on Santorum: dropping out is like kicking heroin

    It’s interesting that the day before Rick Santorum decided to drop out of the Republican presidential race, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said one reason Santorum was having a hard time doing it was that campaigning is, well, so damn much fun.

    “When you’re there, the limelight is intoxicating. It’s like heroin. It is,” Rendell told a crowd at the National Constitution Center. “And, (if) you want to play all the way the convention, you can play. As long as you stay active, you can get reporters, and TV shows, etcetera. The day you say `I’m for Governor Romney, I’m out,’ it’s over.”

    Rendell appeared with former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman to talk about politics and the presidential race, and he said Obama had so badly managed his message that he is “perceived to have not been a very successful president.”

    Rendell said Obama’s salvation is that “the Republicans have done everything they could from the time of the straw poll in Iowa last summer to today to screw this up for themselves.”

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    “It’s been a clown show,” Rendell said. “It’s been like that little car coming into the middle ring in the circus and 13 clowns pour out of it.”

    Whitman didn’t exactly disagree on that, but had some interesting things to say about the direction of her own party. You can hear excerpts of their discussion by playing the two audio clips above.

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