Rick Santorum: Rand Paul’s “Not My Leader,” GOP not a “Libertarian Party”

Via Andrew Kirell of Mediaite comes
this snippet from Crossfire featuring former Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-Pa.) and former Gov. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio).

Van Jones asks Santorum about the current GOP frontrunner for
the 2016 presidential nod, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Apoplexy ensues.
The “Republican Party is not a libertarian party” says
Santorum.

 “Do you agree with his ideas, are you going to support
Rand Paul?”

“There’s diversity in the Republican Party,” Santorum hesitated,
but Jones pressed further: “Is he the new face of the Republican
Party? Is this your leader?”

“Well, no, he’s not my leader, I can tell you
that for sure,” the former senator scoffed. “His father and I had
some disagreements during the last campaign.”

Jones then asked him outright: “If a libertarian like him
becomes the leader of the Republican Party — gets the nomination —
would you vote for them?”

“First off, I don’t think that will happen,” Santorum asserted,
“because the Republican Party is not a libertarian party, it is a
conservative party. And it will nominate a conservative, and not a
libertarian.”

Then just to drive home the difference between brand-ecch
libertarians and conservatives, Santorum calls for increasing the
minimum wage by a buck and tells Strickland (a total bum as
governor the Buckeye State) that Obama’s request to bump it more
than that is a bad idea.

Whole bit.

Wayback Machine: A year ago, Santorum
was bitching and moaning about Rand Paul and the
libertarians.