Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum encouraged viewers to Google him in Thursday’s undercard Republican presidential debate, an unfortunate choice of words that reminded many of his search engine woes fueled by sex columnist Dan Savage.
“Go and Google Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton you’ll see a five-minute debate. I’ll let you decide who won the debate,” he said during his closing statement. “I’ll tell you who won, I know I’m out of time, I’m going to take some of Rand Paul’s time here for a second.”
The prompt recalled sex columnist Dan Savage’s retribution campaign against Santorum for his anti-gay remarks, when Savage asked readers to come up with an alternate definition for “santorum.” A highly NSFW entry rose to the top and has for years plagued top search engine results for Santorum’s name across sites.
Plenty of debate watchers were quick to point out that you should Google “santorum” at your own peril:
People who should never say “Google me” -Rick Santorum, and well, me. ?
— Sydney Leathers (@sydneyelainexo) January 15, 2016
“Hi, I’m Rick Santorum. Please don’t Google me.”
— Andrew Katz (@katz) September 16, 2015
“Go and Google Rick Santorum” — nooooooooooooo
— Brett LoGiurato (@BrettLoGiurato) January 14, 2016
DO NOT GOOGLE SANTORUM
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) January 14, 2016
Hi I’m Rick Santorum. I don’t need to introduce myself. Just google me. Just make sure your kids aren’t in the room.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaIdTromp) September 16, 2015
Not sure if it would have been worse if he’d said, “Duck me.”
Oh, well.
Ricky, just remember this: We’ll always have Iowa.
2012, that is.
Seriously? Did someone drop Ricky on his head when he was a baby?
This guy needs another Google self-reference like he needs another hole in his head…
The tale of the froth continues. Please proceed, Santorum.
Damn! Even Trump took a shot…and he has a debate to prepare for.
Galaxy-level political incompetence.
Here’s a question: who the hell bankrolls this idiot, every four years? Who would be that stupid or have that much money to burn?