Santorum Hopes to Raise Money Off Google Insult

Sex columnist Dan Savage long ago turned Rick Santorum into an R-rated Google joke—the uninitiated can search "Santorum" to see for themselves—and now the GOP candidate is using it as a fundraising tool, reports Politico. "Yes, he may have the right to belittle and degrade us, but that doesn't mean we have to sit by and not fight back," Santorum writes in a letter to supporters. "That is why I need your support today, and your contribution of $25, $50, $100, or $250 to my campaign will help us do just that!" Savage, he adds, "is the reason my children cannot Google their father's name."

Santorum's response comes after Savage appeared on Bill Maher's show and not only joked about santorum/Santorum but wished death on congressional Republicans. Savage has since apologized for the latter comment—"It was a stupid, rude, thoughtless remark"—but not about going after Santorum. "For the record: Rick Santorum is America's leading anti-gay bully," he writes at his blog on the Stranger. Savage, creator of the It Gets Better project, continues to take flak for the wishing-Republicans-dead comment, though: "Sorry Dan, this is nothing more than hate speak—the same sort of stuff we’ve spent plenty of time criticizing many other folks for also using to describe, for starters, gay people," writes Natalie Hope McDonald at Philly Mag. (More Rick Santorum 2012 stories.)