KDKA TV just had a story about Santorectum: a local school pays

[AlinPA]

$40,000 per year to educate his kids through a cyber school! They live in VA, but legal residence is PA (Penn Hills). I don't know what the cyber school is, but I know Bob Jones U supplies cyber school for fundamentalists schools in the area.

[dogtag]

1. How on earth did Santorum ever get elected in the

first place? Was he such an obvious nutjob when he ran for office?

[napi21]

3. I don't know, but he's up for re-election in 2006!

He's quite popular in rural Pa., but Pjili, Scranton, and Pgh population far outnumber them. Hopefully, he'll get defeated! Depends on who we run against him.

[lcooksey]

5. Run Hoeffel

He gave Specter a good challenge, and Santorum is far more conservative, so he should be able to do even better against him.

[deadparrot]

2. I heard that here on DU awhile ago.

Pretty sick.

PA DUers, how popular is Santorum? Can he be beaten in 2006?

[AlinPA]

4. Popular in W. PA. Loved in central PA. Not sure about eastern PA.

[Demit]

6. we hate him with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns.

[blue neen]

7. Actually, there are a lot of people in Western PA who absolutely despise

his sorry ass. He's an embarrassment to this state. He is not popular in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh). In the last days of the presidential campaign Santorum was campaigning in...OHIO! The Repug party didn't want him in PA!

If the Dems come up with a good candidate (and I know they are already working on it), he is beatable. Definitely.

[RamboLiberal]

8. Here's the story - in Scaife's rag

Look local paper in Penn Hills broke the stoyr first. Btw, scuttlebutt is Barbara Hafer (former Repub) may be run against him. She does have statewide name recognition. Bet this story pops up in the '06 campaign. Ricky needs to get wise and pay now for his kids own tution. I don't have a source but hear he bragged his kids were better-behaved than the kids who have to attend public school.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_269995.html

The Penn Hills School District has spent more than $100,000 in local tax money on cyber charter school tuition for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's children, though he and his family spend most of the year in Virginia.

Santorum has had at least three of his six children enrolled in a cyber charter school since the 2001-02 school year, district records show. Santorum owns a home in Penn Hills and pays about $2,000 annually in property taxes to the district, but primarily lives in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Herndon, Va.

Five of the senator's children, Elizabeth, 13; Richard, 11; Daniel, 9; Sarah, 6; and Peter, 5, are enrolled at the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, Beaver County.

The children all are registered in the Penn Hills School District, which is required by state law to pay cyber charter tuition costs for all students who live in the district -- about $38,000 this year for Santorum's children, according to district records.

"This is his residence, so I guess this is where he will charge his cyber bills to," said Penn Hills school board member Sara Werner. "I don't know that I totally agree because he could put his children in a Catholic school or other private school."