(Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Paul Ryan could learn a lesson from Rick Santorum. In April, then presidential candidate Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and lifelong Steelers fan, made a campaign trip to Wisconsin. Despite the pressure from Wisconsinites and members of the media, he refused to don the famous cheesehead, the cap of Green Bay Packers fans.
"I am not going to put this on," Santorum said when he was handed the yellow foam hat in Appleton. "I am a Steelers fan."
Fast forward to this past Tuesday. While campaigning for vice president in Pennsylvania, Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman and lifelong Packers fan, waved over his head a yellow Terrible Towel, the symbol of the Steelers and city of Pittsburgh. The crowd in Carnegie loved it. Wisconsinites, though, were not so thrilled.
Now, even though the Packers and the Steelers are in different conferences, the Wisconsin Democratic Party took the opportunity to slam Ryan for embracing the Towel.
"Packers fans don't wave 'Terrible Towels' any more than they'd get a tattoo of Mike Ditka or blow that annoying Vikings trumpet thing," said Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "Paul Ryan can call himself a fan of ending Medicare, but it doesn't look like he can call himself a Packers fan after this shameful episode."
The state party even immortalized the moment in a GIF that's making the rounds on Packers fan sites:
