At the Webby Awards in the Hammerstein Ballroom last night, sex-advice columnist Dan Savage received the Special Achievement Award for the It Gets Better Project, a series of video testimonials reassuring gay youths that they will one day be accepted for who they are. But Savage, wearing a T-shirt reading “Google Santorum,” was also publicizing his other Internet claim to fame. While those now-infamous search results may be an ongoing headache for presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Savage told us, “I don’t spend a lot of energy on Rick Santorum. I don’t think of him as often as he thinks of me. I think he thinks of me anytime he signs a check or has to write his name or sees his name on a bumper sticker.”
When we told him about the nascent campaign to fix Santorum’s search results, Savage said, “We’ll just have to redouble our Google bombing efforts.” But he doesn’t plan to use the successful tactic against any other Republican presidential candidates. “You can’t make lightning strike twice,” he said. “And Santorum’s such a great word. It’s actually a word we needed.”
As for what would happen if he ever meets Santorum, Savage says he “used to want to get my picture with him, but now I’m afraid he’ll try to do a Chris Christie-style beatdown to show what a man he is. I won’t go within 100 yards of him.” He added, “I don’t want Santorum in my sheets, I don’t want Santorum in my face.”
