Same phenomenon with Tim Pawlenty.  The Conservative Taliban Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) is virtually 100% extremist, hateful lunatics, but because the extremism is mostly also accompanied by a vicious streak of complete, sneering, ugly rhetoric of dehumanization of Liberals (and perceived Liberals who are actually quite moderate or even Corporatist) as well as centrists, as well as non ditto-head Republicans, anyone who acts nice-ish toward the majority of Americans (i.e. the 81% who are not Dick Cheney devotees) is labelled a "moderate" by the MSM.  "Oh, Rick Santorum probably couldn't win because he takes tough stances on the issues, so Republicans might look to gentler, more nuanced voices like Pawlenty or Huckabee."  The rhetoric might be 10% "gentler", but neither of these people have done 5 things in their entire legislative careers that haven't toed the line of absolute Conservate authoritarianism.