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Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has been doggedly traveling the state for months, inviting Iowans to make an “in person evaluation” of his candidacy.

“Iowa has a special obligation this time around because was it not for Iowa, we wouldn’t have the president we have today,” Santorum often tells audiences, “so you gave us Barack Obama, now it is you opportunity provide the antidote to Barack Obama.”

During a recent appearance in Des Moines, a Principal Financial employee praised Santorum for his “diligence” in visiting all 99 Iowa counties.

“I applaud that,” the man told Santorum and the candidate replied that his travels had been “a lot of fun.”

The man shot back: “Depending on the county. Just kidding. I’m not running and I can say that.”

The audience started laughing and Santorum replied: “Some of the counties, you think, ‘Why would you want (to go there)?’, have been some of the more interesting places to go.”

Santorum recounted his visit to Kay’s Kafe in Corning for a meeting with five potential caucus-goers. In the middle of the conversation, a Time magazine reporter who is the author of the book “Primary Colors” walked into the room.

“That’s just Iowa. I mean, you can be in this little town in the middle of nowhere in the eyes of the world and, you know, it’s where things are happening,” Santorum said. “It’s where America is making their decision, right here, starting here.”

Santorum is the only candidate in the race to have the endorsement of a statewide elected official. First-term Secretary of State Matt Schultz, a former Council Bluffs city councilman, backed Mitt Romney four years ago.

Just last week Santorum got a personal endorsement from Bob Vander Plaats, the three-time Republican candidate for governor in Iowa

“He has been a stalwart and a soldier for the sanctity of human life and God’s design for the family in one-man, one-woman marriage,” Vander Plaats said during a news conference.

According to Vander Plaats, Santorum could be the “Huckabee” of 2012. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was the winner of Iowa’s 2008 Caucuses.

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Bob Dole, the winner of Iowa’s Caucuses in 1988 and 1996, published an open letter to Iowans in The Des Moines Sunday Register – his endorsement of Mitt Romney. Dole called Romney the party’s “best hope” and “the kind of man” Iowans should support.

Friday, in Sioux City, Romney made his own pitch.

“I need your help at the Caucus,” Romney said. “I need you guys to get there. I’d love to have your support.”

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board also endorsed Romney this weekend.

Three candidates banking on a better-than-expected finish in the Caucuses spent the weekend campaigning in the state. Rick Santorum made his closing pitch to more than 50 people in Atlantic Sunday night.

“I’m talking two weeks — two weeks to get engaged as a citizen to change the future of your country. In my opinion, you have an obligation to do that,” Santorum said. “Even if you go out and you’re not for me, fine. Go do it for somebody else, but do it.”

Rick Perry visited nine cities around the state this weekend, including a Sunday night stop in Decorah.

“If you will have my back on the 3rd of January when you go to Caucus, I will have your back in Washington, D.C. for the next four years,” Perry said.

Michele Bachmann visited 20 Iowa cities on Saturday and Sunday.

“I need your support,” Bachmann told a Sunday night crowd in Mason City. “Come out on January 3 and we’re going to win this thing and we’re going to send a shock wave around the world.”

Newt Gingrich spent the weekend in Washington, D.C., but Gingrich held a Saturday morning conference call with Iowans to address his critics.

“I feel badly about having to have this kind of a phone call, just to dispel negative things,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich said he’d hold more conference calls with supporters and potential supporters in the days ahead so they can hear his voice directly responding to attacks on his record.

Reporting in Sioux City by Woody Gottburg of KSCJ; in Atlantic by Ric Hanson of KJAN; in Decorah by Darin Svenson of KDEC; in Mason City by Bob Fisher of KLSS/KRIB

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One December debate down, another to go this coming Thursday as the days dwindle in the Iowa Caucus campaign.

Saturday’s debate in Des Moines was broadcast nationwide on A-B-C. There was talk of betting, cheating and even a new nickname emerged. “Michele Bach is the proven conservative,” Bachmann said. “It’s not Newt Romney.”

Gingrich responded sharply: “Michele, you know, a lot of what you say just isn’t true, period.”

Rick Perry, who standing next to Romney, aimed at both Gingrich and Romney. “The record is very clear,” Perry said. “You and Newt were for individual mandates and that is the problem.”

Romney responded. “Speaker Gingrich said he was for a federal individual mandate,” Romney said. “What we did in our state was designed by the people in our state for the needs in our state.”

Ron Paul offered this observation of that give-and-take. “I think what we’ve had here is a demonstration of, ‘Why should we have a candidate who is going to have to explain themselves?’” Paul said.

Rick Santorum agreed with Bachmann’s rap on “Newt Romney.” “You know I think Michele has been…a consistent conservative, but she’s been fighting and losing,” Santorum said. “I fought and won. I was in the United States Senate and I fought and passed welfare reform.”

Perry was the only candidate to suggest Gingrich’s two divorces and three marriages might be a disqualifier. Perry said someone who cheats on their spouse might cheat on anybody. Gingrich’s daughter, Jackie Cushman, spoke with Radio Iowa a few hours before the debate to debunk the rumor that her father had served divorce papers on her mother when her mother was on her death bed. Cushman said her 75-year-old mother is alive and well.

“This urban myth that is very untrue had spread so far that people not only believed it, but actually believed that — I guess if my mother was on her death bed she would have been dead — and I really felt that we needed to set the record straight,” Cushman said.

Read and hear more about Cushman’s conversation with Radio Iowa.

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This weekend marked the departure of one candidate and confirmed the resurgence of another. The latest Des Moines Register Iowa shows Newt Gingrich is now the leading choice of likely Iowa Caucus-goers. During an interview with Radio Iowa last Thursday, Gingrich offered this explanation: “It’s the intersection of the debates and the times. This is a time when people are really worried and they’re really paying attention and the debates have helped them to see the candidates without editing.”

Gingrich was at 25 percent in the Register’s Iowa Poll followed by Ron Paul at 18 percent and Mitt Romney at 16 percent. Paul and others have started hammering Gingrich on a variety of fronts, including his past support of a health insurance mandate.

“Virtually every conservative was for it in 1993 to stop Hillary (Clinton) and gradually people reached a conclusion that it wasn’t workable and it was a bad idea,” Gingrich told Radio Iowa. “I don’t mind saying there are things I’ve learned over the last 53 years that I have changed my mind on.”

Sixty percent of the Iowans surveyed for the Register’s Iowa Poll said they were willing to change their minds and support another candidate on Caucus Night. The survey was taken before Herman Cain’s exit from the race on Saturday. Steve Grubbs was Cain’s Iowa campaign chairman.

“I guess I can’t say it was a surprise. My counsel would have been to stay the course and see it through,” Grubbs said Saturday during an interview with Radio Iowa. “Obviously he thought a different way.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be making his way to Iowa this week to campaign for Mitt Romney. On Saturday, a nationally-televised candidate debate will be staged at Drake University in Des Moines.

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talked with employees of a Des Moines insurance company this past week. His trip came amid the chatter about an attack ad Romney ran against President Obama.

Obama is quoted in the ad saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

Obama made that statement in 2008, quoting something John McCain had said. Democrats cried foul. An unapologetic Romney put it another way.

“What’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander,” Romney said during a news conference in Des Moines.

According to the polls, many Iowans are taking a gander at Newt Gingrich, but if an Iowan were trying to call Gingrich campaign headquarters, they’d be out of luck.

“I’m sorry,” the directory assistance operator said on Sunday. “I don’t have anything in Des Moines for ‘Gingrich for President’…nothing at all in the Des Moines area.”

Gingrich has just started to build a campaign organization here with just 36 days to go until Caucus Night. Michele Bachmann issued a statement this weekend calling Gingrich “the most liberal GOP candidate” on the issue of immigration reform. Gingrich has proposed creating local boards that would decide if illegal immigrants who’ve been in the U.S. for years could be granted some sort of legal status. Bachmann calls that “amnesty.”

“There’s a real distinction between the candidates on this issue,” Bachmann said Saturday. “And that’s an issue that I think people are very interested in.”

Bachmann made stops Friday, Saturday and Sunday at eight different bookstores in Iowa. As she signed copies of her new book, Bachmann made another sales pitch. “Be sure you come out to the Caucuses on January 3. That’s going to make such a huge difference,” Bachmann told the first person waiting in line at a West Des Moines bookstore for Bachmann’s autograph. “I need your support.”

Jean Smith of West Des Moines was among those who got the author’s signature on Bachmann’s book this past Saturday. “She’s a good Christian and I think she’ll bring that into the White House with her,” Smith said, “and we need that badly.”