Former Senator Rich Santorum is headed to Iowa later this week for a trip that could be a prelude to a 2012 bid for the White House.
Santorum, a Republican, represented Pennsylvania in congress for 16 years before losing his reelection bid in 2006. Without that office to tie him down in Washington, D.C., Santorum says he now has the “beauty” of a conservative congressional record and the freedom to travel the country to tout it.
“I’ve got a pretty good record of tapping into the concerns of the American public, articulating those in Washington, D.C….and effectively following through and passing legislation or exposing corruption that has made a difference, so I think the record of doing is pretty much there,” Santorum said during a telephone conference call. “And so now it’s a question of whether this is something that I can use as a platform to go out and speak into the problems that confront America today.”
Santorum spoke with reporters this morning by telephone and downplayed expectations about a “Santorum for president” campaign.
“I have no plans and just the opposite,” Santorum said. “It’s not that I’m not going to plan, but this is an opportunity to speak and lend my voice to what I hope to be a conservative movement and a Republican moment to change the direction that Barack Obama wants to take us.”
According to Santorum, Republicans haven’t been that “articulate” in stating their opposition to President Obama’s policies. “He surprised me in the boldness of his attempts to move this country, jerk this country,” Santorum said this morning.
Santorum argues Republican “policymakers” like himself have to step forward now and take the baton from talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
“I think talk radio has done a great job and I’m not being critical, but, you know, look, part of talk radio is entertainment and hyperbole — you know, keeping an audience and while, you know, it serves a very important and useful purpose, you know we also need policymakers to go out there and be a little less shrill and a bit more pointed as to the criticisms and the antidotes to the problems that confront America,” Santorum said this morning. “And that combination is something that we just need to be a little better at.”
Santorum will speak Thursday morning in Des Moines at an Iowa Right-to-Life gathering Thursday evening Santorum will deliver a speech in Dubuque at an event organized by the American Future Fund.
Click on the audio files here to listen to Santorum’s conference call with reporters. Santorum Part 1 features questions from Iowa reporters. Santorum Part 2 features questions from out-of-state reporters (primarily from Pennsylvania).