Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he and six other congressmen should get more credit than Newt Gingrich for Republican victories in 1994. Santorum — a former Pennsylvania congressman — and former Iowa Congressman Jim Nussle were part of that group.
“If you go back in 1994 the real issue was corruption in Washington and the real reason for that was because Rick Santorum and Jim Nussle and several others stood up and exposed the rampant corruption going on in congress,” Santorum said in Sioux City today. “And that was more of the reason for the 1994 election win for Republicans than anything else.”
You may remember the dramatic House speech Nussle gave that year, wearing a paper bag, to call for the unmasking of congressmen who had bounced checks at the House Bank. Gingrich was the chief author of the 1994 “Contract with America” — outlining a series of actions Republicans would take if they won the U.S. House.
“The Contract with America gets all the praise, but candidly the Contract with America didn’t even exist until about eight weeks before the election,” Santorum said. “That movement for ’94 was well underway before that.”
And Santorum today openly questioned what was really accomplished after Gingrich took over as House Speaker.
“Unfortunately Republicans, you know, got in and weren’t able to make the kind of big changes (outlined in the Contract with America) other than the one I was involved with which is welfare reform,” Santorum said. “…Other than that, we didn’t take the ball very far down the field.”
Gingrich is the leader in the most recent Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, with 25 percent support. Santorum garnered about six percent support in the poll. Santorum argues the 250 town hall meetings and his visits to all 99 Iowa counties will pay off with a Santorum surprise on Caucus Night.
Listen to the AUDIO of Santorum’s 12-minute news conference in Sioux City, courtesy of KSCJ Radio’s Woody Gottburg.