Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum lost his last campaign in Pennsylvania, but he’s been touting his four victories before that as he campaigns in Iowa. Santorum served two terms in the U.S. House before winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1994 and getting reelected to a second term in 2000.
“If you’re looking for someone who has a track record of winning the states that we need to win in order to win the presidency, it isn’t anybody else in this field,” Santorum said Wednesday in West Burlington. “We’ve been able to do that by what — by pandering, by being a moderate? No.”
Santorum’s first victory came against a Democrat who had served seven terms in the U.S. House and he beat an incumbent Democrat to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Santorum spoke to about 60 people in West Burlington and touted his ideas for boosting U.S. manufacturing by eliminating the corporate tax on companies that make things. He also promised to roll back regulations enacted since Democrat Barack Obama became president.
“It is an administration, a presidency that is crushing businesses,” Santorum said.
Santorum received the personal endorsement of two conservative activists in Iowa this week. Bob Vander Plaats and Chuck Hurley of The Family Leader called Santorum a “soldier” in the culture war. Santorum told a CNN reporter yesterday that Vander Plaats had indicated he would “need money” to publicize the endorsement. Vander Plaats, during an appearance on CNN, said he had not directly asked candidates for money. Earlier this week Vander Plaats told The Des Moines Register he was hoping to get enough money together to record a commercial that would tout his personal endorsement of Santorum.
(Reporting in Burlington by Michael Cation of KBUR Radio)