AUDIO
It could be a photo finish in tonight’s Iowa Caucuses, with three candidates in an apparent sprint to the finish line and the prize of that top-tier status. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll conducted last week indicated Rick Santorum was making an 11th-hour charge into the top tier with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul — ahead of the trailing Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. Santorum stopped at a coffee shop in Polk City yesterday and responded to a recent Romney charge that Santorum’s made politics a career.
“I know one of my opponents who’s now directed his attention to me, surprisingly, has said that he has executive experience,” Santorum said. “We are not looking for a chief executive officer for this country. We’re looking for a commander-in-chief.”
Romney, meanwhile, kept stressing his CEO credentials.
“You see, when it comes to jobs in the private sector I think it helps to have had one if you plan on creating some,” Romney said, to cheers from an eastern Iowa audience, “and I have.”
Ron Paul suggested during a Des Moines rally that all the other competitors in the GOP race are “status quo” candidates.
“Spending never ceases. One administration to the next it’s always spending increases. Even today when they talk about cuts, you know they’re not talking about cuts,” Paul said. “They’re talking about tinkering around the edges and nibbling away at the proposed increases.”
Rick Perry told a crowd in Sioux City that some of Paul’s views are “dangerous”.
“When Ron Paul is further to the left on foreign policy than Barack Obama, that ought to tell you something,” Perry said.
The candidates can get in almost a full day of campaigning yet before the Caucuses start tonight at 7 p.m. Read and hear more online at RadioIowa.com, including a story about the latest prediction of Caucus turn-out.
Additional reporting in Sioux City by Woody Gottburg of KSCJ Radio