During a speech this afternoon at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Rick Santorum got “nostalgic” about his victory in Iowa’s 2012 Caucuses and the hours he logged on the road here.
“It is well worth the mileage and the sleep to go to all 99 counties in Iowa and if any one of these other guys wants a travel log, I’d be happy to share it with them,” Santorum said to close his speech.
Santorum began by joking that it was in the same venue as today’s summit that people first took note in 2011 of his penchant for wearing sweater vests. Santorum said it had been a “very wild and crazy Caucus night” for him, the night he was declared the second place finisher before announcement a couple of weeks later that “certfieid” results showed Santorum was the winner.
“You made a good decision and you’re going to have to do that again,” Santorum said. “And this is a serious time.”
After Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, Santorum has been challenging the GOP to recalibrate its message to, for instance, assure non-college educated Americans Republicans understand their economic fears.
“We don’t win because too many people think we don’t care about them,” Santorum said. “We’ve got to show them not just by saying we do not just by having policies and message where they can see it and they can feel it in us.”
AUDIO of Santorum’s speech
Santorum is staying in Iowa, with stops in western Iowa on Sunday and eastern Iowa on Monday. He’ll speak at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association conference in Altoona on Tuesday.