“The idea that a national poll has any relationship to the viability of a candidate—ask Rudy Giuliani that. Ask Phil Gramm that. You can go on down the list of folks who were doing real well in national polls and didn’t win a single state and were not a viable candidate.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by National Journal.
“Now these fathers leave the home and not just father children with that particular women, they father a child with another women, and another and another. We have created predators, sexual predators.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by BuzzFeed.
Rick Santorum told Fox News that he will announce whether he will run for president in 2016 on May 27 in Butler, Pennsylvania where he grew up.
Said Santorum: “It was a great campaign last time. We were clearly the underdog and we are starting out as looking at this race and we would be in the same position and so we are very comfortable there.”
First Read: “Santorum clearly doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed only as a social conservative this time around. He’s been spending more time talking up his blue-collar economic populism and foreign policy hawkishness than on cultivating the culture warrior-image that he was originally known for. But it was still mostly his values-voters pitch that helped him break through in Iowa in 2012, and that lane has gotten significantly more crowded this cycle.”
Rick Santorum “has set up a testing the waters account in anticipation of a possible 2016 presidential bid,” CBS News reports.
“The account allows Santorum, a Republican who ran for president in 2012, to raise and spend money under the same caps governing an actual campaign committee ($2,700 for individual donors, and $5,000 for couples.) Unlike a campaign committee, though, a testing the waters account does not have to disclose its finances.”
“I could spend an entire speech talking about how this president has ignored evil, has misinterpreted evil, has maybe even intentionally turned his back to evil and allowed it to prosper around the world.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by The Hill.
“Would be 2016 presidential hopefuls including Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal seized on President Obama’s comparison of Islamic extremism to the Christian Crusades and other violent excesses during Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, decrying the comments as ‘inappropriate’ and ‘insulting to every person of faith,'” CNN reports.
Said Jindal: “We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today. The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today.”
Said Santorum: “Today’s remarks by the President were inappropriate and his choice of venue was insulting to every person of faith at a time when Christians are being crucified, beheaded, and persecuted across the Middle East.”
Rick Santorum is baffled by recent remarks by Pope Francis suggesting that faithful Catholics need not “procreate like rabbits,” TPM reports.
Said Santorum: “Sometimes very difficult to listen to the Pope and some of the things he says off the cuff, and this is one of them. When he speaks as the leader of the Catholic Church, I’ll certainly pay attention. But when he speaks in interviews, he’s giving his own opinions, which I certainly will listen to, but from my perspective, that doesn’t reflect the idea that people shouldn’t be fruitful and multiply, and that people should be open to life as something that is a core value of the faith and of the Catholic Church.”
He added: “I don’t know what the Pope was referring to here.”
Rick Santorum told NBC News that he regretted that his 2012 presidential campaign in 2012 was largely defined by his anti-abortion stances and statements regarding contraception and other “crazy stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”
He blamed himself for opening his mouth and saying “dumb things.”
“Rick Santorum, who famously rocked a sweater vest during the 2012 presidential race, might try a new look if he runs again in 2016,” a Santorum source told Fox News.
“The source said the former Pennsylvania Republican senator has been getting some fashion tips for a potential 2016 run from one of his daughters with a keen fashion sense – and he may end up shedding his classic campaign attire.”
Rick Santorum dismissed possible 2016 primary competitors Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as “bomb throwers” with few achievements, the New York Times reports.
Said Santorum: “Do we really want someone with this little experience? And the only experience they have basically — not Rubio, but Cruz and Paul because I don’t think Rubio is going to go — is bomb throwing? Do we really want somebody who’s a bomb thrower, with no track record of any accomplishments?”
Rick Santorum has invited former aides to Washington next week for a “private briefing” on his plans for a possible 2016 presidential bid, CNN reports.
The invitation was sent by a Santorum aide to more than two dozen “friends and former colleagues” from past campaigns and his time in the U.S. House and Senate.
The Washington Post says Rick Santorum is running for president again, even though he’s rarely mentioned with the other contenders.
Said Santorum: “America loves an underdog. We’re definitely the underdog in this race.”
“Where he had to build his operation from the ground up in 2012, Santorum now has a grass-roots operation called Patriot Voices, which boasts 150,000 activists across the country… Whether Santorum can raise the money he needs is another question. Foster Friess, the benefactor who ponied up $2.1 million to a pro-Santorum super PAC in 2012, says he would support him again. The former senator is sounding out other deep-pocketed donors, whom he declined to identify. He is retooling his message, hoping to appeal beyond his socially conservative base and reach blue-collar voters who are being left behind in the economy.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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