BOONE, Iowa — As part of his final campaign push before tomorrow’s caucuses, a surging Rick Santorum has been asking voters not to “settle” for another candidate, but to get behind him as the most consistent conservative. Yet at an appearance at the Pizza Ranch here, a questioner asked him how he could tell Iowans not to settle, when he himself settled by endorsing Mitt Romney in 2008, now his rival.
One of the obstacles to Santorum winning the state is the fear that he won’t have the resources to compete after winning here. This is something he’s hoping to counter just a day before caucuses.
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“Lead,” he urged the crowd of Iowans, reporters and photographers that had crammed into the pizza buffet restaurant. “Don’t defer to what all the pundits are saying. First they said I couldn’t win, now they’re saying, ‘He may do well here, but he doesn’t have what it takes to do well on the next stop or the next stop.’ They said, ‘Well, you don’t have the money to compete. I didn’t have the money to compete here.’ But we were able to do it. Why? Because money doesn’t buy Iowa. Hard work, good ideas, strong principles win.”
He continued, “And I bet if you asked the folks in New Hampshire whether money will buy New Hamphsire, they’ll tell you the same thing. They’ll tell you they want to see all the candidates, they want to kick the tires, they want to know what’s not just on their white papers, but what’s in their head, their ability to communicate that message, what’s in their heart, will they have the fire in the belly to do what’s necessary to defeat Barack Obama and to do what’s necessary to lead this country.”
Iowans, he said, are “going to be told that you have to settle for someone who isn’t quite as strong as what we need, in order for us to win.” But to win, he said, the nominee needed to be somebody with the conservative record to draw a strong contrast with President Obama.
Following his remarks, one Iowan asked him if it was “disingenuous” to tell Iowans not to settle, when he himself settled by endorsing Romney in 2008.
“I think what I’m telling you to do is pick the more conservative of the candidates and not to settle for less than you see as the best,” he responded. “And sometimes the best isn’t that great, but it’s the best.”
He explained, “In the case of Gov. Romney and John McCain, I settled for what I thought was the best alternative out there…I didn’t see Mike Huckabee at that point, after having lost South Carolina and Florida, and not having at least by reports lot of money available, then I thought the best chance to stop John McCain was at that time Gov. Romney.”
He also said the issues have changed during the intervening time period.
“The issue of health care was not a big deal in 2008,” Santorum argued. “I think there was one question on health care in the entire debates. Health care is the central issue in this campaign. We can’t have someone in this campaign who is so wrong on that issue, who has so bought into top-down government control, and by all accounts will be attacked, and legitimately so, by President Obama as the basis of Obamacare. You want someone who has a clear contrasting vision.”
