Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania began a campaign for the 2012 Republican Party nomination for president of the United States in April 2011. He had been preparing for a run since shortly after the 2008 presidential election.
Santorum lagged in the polls for all of 2011 until he surged in the week before the Iowa caucuses, propelling him to a narrow victory over Mitt Romney in the first contest of the presidential primaries. Santorum's presidential hopes received another boost when he surprisingly swept all three votes held on February 7, 2012, in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. On April 10, 2012, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Santorum announced the suspension of his campaign.
In an August 2011 interview with the The Des Moines Register’s editorial board, Santorum said “I’m the only person in this race by measuring the Gallup poll from March to July, everybody else who’s even in the race or a prospective in the race their name identification increase except me. And so you just sort of wonder why is the national media not talking about me when they’re talking about people like Jon Huntsman who are way below me in the national polls yet he gets press every single day. Nobody seems to want to pay any attention to me.
He suffered from poor fund-raising and weak ground operations, and the viability of his campaign was in doubt during the Ames Poll. Santorum finished fourth in the Iowa Straw Poll on August 13, 2011, with 9.8% of the vote. The finish was seen as a surprising and successful one; he finished just behind Tim Pawlenty, who had significantly more money. Santorum focused on an off-the-beaten-path strategy, going to dozens of small towns generally ignored by the other candidates. Although he was considered a "joke" candidate and panned as unelectable in some quarters, his solid consistency with his fellow pro-life Catholics kept him in the race.
Santorum was one of the non-Mormon candidates to directly take on the accusations of Mormonism being a cult.
During the presidential debate held September 21, 2011, in Orlando, Florida, a gay soldier deployed in Iraq asked the candidates if they would "circumvent" the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" if elected president. Santorum, who answered the question, called the repeal of DADT "social experimentation" and "tragic." He said: "any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military....And the fact that they're making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to – and removing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.
Focus on Iowa
Santorum focused much of his efforts on the early caucus state of Iowa. He established a solid ground operation in Iowa and visited the state the most of any of the candidates, having visited all 99 counties in the state at least once.
Santorum's candidacy was compared to that of Mike Huckabee, who surprisingly won Iowa despite similarly poor performance in the polls. Several Republican strategists in Iowa described Santorum as a "natural fit" for 2008 Huckabee supporters in Iowa. The Washington Times reported in November 2011 that conservatives had gone on a "carousel" of supporting different candidates against Mitt Romney, from Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt Gingrich. As such, Santorum would be next on the "carousel".
In December 2011, when Gingrich achieved frontrunner status in the race, Santorum became increasingly critical of him and his speakership. Santorum said Gingrich's Contract with America was not practical and aside from welfare reform, it fell short of its goals. Santorum said Gingrich's Contract with America was overrated and took too much credit from the Gang of Six, of which he was a part, which exposed congressional banking corruption in 1994. Santorum also gained the confidence of several evangelical religious leaders and Sarah Palin for his "ideological consistency".
Santorum lagged in the polls for all of 2011 until he surged in the week before the Iowa caucuses, propelling him to a narrow victory over Mitt Romney in the first contest of the presidential primaries. Santorum's presidential hopes received another boost when he surprisingly swept all three votes held on February 7, 2012, in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. On April 10, 2012, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Santorum announced the suspension of his campaign.
In an August 2011 interview with the The Des Moines Register’s editorial board, Santorum said “I’m the only person in this race by measuring the Gallup poll from March to July, everybody else who’s even in the race or a prospective in the race their name identification increase except me. And so you just sort of wonder why is the national media not talking about me when they’re talking about people like Jon Huntsman who are way below me in the national polls yet he gets press every single day. Nobody seems to want to pay any attention to me.
He suffered from poor fund-raising and weak ground operations, and the viability of his campaign was in doubt during the Ames Poll. Santorum finished fourth in the Iowa Straw Poll on August 13, 2011, with 9.8% of the vote. The finish was seen as a surprising and successful one; he finished just behind Tim Pawlenty, who had significantly more money. Santorum focused on an off-the-beaten-path strategy, going to dozens of small towns generally ignored by the other candidates. Although he was considered a "joke" candidate and panned as unelectable in some quarters, his solid consistency with his fellow pro-life Catholics kept him in the race.
Santorum was one of the non-Mormon candidates to directly take on the accusations of Mormonism being a cult.
During the presidential debate held September 21, 2011, in Orlando, Florida, a gay soldier deployed in Iraq asked the candidates if they would "circumvent" the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" if elected president. Santorum, who answered the question, called the repeal of DADT "social experimentation" and "tragic." He said: "any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military....And the fact that they're making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to – and removing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.
Focus on Iowa
Santorum focused much of his efforts on the early caucus state of Iowa. He established a solid ground operation in Iowa and visited the state the most of any of the candidates, having visited all 99 counties in the state at least once.
Santorum's candidacy was compared to that of Mike Huckabee, who surprisingly won Iowa despite similarly poor performance in the polls. Several Republican strategists in Iowa described Santorum as a "natural fit" for 2008 Huckabee supporters in Iowa. The Washington Times reported in November 2011 that conservatives had gone on a "carousel" of supporting different candidates against Mitt Romney, from Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt Gingrich. As such, Santorum would be next on the "carousel".
In December 2011, when Gingrich achieved frontrunner status in the race, Santorum became increasingly critical of him and his speakership. Santorum said Gingrich's Contract with America was not practical and aside from welfare reform, it fell short of its goals. Santorum said Gingrich's Contract with America was overrated and took too much credit from the Gang of Six, of which he was a part, which exposed congressional banking corruption in 1994. Santorum also gained the confidence of several evangelical religious leaders and Sarah Palin for his "ideological consistency".
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