Posted on 06/18/2013 5:25:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Almost everybody has written off Rick Santorum as a 2016 contender — everybody, that is, except Rick Santorum.
Behind the scenes, the former Pennsylvania senator is quietly preparing for another presidential run. Trips to Iowa are in the works, he’s meeting daily with his advisers, and he’s already fine-tuning his message for the early primaries.
Hints of that pitch came last Thursday during a fiery speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s summer conference. Santorum cast himself as a populist conservative. “When all you do is talk to people who are owners,” he warned, the GOP becomes nothing more than a social club for entrepreneurs.
For Santorum, it marked the start of his unofficial campaign. He tells me he plans to build upon his speech’s theme in the coming months, positioning himself as a conservative outsider.
“Some of the Wall Street folks have hijacked the party,” he says. “But we can’t just be a party that’s aligned with where the money comes from.”
Santorum, who started his career as a congressman from western Pennsylvania, says the Republican party has failed to connect with the voters who were the foundation of Ronald Reagan’s coalition. Too often, he says, it strains to appeal to blue bloods, rather than blue collars.
In speech after speech, he talks about how he can’t stand the power brokers from “big East Coast cities” who are trying to reshape the party. They don’t like him, either. “I wasn’t invited,” Santorum tells me, when I ask him whether he was part of Mitt Romney’s Republican retreat in Deer Valley, Utah, earlier this month. “I’m not against entrepreneurship, and I’m not against the policies of fiscal restraint, but we’ve got to find a way to talk to people about how they can improve their lives,” he says. “If you look at my career, I’ve been able to win in Democratic towns where people work in coal mines. We’ve got to find a way to become that kind of party again, to win those towns.”
Santorum complains that the press is, naturally, ignoring his efforts to shift the GOP toward the working class. “Of course they dismiss me,” he says. “They don’t want to take me seriously.” But he believes his message will gradually win support.
“I’ve always thought that the Republican party can do well with the middle of America, with people that work hard and have a family,” he says. “They want a party that’s on their side, a party that’s economically inclusive. We’ve got to show them that we have a heart and that our policies create opportunity.”
That’s why he’s going back to Iowa in August. It’s Santorum’s first trip there since the election. He’ll headline a fundraising dinner for the Lyon County GOP and attend the state fair in Des Moines. “I can’t wait to reacquaint myself,” he says. “It’ll probably be too warm to wear a sweater vest, but I’ll have it ready in my suitcase.”
Clad in that sweater vest, Santorum rode his Rust Belt rhetoric to a surprise victory in last year’s Iowa Republican caucuses. He ended up winning ten more primary contests, giving Romney, the eventual Republican nominee, a serious headache.
Repeating that insurgency in 2016 will be difficult, but Santorum’s team is ready to give it a try. His longtime strategist, John Brabender, stays close, as does Mark Rodgers, Santorum’s former Senate chief of staff.
Back in December, Brabender hosted a Christmas party in Northern Virginia for Santorum’s inner circle that served as a reunion — and as an informal strategy session. Over drinks at the River Creek Club in Leesburg, Va., the senator’s friends and allies debated the pros and cons of another run.
By midnight, the consensus was clear: “The boss,” as his friends call him, should jump into the 2016 race, if at all possible.
For now, Santorum’s nonprofit organization, Patriot Voices, is his chief vehicle for staying in play. He’s working to develop the group into a film and educational outfit that informs voters about issues he considers important.
Brabender tells me that more than 400 chapters of Patriot Voices are being formed. Those clusters of Santorum supporters will likely be important as he maneuvers to run again.
Nadine Maenza, the finance director for his 2012 campaign, has also been keeping the senator in touch with his major donors, including Foster Friess. According to several sources, Friess, the top financier of Santorum’s super PAC, has privately said that he’ll once again be a major backer.
“The presidential election is a long way away,” Santorum says. “I know we’re not on the front burner of anybody’s mind right now, and there’s a lot going on that’s getting people’s attention. But I’m going to stay out there, and you’ll see me in Iowa soon.”
— Robert Costa is National Review’s Washington editor.
To those in big cities, anyone from Western PA comes from a hillbilly small town.
That, however, is not one of my issues with Santorum.
I’m not sure re: the natural born bit re: Cruz, but I’d like to see a Palin/Cruz ticket.
The tea party could be helpful in two critical ways, if it set its minds to it: 1) kill Rubio’s amnesty bill, and 2) help unite conservatives behind a single candidate before the primaries, so you don’t have one RINO against six or seven vote-dividing conservatives.
Agreed. Now if you could suggest a way to do such a thing and make it work it would be appreciated.............
:-)
He was a surprisingly strong unapologetic conservative candidate who could have been (or still could be) groomed for a national run
Santorum was torpedoed by the Romney money machine that managed to buy, with several hundred millions dollars, Mitt a usually whoppng 35% of the vote - from GOP voters. The Gingrich gadfly never even approached Santorum in popularity
Santorums baggage?
Lost GOP senate race in PA (never to be forgiven by some FR)
Supported Specter for Senate and Specter USSC vote (ditto above)
Enrolled his kids in state-paid PA charter school even though he lived in VA (liberal lefties decided a PA senator is not a PA resident while ignoring an entire entrenched stable of Democrat carpetbaggers in DC)
Didn't go back to PA when he lost Senate, stayed in VA and got job working for K street “lobby” firm- lobbying for CONSERVATIVE CAUSES (oh, the shame, a carpetbagger, a lawyer, an ex Senator, decides to get a job, stay in DC and not uproot his family from their $600,000 “mansion” (sarc if you familiar with NoVa real estate)
Has stay at home wife, homeschooled kids and a mentally challenged mortally ill daughter and not ashamed to embrace them and his family values in public (For the reaction this incurs in libs, and the MEDia propaganda attacks, see Palin Derangement Syndrome)
Th establishment democrats AND GOP have and will do their best to ridicule and tear down Santorum because they fear him - I for one am not joining them
RE: I want Allen West. He’s not afraid, and he’s got charisma.
And he couldn’t hold on to his own seat for a second term.
At least Santorum got re-elected.
RE: Lost GOP senate race in PA (never to be forgiven by some FR)
I guess the “sin” of losing an election or primary means we would never vote for an Allen West or even a Ronald Reagan and Abe Lincoln.
or a “quitter” like Palin, eh?
sarc
Hey......I already provided the big thought..... now the details can be discussed and laid out in a coherent manner
In the old days, FReepers would put forth an idea and it would be discussed and accomplished.
Good God NO! He’s a waste of time and money!
Hey, start a thread, go for it.
Palin / Cruz 2016.
:D
two insurgents are better than one!
Santorum would make a great Scty of HHS in a Palin administration
and Gingrich as WH press secretary
I know, dream on
And in the last two election cycles, we did.
Besides, Rick is "entitled" to the nomination under the GOPe rule of advancing the runner-up in the previous election cycle. This system worked out well for Reagan and Bush I. Not so well for Dole, McCain and Romney.
Haven’t you heard? The media has already told us who the candidates will be.
Hillary and Chris Christie.
We will see several of the 2012 retreads trying to make waves and gin up support for 2016.
Santorum doesn’t bring much more than he brought in 2012. He was only semi-successful as the go-to-instead-of-Romney when all of the other contenders fell off their bandwagons.
The whole primary debates stage had lackluster wannabes.
Most of the ‘new’ names circulating for 2016 are not much of an improvement.
Bush? Not another one.
Rubio. Crashing and burning, thanks to his cozying up with Schumer.
Christie. Making more headway with the Dems than with the Right.
Ryan. He is on the amnesty bandwagon with Rubio.
Paul. He is sort of for this, sort of for that, sort of against this, sort of against that.
Palin. Great speaker, but Left, the MSM, the Dems, and the GOPelite continue to try to taint her. And resigning as governor hasn’t helped. Perhaps, she should run for some lesser office first.
Walker. He is getting some praise.
McDonnell. He seems to be having some ethics problems due to questionable spending habits.
==
Soon, we will be seeing the ‘x isn’t perfect, but ...’ posts.
==
The main question will be whether the conservatives get triangulated again with numerous bandwagon candidates diluting the pool, thus favoring the GOPelite preference.
This all sounds so familiar — because it could easily be a three-peat of 2008 and 2012.
I remember when it was going to be Hillary vs. Rudy Giuliani.
Santorum also suffered one of the great Senate humiliations, as a sitting senator he lost by a larger margin than Christine O'Donnell.
Santorum was kicked out of the Senate by more than 17 points.
We also learned that his lifetime devotion to the radical pro-abortion Arlen Specter NEVER ENDED until Specter finally and formally switched to the democrat party, it turns out that Santorum had been supporting him, even for the 2010 election.
RE: Santorum was kicked out of the Senate by more than 17 points.
That was 2006, a HUGE Republican rout that put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as Speaker and Senate Majority leader respectively.
At a time when the War in Iraq wasn’t going well and Bush’s approval ratings was the pits.
As for being pro-life, Santorum is UP THERE among the top legislators who has CONSISTENTLY fought for the life of the baby up to and including preserving the life of his own handicapped child.
I’d vote for him over Romney ( and did ) and Hillary in a heartbeat.
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