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Former Republican presidential contender and Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum announced the formation of a new conservative group Friday, saying it will seek to thwart President Obama's bid for re-election in 2012. "The defeat of Barack Obama, and those who support his policies, will be our first priority."

(Sigh...) How else can I start? I support Rick Santorum, donated to him, but I'm losing count of the times I watch him on a live interview and feel the need for a facepalm. God love you, Rick, but you do not think well on your feet (or perhaps someone working for isn't doing his job prepping you). When Chris asked Rick about siding with "big labor", the right answer was that "there are valid reasons for labor unions and I'll support them when it's fair to do so. Unions get a bad rap when union leaders abuse their leverage...

FAIRFIELD, Calif. — Republican leaders and voters, frustrated by their party's prolonged presidential contest, are increasingly coalescing behind front-runner Mitt Romney. Yet Rick Santorum on Thursday urged conservatives not to forsake their principles under pressure. He did so by conjuring the memory of Ronald Reagan, still the conservative icon, at an oddly symbolic place: the jelly bean factory that created the former president's favorite treats. "Let them know, conservatives all across this country have not given up the fight, we're not going to concede to the moderate establishment who wants to convince everybody that it's over, it's time to go...

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday said Republicans should give President Barack Obama another term if Santorum isn't the GOP nominee and for a second day compared rival Mitt Romney to an Etch A Sketch toy. Santorum reiterated an argument he has made before: The former Massachusetts governor is not conservative enough to offer voters a clear choice in the fall election and that only he can provide that contrast. "You win by giving people a choice," Santorum said during a campaign stop in Texas....

Rick Santorum's latest attempt to use a Mitt Romney aide's "Etch-A-Sketch" remark against the Republican front-runner instead gave his rival a chance to fire back on Thursday, after Santorum seemed to say he'd rather see President Obama reelected than send Romney to the White House. Speaking at an event in Texas, Santorum again made the case that Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom's comments Wednesday on CNN about a "reset" of the campaign if Romney clinched the nomination showed the former Massachusetts governor's efforts to appeal to conservatives were insincere. "You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision...

CHICAGO — On the issue Republicans tell pollsters is the most important of 2012, Rick Santorum these days has very little to say. His typical stump speech, an almost hour-long mixture of Orwellian fears of government overreach, history lessons about the French and Middle Eastern revolutions and suggestions that President Barack Obama would rather side with Islamists than Americans, has evolved into a tour de force of building fear in his listeners. Since winning primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, Santorum’s standard remarks have generally excluded an economic plan — the heart and soul of the message his chief GOP rival,...

Rick Santorum is coming under fire for saying that the unemployment rate and economic growth are secondary issues to that of freedom in his campaign, a statement that rival Mitt Romney's campaign quickly seized on as being tone-deaf to the plight of out-of-work Americans. "We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom. Who's going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race," Santorum told a crowd of about 200 voters during a rally here on Monday. "I don't care what the unemployment rate's...

Internet pornography could conceivably become a thing of the past if Rick Santorum is elected president. The unapologetic social conservative, currently in second place behind Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination, has promised to crack down on the distribution of pornography if elected.

Rick Santorum suggested that the Republican presidential field is shrinking to just two candidates. Santorum's comments come as he and his supporters increasingly suggest that the former Pennsylvania senator would benefit from Newt Gingrich dropping out. "So we feel pretty good that it's now narrowing to a two-person race," Santorum said in an interview with Bloomberg TV set to air Friday. "We've been competitive."

Solid in Kansas, Santorum Seeks to Build Margin By TRIP GABRIEL March 9, 2012 WICHITA, Kan. — “We chased all the candidates out of Kansas!” Rick Santorum boomed as he took the podium one day before Saturday’s caucuses in the state, which his two leading rivals are not seriously pursuing. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have largely bypassed Kansas and its 40 delegates to the Republican convention, instead focusing on the bigger prizes of Alabama and Mississippi, whose primaries are on Tuesday. But that did not stop Mr. Santorum from laying into both rivals with biting words as he sought...

So much for conservatives uniting ahead of Alabama and Mississippi. Newt Gingrich's team just came out with what I believe is its first sharp hit against Rick Santorum of the campaign, a video montage of the former Pennsylvania senator talking earmarks, endorsing Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race and taking "one for the team," as he memorably put it in the final GOP debate in Arizona last month. If the lines of attack seem familiar, it's because Team Romney - the campaign Gingrich has said he wants to thwart - has been using them against Santorum for weeks. It's...

Rick Santorum won’t be winning any delegates in four of Illinois’ 18 congressional districts next month. But, at least in the 13th District, it won’t be because he didn’t try. Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). (Julie Denesha/Getty Images)On Jan. 6, the state filing deadline, a Santorum volunteer had brought to the board of elections an envelope containing nominating petitions for a slate of three Santorum delegates in the 13th, the State Journal-Register reports. But the petitions were never submitted. A volunteer inadvertently failed to take them out of the envelope, the Journal Register reports, and the envelope wound up in...

Saying he'd look for a "strong and principled conservative" as a running mate should he win the Republican presidential nomination, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum tells Newsmax that he certainly would consider rival Newt Gingrich for that vital role. When asked if he would consider the former House Speaker as number two on his ticket, Santorum said Gingrich had been "tested" by the bruising GOP race and that makes him an attractive vice presidential candidate. Santorum tells Newsmax that his choice would be a core conservative who is “willing to stand up and fight for the things that I believe...

Rick Santorum may have won more primaries but the Republican National Committee's current delegate count shows former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has more bound delegates than Mr. Santorum in the race for the party's presidential nomination. Frontrunner Mitt Romney has earned 339 delegates to the August nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., or more than the rest of the field combined, according to a chart the RNC sent to its members on Thursday. Mr. Gingrich is second with 107 delegates, topping Mr. Santorum's 95 delegates and the 22 delegates pledged to Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Winning the nomination will take...

Newt Gingrich stands to gain more than 50 delegates in the Republican presidential race, thanks to his overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s Georgia primary. .....If the totals hold, Rick Santorum would fall about 3,500 ballots shy of reaching 20 percent of the statewide vote. Failing to meet that threshold means Santorum was shut out of a share of 34 delegates awarded based on the statewide vote. Only Gingrich and Romney met that minimum percentage. Based on his vote total alone, Gingrich stands to win 16 statewide delegates; Romney 8. Under the state GOP rules, the remaining 10 statewide delegates are awarded...

Long-time conservative activist Richard Viguerie suggested today that Newt Gingrich suspend his campaign and endorse Rick Santorum in order to unite conservatives against Mitt Romney. "Looking at last night’s numbers, it has become increasing clear that the former Speaker can either be a kingmaker or a spoiler," Viguerie said in a statement today, "because, to unite conservatives, Gingrich would have to suspend his campaign and endorse Rick Santorum for the Republican nomination for President." Viguerie argued that Romney must lose the nomination in order to prevent "the debacle of four more years of an Obama presidency." Read more: http://newsok.com/richard-viguerie-suggests-newt-gingrich-drop-out/article/feed/356737#ixzz1oSe1bS1N

America's long-slog presidential campaigns are a process of discovery. Candidates, voters and the press criss-cross a complex nation trying to discover where the public mind will be the first Tuesday in November. No candidate has had a more interesting journey through 2012's campaign frontier than Rick Santorum. Few are going to forget Sen. Santorum in the early debates, stuck in the left-field bleachers, begging to be heard over such center-ring heavyweights as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. In August, no one thought this guy would be toe-to-toe with the Romney machine in March. What happened? I went to...

March 8 Republican Split Decision Romney had a good night but Santorum has cause to fight on. If Republican poohbahs were hoping that Super Tuesday's 10 contests would settle the Republican primary contest, they woke up Wednesday disappointed. While Mitt Romney had a good night and stretched his lead among delegates, Rick Santorum did well enough to more than justify staying in the race. The good news for Mr. Romney is that he won easily where he had to—in New England and Virginia—and went on to win narrowly the crucial showdown in Ohio. The pundits made much of the large...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A super political action committee supporting Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential race says it's time for Newt Gingrich to drop out. Stuart Roy, an adviser for the Red, White and Blue Fund, told The Associated Press Wednesday that the former House speaker is splitting conservative voter and making it difficult for them to settle on a conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney.

Tennessee looks like Santorum and Gingrich are fairly even with the 2 of them, Santorum has been in the lead but Newt has been coming on. Everyone in Virginia who is not a Romney supporter should vote for Ron Paul, 1st head to head matchup anyone has had with Romney.