Santorum Urges GOP to reach "left out" working class
Former Pennsyvlania Sen. Rick Santorum tells delegates his primary campaign showed the way for the GOP to reach working-class voters.
Santorum Urges GOP to reach "left out" working class
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
TAMPA, Fla. – Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum clearly has not moved beyond his loss in the Republican presidential race.
Judging by his remarks to the state delegation to the GOP convention Thursday morning, Santorum is still working through the stages of grief. He spent a great deal of time reminiscing about the successes of his primary insurgency, and arguing that his campaign showed the way for Republicans to reach working-class voters – though he did praise Mitt Romney and urge the delegates and party activists to work hard to carry the state.
“We ran a campaign that we won on a lot of fronts, and we rallied people and brought people out,” Santorum said. “It was an amazing effort, I have to tell you.”
He was the last of a series of not-Romney conservative candidates standing at the end of the primary season. Santorum dropped out of the race in mid-April when it became obvious he would be outspent by a huge margin and was in danger of losing the Pennsylvania primary to Romney.
“Do you realize that after we won three states, every primary election since then the exit polls were wrong, they were wrong in every one?” Santorum said. T “Everyone said we were going to lose or not win as much as we did. The worst was Mississippi and Alabama. The Drudge Report reported that Romney won, and we won…What happened? It was going on in state after state after state. Well, we didn't do any polling, we couldn't afford to do any polling, so we didn't really know what was happening. We just kept working.”
After it was over, Santorum said he was meeting with the Romney campaign to offer his help and found that its polling picked up a surge of support for him among voters who went to vote after 5 p.m.
“They were working people, people who couldn't get out of work, who were punching the clock,” Santorum said. “Those are the people we need to reach. They’re the key to this election….so I want to say we are going to dedicate the next two months to get out and talk about those messages…to do my best to try to communicate to those people who are feeling left out – all over the state of Pennsylvania. There’s a lot of ‘em.”
Comment removed.- 2016 GOP nomination season has already started! First Christy, now Santorum talking about 2016 nomination.
Poor Romney! They just hate you too much.— Seed 
@sharky - Stop your b/s rhetoric. Democrats like Obama use the middle class as puns, all the while catering to the uber-wealthly and rich Union bosses.— Professor1982- Comment removed.
- Comment removed.
- Pointing out a billionaire donor who has backed Obama and personally benefited from his policies is a "dumb response" for what reason? How is it any more inane that you simply repeating Koch brothers over and over? — jfar86
- Ok...now you're just manufacturing numbers. Yes, Koch Bros have billions but they are not spending it ALL on a conservative agenda. Let us now ask the question how much money/influence do the socialists' Rothschilds, Warburgs and Rockefeller's have to promote their socialist agenda protecting their massive empires??? And BTW these folks own controlling/voting stakes in Citi, Bank of England, Morgan, and the US Central Bank. Last time I checked, the "Fed" fraudulent monetary policy created the bubbles which led to the Great Depression and Great Recession ultimatly leading to the 1% gaining even more wealth???
Sharky - You're out of your league.— Professor1982 - Since when are Rothchilds,Rockefellers, etc socialists? The last I checked, unregulated banking and stock market policies created the Great Depression and Bush's recession, not the Fed. If you are a professor, you'd better go back to school. — mike l
- Love you righties, like Soros is some kind of money god. He isn't and the Democrats are not relying on him at all. You guys latch onto some catch phrase or name and beat it into the ground, even when it has no revelance. I know, you have to follow the gop glossary where you cannot write a response without mentioning "communist, socialist, Kenyan, Soros, birth certificate, community organizer, Chicago politics, etc." Otherwise, you'd be drummed out of the party. — mike l
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- Typical socailist Sharky. Blind to the facts and using "Brownshirt" tactics to try and scare people. See I (meaning ME) make my life better....NOT GOVERNMENT. See that's why you are you doing what socialists like to do which is steal other people's money. Everyone deserves a saftey net, but people like you want that saftey net to be a way of life. — Professor1982
- No, people like sharky want jobs, jobs that the so-called "job creators" have not created after 11 yeas of Bush tax cuts. When the CEO's take away their livelihood, people need safety nets because the rich folks won't provide jobs. I say give them a choice: the rich can keep their cuts and pay more taxes on them or they can take that money and invest it in jobs and get the breaks that come with doing that. Right now, they don't care about the middle class and neith does the gop. — mike l
- BTW...Simplify the tax code by passing a flat tax code for individuals and companies. Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Pass term limits on ALL elected officials. Eliminate the corrupt central bank and allow the Treasury to run the economy rather than lining the pocket of bankers. — Professor1982
- I'm with you on this...all of it. But I would also add get rid of the tax loop holes too. — CommonSense in Philly
You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
