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Santorum Focused On Iowa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum is focusing his campaign on Iowa and other early voting states and hopes to replicate some of the success of the 2012 campaign, when he held on to be last challenger to the eventual Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

The former Pennsylvania Senator told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 that, despite the demise of a few highly touted campaigns so far, he is confident in his ability to attract voters when the primaries finally begin next year.

 

"National polls really are insignificant. What matters is how you are going to do in the early primary states, in my case Iowa. We've got a very strong message out there that is appealing to the folks in Iowa. We're not quite breaking through right now because you've got a lot of folks at the top of the polls that are getting a lot of media attention, but we're working the grass roots really hard. We're exactly where we were four years ago. We're on people's list. People like us. We're number two or three on a lot of people's lists and that's where we were four years ago."

Santorum also addressed rumors that Vice-President Joe Biden will enter the race on the Democratic side, saying that no matter who gets the nomination, Biden or Hillary Clinton, both will have to defend President Obama's foreign policy.

"Both of them have to run on the record that Barack Obama, the failure, the foreign policy mess, that both Biden and Clinton participated in that we have in the world today. We have empowered every authoritarian dictator. We have created opportunities for countries that are rogue nations to prosper and have greater influence in the world."

He also warned voters to investigate the records of some of his primary opponents, singling out Donald Trump for not sharing the same values and principles of many conservatives.

"Please look at the issues and look at the policy positions that all of the candidates have before you decide whether how much of an outsider they really are. Because what makes someone an outsider is someone who actually wants to change the policies of the government, not someone who says, I'm going to bang heads and I'm going to make America great again. That's great, but what does that mean? Make it into what?"

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