Ames, Iowa (CNN) – Rick Santorum is one happy guy.
The GOP presidential candidate and former senator from Pennsylvania came in fourth at the Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa, Saturday, behind Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and finishing just over 600 votes behind former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
“We were in range of three. I mean I felt like here’s a guy who spent a million bucks in this and we spent a fraction of that and here we are within a few hundred votes of him and I feel very, very good about that. I feel we’re positioned exactly were we want to be,” Santorum told CNN. “If you look at the top four, three of them can win the caucus. And I really feel that Ron Paul can’t win this caucus and can’t win this nomination and the other three candidates have a potential to do so. The top three tickets get punched out of Iowa, so I feel really good about that.”
On Friday, Santorum told CNN’s Candy Crowley that if he finished lower than fifth place, he would have to consider ending his bid for the White House. But he says his fourth-place finish could give him more attention by the media.
“Hopefully the media will start paying more attention to us because they sure haven’t been doing much. At future debates hopefully I’m not going to be put on the far end of the debate and be forgotten about the first hour. Maybe this will help.”
Santorum says his campaign “had something to prove here, that we had a base that were building and that we were a campaign that should be paid attention to.”
As for what’s next, he says he’s going to continue to “be the little engine that could campaign no matter what happens. We’re just going to keep plugging away.”
From CNN Politics
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He is dillusional. And not just in his belief that he can win the nomination.
The little engine that could... not get elected! Go home, nobody cares.
Come on Rick, you didn't have anything to prove. Everyone already knows you guys are a bunch of morons. Stop thinking that you need to keep proving it over and over.
I still can't believe we have to put up with this BS for 15 months. Christ I can't watch any news for 15 months, I guess I can read the paper so I can filter out this crap and just read what I want and not have this garbage crammed down my throat.
Rick Santorum couldn't even win reelection to the Senate. If, by some fluke, he was to win the GOP presidential nomination, Barack Obama would carry at least 40 states and cruise into a second term.
Santorum's chief liability is his rigid Catholicism. In the first Iowa debate he said that a woman who's raped should be required to give birth to her rapist's fetus. At least 90 percent of the American people disagree . . . strongly.
And if he ran in the general election he'd come in fourth behind Obama, Romney and Mickey Mouse.
Hm, maybe not a lot of people like his wacko ultra right wing political views.....Santorum is just another repub religious fascist who wants to force his beliefs on the rest of America..... oh, and google Santorum to find out what he really is.....
Can Rick Santorum EVER speak more than two sentences without whining? Seriously. "There's no whining in politics" Rick. It doesn't exactly make you sound Presidential....
This is the same guy who swore that they had found those WMDs in Iraq? Credibility?
Santorum is another Social Conservative that brings the same balogna as all have in years gone by in both parties. always broken promises. I hope People wake up and listen to what Ron Paul's message is. not just what the media makes him out to be. listen to what he says and how it affects you and everyone else. it's the truth. you can't go wrong with following our constitution and having sound money. Ron Paul 2012
This man is a pig he has already sold out to the Koch brothers in Kansas, )Koch Industries is the largest privately owned Corporation in the US, who constantly buys right wing politicians and ahs an office near the White House, where their minions do their bidding and write laws all day long and take them to their "in pocket allies" on the Hill to pass) These are all horrible people and Rick Santorum could not even get reelected in Pennsylvania, the last time he ran. Look into him, he is a pig!
Grasping for real straws again.
As I see things going, Seems that the downfall of The UNITED States will not happen because of a foreign power, neither because of a president, whose only interests are his own, nor it will happen because of one political group views, or the other's, it will happen because of the divisions that runs through its own people!
Congratulations. More country bumkins put more corn in your jar. Yee Haw, here comes a candidate.
Hope springs eternal.
I was hoping that the headline meant he was dropping out.
Having loonies take 4 of the 5 top spot is good for the Dems, but Santorum is even creepier than Bachmann.
Oh, Ricky. You ain't got a prayer.
the GOP is looking you right in the eye and stating the following:
1) we will not raise taxes........especially not on the rich.
2) we will cut the benifits that you paid into.....we'll call them entitlements........we don't care that you paid into them..........we're going to cut them
3) you don't deserve healthcare
4) you should vote for us, because we don't care a bit about working Americans.
how do they sell that?
The guy couldn't win his senate race in Penn., how can he imagine winning the presidency? He must think he's another Richard Nixon!
There till Isn't a Republican I would vote for and that mean Rick Perry to. I would vote not for anybody that Is back by the Tea Party Or has Nothing to do with the Tea Perry. The Tea Party Is Trying to Destroy America and It up to the American people to stop them.
Santorum needs to be forgotten!
The straw poll results have proven to me, that the results are really not that indicative of who will win the primary.
My own picks only included one of the top 4. None of those include who I think will actually win the primary.
All of the hullabaloo in Iowa, really isn't that indicative of the country, as a whole.
I am not sure I understand this straw poll thing at all. What does it prove.
What an idiot. Or a liar.
Very few candidates have had as much coverage of his campaign. Santorum.
Come on – every interview that came to him about "Santorum" gave him an opportunity to speak.
And when he did speak he promoted Christian Nationalism.
That is where he got his straw pole support . and being a Chrisitian Nationalist or having them support you is NOT something GOOD. At all. Christian Nationalism is very bad, always has been always will be – ask the people who lived under Franco in Spain – there are some who are still much middle aged alive.
I do not mind the press giving coverage of Christian Nationalism and his poster boy – but lets be sure CNN covers the TRAGIC history of Christian Nationalism when the Far Right Implement it and force it onto others.
Republican: Hey Minion, I just made a thousand dollars. Here's a nickel.
Minion: Thank you Mastah, thank you.
Republican: Now I'll be needing three cents of that back.
Minion: But Mastah, how will I eat?
Republican: Not my problem. Somebody has to pay, and surely you don't think it's me. I have a yacht payment due.