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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...

Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Thursday defended a condition he said Puerto Rico must meet to be eligible for statehood: "English needs to be the principal language." Campaigning in the territory ahead of their Sunday primary, Santorum had on Wednesday said, "There are other states with more than one language, like Hawaii, but to be a state of the United States, English must be the principal language." Speaking to CNN's National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta on Thursday, he stood by his comments. "Obviously Spanish will be spoken here on the island. But this needs to be a bilingual country not...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Friday defended GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney from critics who mocked him for calling himself an "unofficial Southerner" at a campaign stop the previous day. "Now they’re attacking Romney for joking about learning to say “y’all”? According to the left, no one can have a sense of humor - lighten up!" In Mississippi, Romney told the crowd that his bodyguard, a Mississippi native, was turning him into an "unofficial Southerner." "I'm learning to say 'y'all' and I like grits, and strange things are happening to me!" the former Massachusetts governor added. Critics were quick to...

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...

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...

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

In Mississippi, Santorum Makes Case For Two-Man Race By NBC's Andrew Rafferty JACKSON, Miss. -- Rick Santorum called on Mississippi voters to deliver the knockout blow that would end Newt Gingrich's candidacy and make it a two-man race between Mitt Romney and the former Pennsylvania senator for the Republican nomination. "You have an opportunity here in Mississippi to narrow this race, narrow this race to a conservative versus the insider moderate. I ask you here tonight to stand with me," Santorum told a crowd of 300 at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on Wednesday. "If we win Mississippi, this...

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.

Rick Santorum indicated that Newt Gingrich should drop out of the presidential race, arguing -- as Gingrich did during his surge -- that splitting the "anti-Romney" vote helped Mitt Romney win the Michigan primary and Washington caucuses and contributes to his overall success so far. "It's always harder when you've got to conservative running in the race as we have seen in Washington and we've seen in other states," Santorum said on Fox News Sunday. "We have the anti-Romney vote, if you will. Both Gingrich and I are slugging away." Santorum stopped short of calling for Gingrich to exit the...

A Win In Georgia Heralds Ultimate Defeat for Newt Gingrich Gingrich may win his home state, but Santorum has already beaten him for the role of conservative alternative to Romney Newt Gingrich doesn't really have to try to make the sale in Georgia – though he has been barnstorming the state nonetheless, practicing the kind of retail politics that made him a representative of the state's sixth district for 20 years. In Savannah on Friday, Gingrich entertained the audience with an anecdote about having been a (honorary) Girl Scout, revealing yet another text – in addition to Alcoholic Anonymous' Big...

LIMA, Ohio (AP) -- Rick Santorum sees an America in need of more than economic recovery, warning Saturday that the nation's inattention to conservative social values is "damning people." "Folks if we know what works, why don't we talk about what works? Why don't we encourage it in our schools? Why don't we encourage it in our culture?" the Republican presidential candidate asked hundreds of people gathered at the Allen County Lincoln Day dinner. "Why are we damning people? Why are we condemning them to a life just because we won't talk about - we'll talk about childhood obesity until...

Newt Gingrich has turned his sights on Rick Santorum in a new robocall going out to Oklahoma and Tennessee voters, bashing the former Pennsylvania senator as having “cozied up to the labor union bosses.” The ad will reach 150,000 voters in each of the states, according to ABC News. “On the campaign trail, Rick Santorum talks a good game about his blue-collar roots, and about being for the average family,” a female narrator says. “But here’s the record Rick Santorum doesn’t want you to know about: As a senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum cozied up to the labor union bosses, and...

Rick Santorum Looks To Georgia In Dalton Speech Visit comes on the heels of Newt Gingrich By James Harrison March 2nd 2012 DALTON, Ga. — Speaking in the same town visited by Newt Gingrich less than 48 hours earlier, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a group of 150 voters that the fight leading up to next week's Super Tuesday primaries had already become a two-person race. "You give me the opportunity here by helping me win the state of Georgia, and this race will change," Santorum told the crowd, which remained seated in Dalton's city council chamber for the...

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- Rick Santorum is sounding a bit like Newt Gingrich did when he was on the ropes in Florida and Mitt Romney was poised to overtake him in polling there. There was a tone of grievance in his voice that underscored the words he chose on the stump here Friday. "I know sometimes I can get wound up," Santorum told a group of supporters at the Chillicothe High School gymnasium. But, he said, "the words out of my mouth are my own. They're not written by some poll-tested speechwriter."