Santorum mingles with voters in Oskaloosa

Rick Santorum shakes hands with a local resident at his campaign stop Sunday

Oskaloosa, Iowa- Republican Presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum, visited Oskaloosa on Sunday on a part of his Southern Iowa swing of the state. Santorum spoke and ate pie with voters at the Edmundson Kiwanis shelter Sunday evening. Santorum and his family have been on the campaign trail this past week have been staying at the farm of Steve and Jan Boender of Oskaloosa.

Santourm started off his comments with why he was running for President.”I decided to run, I think the only reason you should decide to run, is because that’s what you felt called to do.” Santorum continued, “We see the mess that is going on in Washington DC, and the anger that is out there in America. I just see it everywhere I go, but it’s just bringing to head, the problem that has been in Washington for a long long time, of which there is no strong leaders in Washington who are willing to go out and talk to the American public, do the job that a leader is supposed to do.”

Santorum also talked about the state of the economy. “The economy is stagnating. Why? Because government has exploded. Regulators are crushing businesses. Taxation, which is now on its way up, its gone up a little, its on its way up under Obamacare. All of these things are just telling businesses don’t invest, don’t grow your businesses, don’t do anything that’s going to create opportunities in this country.” Santorum went on to talk about the protests in other countries and entitlement programs. “You see what’s going on in Greece, and in Spain, and in Portugal, where folks have now become so addicted to government benefits, that if the government tries to change anything, they protest government buildings, and they complain that your taking something away that they believe government owes them.”

“I believe that if you want to boil it down to why I am running for office and why I think this is such an important election, it’s because I think that that fundamental thing what America is about is at stake in this election. I believe that this is the most important election since the election prior to the Civil War that elected Abraham Lincoln,” said Santorum.

He continued, “I think that the very essence of America, the very essence of what made us the greatest country in the world is in danger of being lost not 10 years from now, not 5 years from now. I’m talking about after the next election. If we do not replace this President, what will happen is a program called Obamacare will be implemented.”

As he ended his comments, Santorum talked about his first races for Congress and why he would be a strong candidate to take on President Obama in next year’s general

election. Santourm was first elected to Congress in a primarily Democratic House District. In his second race, he faced similar circumstances. “I got put in with a 24 year Democratic incumbent  in a 71% Democratic district, and I won,” Santorum recalled.

After Santorum spoke, we had the opportunity to catch up with him for an exclusive interview.

Rick Santorum and his wife speak with voters on Sunday

Our first question related to Santorum’s polling numbers. Your polling numbers have consistently put you towards the bottom of the pack of contenders, will your placing at the Iowa Straw Poll, influence any decision to stay in this race?

“Obviously the better we do, the more encouragement that that will give us. I’m not saying that we have to finish here, here or here.” Santorum continued, “Ames is important to ,but it’s, I don’t think by any stretch do I have to win Ames. I don’t think anybody would create that expectation. Our sense is that we can finish in the top halve, then we will beat a lot of people who are ahead of us in the polls and I think that will be a good showing.”

I also asked Santorum about his recent signing of pledges. You recently signed the Stronger America Now Pledge and you have also signed the Family Leader Pledge, are you concerned that if you are elected, that you won’t be able to fulfill all of the statements in those pledges?

“When I ran for office, I signed pledges, throughout my four elections that I was successful, and I never violated one of those pledges.” Santorum continued, “I always say, with Rick Sanorum, you get someone who says their gonna do, and does what they say their gonna do.”

I also asked him about the debt ceiling crisis. If you were still in Congress now, would you vote to increase the debt ceiling. What would your plan be to deal with the debt ceiling crisis? “What I said consistently from the beginning of this debate, is that we should keep our eye on the ball. Which is, we want to balance the budget, and we want to limit the size of government so we can protect people from being [inaudible], and the thing that accomplishes that, is the balanced budget amendment to the constitution.”

I continued on the debt ceiling issue and asked Santorum what he would say to President Obama about the debt ceiling crisis if he was sitting in front of the President right now. “I’d say ‘Mr. President, I’m willing to increase the debt ceiling to get past the 2012 election, and we will look [inaudible] to publicly support the Balanced Budget Amendment, that balances the government and limits to government to 18% GDP.'”

My final question for Santorum was about his stance on the E-Verify Technology. “My feeling is that I have some concerns about E-Verify. There’s a bill in there that requires everybody to use E-Verify and if you don’t, all sorts of consequences. The problem is E-Verify system is not operating as well as it should. You have a lot of employers who use E-Verify and still find that they have illegals in the businesses,” Santorum continued, “I would say this, what I’ve said from the beginning is just focus on getting the principle problem with immigration solved, which is closing the border. If we close the border, we can step back and say ‘what did we do that the people who are here, now that we know nobody else is coming?'”