Oskaloosa News Announces Our Endorsement For The Iowa Caucuses

Fmr. Senator Rick Santorum

Oskaloosa, Iowa – In uncharted territory for us, the two editors of Osky News sat down and discussed what candidate we ,in general, most support to win the Iowa Caucuses. The discussion was lengthy, and our opinion was based upon multiple visits with most of the candidates over the past 6 months, with the exception of Mitt Romney, as he’s appeared to be a ghost in Iowa.

Osky News first ran into Rick Santorum back on May 2nd when he spoke at the Family Leader event in the Vermeer Auditorium, located at the Pella Christian High School. There we learned that the former Senator was first elected to the office of Senator in 1990, and was 32 years of age at the time.

Our next opportunity to sit, speak, and learn about this candidate happened on July 31st at the unassuming Edmundson Kiwanis shelter house.

There we first got to meet Santorum’s family, and see what bond there was among his family. His family served pie to those in attendance at that event.

The Santorum’s had been adopted by Mahaska County residents Steve and Jan Boender that week where they were learning about life on a farm. Fishing, tractors and the simple life are the things they immersed themselves in.

With a simple introduction, Santorum stepped forward saying, ”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 said.  “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,” Santorum also said.

Our next opportunity to speak with the former Senator was at a Debate held in August  just before the Iowa Straw Poll. One of the things that started to work into our thoughts about candidates was Santorum’s availability after large events like this. When most candidates would make their way across the ‘spin room’ floor to the national tv stage, Santorum was one of the few that took the time to answer questions to the rest of the media, including the little guys like Osky News.

The Iowa Straw Poll once again had Santorum engaging the residents of Iowa in the one on one fashion he has consistently done since we first covered him. He had been crossing the State of Iowa extensively, but did not have the results from the straw poll he had hoped. I can remember thinking he would also drop out of the race along with Tim Pawlenty since he had come in 4th place, one position behind Pawlenty.

Santorum proved me wrong and continued his pursuit in bringing his message to the people of Iowa and the nation; one restaurant, living room, and park at a time.

The Reagan Dinner gave Santorum an opportunity to shine on his own without the strangle hold of perceived approval based upon polls that networks use to measure how much time a candidate gets in a debate.

With a set time limit for each of those who attended, Santorum continued with his consistent message that was also added to his current talking points. But beyond those, what struck us once again was his commitment to the people of Iowa. “It is great I would say to be back in Iowa, but I’ve been here a little while. This is my 8th straight day in the State of Iowa and I am proud to announce that I did a Grassley. I’ve been to all 99 counties in the State of Iowa and I tell you I had a wonderful time doing it,” Santorum said to the group of GOP supporters who attended the dinner.

At the Family Leaders Thanksgiving roundtable, Santorum shared the story about one his daughters that shed a light on the real human behind the candidate. The crowd gathered there that day made a connection to Santorum with the sharing of this time in his life.

At the ABC News/Iowa GOP debate, all the time Santorum has spent in Iowa became very apparent when he was able to talk about towns and counties in Iowa, and also be correct about where they are located. I noted at that time that his knowledge of Iowa just might put many Iowans to shame, unlike a candidate I just recently observed preparing for a national TV appearance in which he was unsure of what town he was in at the time.

We came to the conclusion of endorsing Rick Santorum nearly a week ago, but we held off until we got to see Santorum in action once again. Santorum didn’t disappoint with his knowledge of Iowa and its residents when he made his recent stop in Pella on Tuesday.

Our decision wasn’t influenced by his Christian faith, nor do we believe that he is the “better Christian”. There are three candidates in the field that are looked upon as Christian favorites. We don’t believe that it’s our place to decide who is the better Christian, but to use our experiences with the candidates to say who we had observed reaching out to Iowan’s the most.

Hands down, this endorsement is for Rick Santorum.