The Presidential Race 2016 Starts In Oskaloosa

Fox News came to town this week to interview potential presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The lights were bright in Oskaloosa this week, as a national tv news channel visited Oskaloosa to interview a potential contender for the White House in 2016.

Fox News Bret Baier sat down inside Smokey Row with Santorum for about an hour. It’s an indication of what is to come for the state and locally, as the campaigns begin in earnest in just a matter of weeks.

After the bright lights of the national spotlight turned off, Santorum then did what helped him to win the Iowa Causus in 2012, meeting and greeting everyone with a handshake and cell phone photos.

Santorum called Oskaloosa and the Boender farm “home” during the initial phases of his last campaign, and on occasion comes back to see his friends. Santorum and his family held one of their first campaign events at Edmundson Park in the Kiwanis Shelter, with him and his family serving the guests fresh pie.

Last time Santorum was the underdog of the race. With a shoe-string budget and a lot of elbow grease he eventually won the Iowa Caucuses.

“People say you won the Iowa Caucuses last time, but I didn’t.” says Santorum. “When it really mattered, I didn’t win.”

Santorum did win the Iowa Caucuses, but wasn’t announced the winner until 16 days after the votes had been cast, and then Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn announced to the world that Mitt Romney had won. The narrow win for Santorum, by 34 votes, told the story that indeed the underdog could beat the front runner, but that story was almost too little too late. Santorum didn’t benefit from a boost in support or financial dollars like he could have, if he had been declared the winner.

Even though Santorum finished second that night in Iowa, the euphoria wore off the next day when the headline on Santorum’s hometown paper read, “‘Romney wins Iowa’, and I wasn’t mentioned until paragraph 4. And all of it was about how the race is over because he [Romney] won Iowa and was going to win New Hampshire, and no one has ever won Iowa and New Hampshire and lost the election.”

Rick Santorum inside Smokey Row Coffee this week as he met with Oskaloosa News about his potential campaign for president 2016. (photo by Ginger Allsup/Oskaloosa News)

“What matters most when you win a primary is how it helps you in the next one,” Santorum said. The trouble in Iowa didn’t help him until 2 primaries later, when again he found victory. “In a sense, we had to do Iowa all over again, and sort of restart the campaign.”

After the fiasco of the caucus night, the conversation gained more credibility that Iowa should not be first in the nation any longer. The allegations that Iowa hasn’t picked the winner, or the population is too small, or not diverse enough were just a few of the normal banter being leveled against the state.

In the end, the conversation has turned. It’s not that it’s Iowa’s job to pick the winner, but to weed out the weaker candidates along the way.

The Iowa Straw Poll has faced similar accusations, but, case-in-point, could be the quick demise of Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty had a third place showing in the poll, but quickly withdrew on his finish.

“While we didn’t win Iowa, it helped us a lot,” says Santorum. “I don’t want to minimize the importance of finishing second. At least initially.”

“We got a big spike in money, we had a big spike in interest and volunteers,” explained Santorum. He agreed that the process in Iowa did help to weed out other candidates “and put us in the race.”

Santorum completed, at least once, what has famously been dubbed ‘The full Grassley’, where he greeted folks from about every Pizza Ranch, Smokey Row and hometown coffee shop across the state. Santorum says that the experience made him a better candidate. Santorum, because of that experience, has a message that has morphed into what is now his Blue Collar stance. “It morphed over time because of the conversations I was having with Iowans, and people in New Hampshire and South Carolina.”

“It was really clear to me what was missing in our message. It not only helps shape your message because you’re talking to real folks who are experiencing the downstream of what Washington is doing. But in Iowa, like New Hampshire and South Carolina, Santorum said people that are interested will come and challenge you helping a candidate to hone themselves. “That makes you sharper and better.”

Santorum says that the message of the blue collar working class isn’t different than what he talked about before. Things like Medicaid expansion are something Santorum isn’t for, because he says he believes that government programs aren’t good for “the little guy”. “We need better solutions that are market based solutions that can really help people long term and create a better and healthier society.”

“The biggest key is strengthening the family,” added Santorum. “That’s pretty conservative right?”

Santorum poses with Smokey Row patrons before leaving Oskaloosa to attend his next event.

“It’s not that because you talk about these issues, that you’re for all the solutions the ‘left’ has put out there. I make the argument to the ‘left’, and I’m not suggesting that they wanted to do this, but they caused a lot more harm than good. Not that they haven’t done some good, but there’s been a big price to that good,” says Santorum. “The biggest part of that price is the destruction of the family and the role of fathers in our society.”

Santorum says that children being raised without a father in the home, “is not good for America.”

Santorum says that is why he would run, or any other candidate for president, because, “you believe in what you’re standing for is what’s right for this country and that you have the ability to unify the country, bring it together and protect us… I believe that I have it within me to do those things and now the process, whether that message, whether our effort and organization as we start to put things together, is resonated and people will be supportive of it. That’s what this period of time now is.”

Santorum intends to talk to “a lot of Iowans” before his decision to run is finalized. Santorum said that if those pieces, along with things like financing and staffing fall into place, “Then I think we’re in a position to not just win the nomination, but I think we’re in a position to win the general election.”

A few patrons at Smokey Row that morning had an opportunity to listen in as Santorum was interviewed by Baier. Jolene Fincel of Oskaloosa was having coffee while listening to the interview.

Fincel said she liked hearing Santorum speak about the importance of strong families. “I think that is really key,” says Fincel.

Stopping by local coffee shops is important to Iowans like Fincel. “It makes them down to earth and approachable. I like to be able to look at their eyes and just feel like I’m in touch with them.”

Spending, honesty, a strong military and reducing government problems are some of the issues on Fincel’s radar this time around.

Karen Converse was familiar with Santorum during his last campaign, she says it was surprising how well he did “with virtually no budget.” Converse said that after listening to the interview, “it sounds like he’s got a lot stronger setup this time around”.

“Not being 18 trillion in debt,” is something else important to Fincel.

“It’s important they take the time to come here,” says Converse of candidates taking the time to come to Iowa to meet people face-to-face and shake hands.

For Converse, “putting us back as the leader of the world again,” is something she’s looking for in choosing her next president. “We’ve just really fallen as far as how other countries view us. We need someone who is strong and willing to face difficult situations and not balk from them.”