Santorum visits state for support and cash
HARRISBURG — Rick Santorum, prospecting for supporters and cash for his longshot presidential campaign in a state he once represented in the U.S. Senate, said Tuesday that his decision to seek the nation’s highest office was driven by an inner calling.
“This was something that I really reflected upon and decided to take on because I felt that this was what I was called to do,” Santorum said at a news conference at the state Republican headquarters midway through a three-day Pennsylvania campaign swing.
The purpose of the trip was to draw attention to Santorum’s fourth-place finish in the Aug. 13 Iowa straw poll, which he says proves that his conservative message and his Senate experience resonate with Republican voters.
Santorum, who had been the third-ranking Senate Republican when Democrat Bob Casey unseated him in 2006, acknowledged that his campaign has little money — less than $600,000 through June 30, campaign finance reports show — and a low profile in the crowded field.
He has nicknamed his campaign “The Little Engine That Could,” after the famous children’s story.
“I’m used to Washington discounting me,” he said. “I’m used to being seen by the media as someone that is never going to win. ... I think we showed in Ames that the message and the messenger are something that the people of Iowa are catching on to.”
Santorum said his family maintains its home in suburban Pittsburgh, but he has changed his official residency from Pennsylvania to Virginia, where the family has lived since he was in the Senate. He said he could not recall exactly when that happened.
“We’ve been voting in Virginia for the last few elections,” he said. “I officially changed my voter registration, I think, a year or so ago.”
Santorum later stopped at the Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair in Centre Hall, about 15 miles from his alma mater, Penn State University in State College.
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