Rick Santorum said Monday the reason he has been surging in the Iowa polls is that caucus-goers are finally beginning to realize that despite earlier reports to the contrary, the former Pennsylvania senator has a good chance of winning the White House.
“The reason for that is we’ve heard all along that people said: ‘We like you, but everyone says you can’t win — you don't get any coverage, you get no time at the debates — and so we just don’t think you can win — we like you but you can’t win.’” Santorum said. “Well, organically we got to the point where on Wednesday, there was a CNN poll that was out and said: all of a sudden Rick Santorum is third place at 16 percent. The next two days, we shot up — because people said: ‘Hey, he can win. I can be for him.’”
Switching gears in the interview, conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity noted that Santorum had said if he was elected president he would make sure that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and he would stand by Israel.
“Well, bottom line is that every politician in America — almost every major political figure in both parties — say that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon.” Santorum said. “And there is a reason for that: It’s not like any other country — it’s a theocracy that is pledged to wipe out the state of Israel. They believe that it is their mission to dominate the Muslim world — and in fact, even for theocratic purposes, bring back their savior if you will.
“And they’re building this weapon right next to where the savior is supposed to return — there is very clear evidence that they are building a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We must stop them — [because] it will fundamentally change the entire geopolitical structure of the world and we’ll put America on our heels . . . when you say they can’t get it, then you have to do something to make sure they won’t get it,” adding that President Barack Obama has done nothing to contain the Iranians but, “I will.”
Hannity then asked Santorum about allegations by nominee rival Texas Rep. Ron Paul that Santorum was actually a liberal.
“Well, I don’t think . . . someone who is in the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party on national security should be calling me a liberal,” Santorum said.
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