Santorum joins 2016 GOP field

Rick Santorum celebrates Wednesday in Cabot, Pa., after announcing his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He joins a crowded field of social conservatives in the race.
Rick Santorum celebrates Wednesday in Cabot, Pa., after announcing his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He joins a crowded field of social conservatives in the race.

CABOT, Pa. -- Rick Santorum, an aggressive advocate for conservative family values, began a 2016 White House bid Wednesday, vowing to fight for working-class Americans in a new election season that will test his influence -- and focus on social issues -- in a changing Republican Party.

The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania earned a second-place finish in the race for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago. Yet as he enters a more powerful and diverse 2016 field, he may struggle even to qualify for the debate stage in his second run.

"I am proud to stand here, among you and for you, the American workers who have sacrificed so much, to announce that I am running for president of the United States," the 57-year-old Santorum said, flanked by factory workers and six of his seven children in a cinder-block warehouse near his western Pennsylvania hometown.

"The last race, we changed the debate. This race, with your help and God's grace, we can change this nation."

Santorum opens this political season as a heavy underdog in a race expected by political analysts to feature more than a dozen high-profile Republicans -- most of them newcomers to presidential politics. He is among the nation's most prominent social conservatives, having dedicated much of his political career to opposing same-sex marriage and abortion rights while advocating for conservative Christian family values.

He mentioned cultural issues briefly Wednesday. "As president, I will stand for the principle that every life matters -- the poor, the disabled and the unborn," said Santorum, a Catholic.

He ultimately won 11 states in the GOP's 2012 primary election after an unexpected and narrow victory in the opening contest in Iowa, where he emerged as a conservative favorite after touring the state's 99 counties in a pickup.

His road this time won't be easy.

"It's going to be much more competitive," said Foster Friess, a prominent donor who was standing near the podium during Wednesday's announcement.

Santorum has acknowledged his challenges in 2016 but says his experience could pay dividends the second time around. Most of the GOP's recent presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and President Ronald Reagan among them, needed more than one campaign to win the nomination.

He faces considerable competition for his party's social conservatives in particular. The list of Republicans already courting religious voters includes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008; former Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. And like Santorum, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is a Catholic.

Polling suggests a shift in voter attitudes about the importance of social issues, particularly gay marriage, which has long been a defining issue for Santorum. Like others in his party, he has appealed to religious voters recently by criticizing what he calls President Barack Obama's "war on religious freedom," which includes the broader debate over whether private businesses can deny services to same-sex couples.

Santorum promised Wednesday to "fight for the freedom for you to believe what you are called to believe, not just in your places of worship, but outside your places of worship, too."

But Santorum also is working to broaden his appeal beyond his hard-line stance on social issues. This year, he's emphasized his eight years on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and foreign policy with regard to the rise of the Islamic State. He's also touting a message of inclusion.

"We are not going to be successful unless we have a message that talks to the people who are struggling to rise," Santorum said May 21 at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma.

Santorum said he plans to release a tax and economic plan in the next few weeks to bolster manufacturing while cutting tax rates. It "gets rid of the IRS as we know it," he said.

Santorum founded the Patriot Voices nonprofit organization and political action committee with his wife, Karen, after his 2012 run and remained in the public eye, releasing the book Blue Collar Conservatives last year. It was billed as providing "a game plan for Republicans to regain popularity by rediscovering" those voters.

Addressing 1,000 evangelicals in Iowa last month, Santorum called for an increase in the minimum wage and for Republicans to reach out to the majority of Americans without a college degree.

He criticized his party for being stuck "with a 35-year-old message on the economy," namely cutting taxes on the rich.

It is a message that has yet to gain much traction with the party's base. But Santorum's interest in economic populism is genuine, said John Brabender, his top strategist.

"He does feel very, very passionate about this whole idea we have to become the voice of working families," Brabender said.

Santorum served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995 and became one of the "Gang of Seven" freshmen Republicans who pushed to expose abuses of the House bank.

In 1994, he was elected to the Senate, where he focused on such spending issues as pushing for a balanced-budget amendment, reducing farm subsidies, and tightening government welfare benefits for the poor.

Santorum became the chamber's third-ranking Republican in 2001 and lost a re-election bid in 2006.

Only those who place in the top 10 of national polls will be allowed to participate in the first Republican presidential debate in August, according to guidelines released by network host Fox News. Santorum is on the bubble.

While advisers suggest he will benefit from a donor network that has grown in recent years, questions remain about Santorum's ability to raise money as well.

Santorum's rollout tour begins in Iowa today and Friday and moves to South Carolina on Saturday and Sunday. He is not scheduled to appear in New Hampshire, where voters typically don't favor candidates who focus on social issues.

A crowd of hundreds watched Santorum's announcement at Penn United Technologies, an employee-owned manufacturing company based in the western Pennsylvania county where Santorum grew up.

Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples and Joe Mandak of The Associated Press; by Mark Niquette of Bloomberg News; and by Trip Gabriel of The New York Times.

A Section on 05/28/2015

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