Santorum Questions Bachmann and Paul's Congressional Leadership

Leadership Lacking: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum isn’t saying how he would have voted on the debt deal in Washington. He would just say it needed a balanced budget amendment and more spending cuts. Santorum, a former member of Congress, said if he were still in Congress, he thinks he could have influenced the debate to better the bill. He said, “I’d like to think, unlike some of the other presidential candidates who are there (in Congress), I would like to think I would have had an impact on the process and from everything I can see, they had no impact on the process."

Santorum questioned the effectiveness of fellow candidates and current members of Congress, Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann and Texas’ Ron Paul. Both had pushed for Congress to refrain from raising the debt ceiling, a concept heavily criticized by many other candidates, members of Congress and economists. Santorum said their idea is impractical because there’s no way to achieve enough immediate cuts to avoid adding to the debt without drastic reductions. Santorum questioned the leadership of the two. He said, “I question whether the people who say they want to be leaders in the country...well, here's a big, probably one of the biggest issues this country's facing...and they weren't a leader in Congress. So why should we elect people who can't leader in Congress to lead the country?"

I talked with Santorum during stop number 2 of the day at WHO Radio (after a late night in eastern Iowa and an early morning stop in Indianola today). He appeared on conservative host Jan Mickelson's 9am broadcast, although Jan is off. Jamie Johnson filled in, the same Jamie Johnson who serves as Santorum's state coalitions director in Iowa. Johnson told listeners several times during the interview that Jan actually booked Santorum for the day. He didn't. But station management had asked him if he wanted to fill in as host for the day. And, so, of course, he said, yes.