Rick Santorum Won Iowa And Now Nobody Knows Who He Is

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The last man who won Iowa, and 11 other states in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, approached a young man waiting patiently for him at the Iowa State Fair, hand outstretched and beaming.

“Sir, I just wanted to ask -- who are you?” asked the freckled teenager, not quite old enough to vote.

“Rick Santorum,” said the former Pennsylvania senator who once again is a Republican presidential candidate.

It’s only a matter of time, Santorum told Defense One, until voters soon are going to be looking “for someone that has the experience and that has a track record of making the right call to protect our country.” Santorum thinks he’s that man.

“Well given what’s going on in Iran right now, I think whatever happens between now and the election, national security is going to be a huge issue,” he said, interrupting himself between the “Foot Long Corn Dogs” and “Walking Taco” food stands to say hello to a passerby who didn’t appear to recognize him.

“That’s one of the things I talk about a lot on the stump, is having someone who understands the threat that radical Islamic Iran [poses],” he continued, noting the strict sanctions enacted by Congress that are credited with bringing Iran to the table. “Those were sanctions that I authored and fought for, and that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted against when I put them up for a vote.” (Factcheck.org notes his legislation codified existing sanctions.)

Call it the “Rick Santorum Syndrome.” Many of the 2016 candidates with national security experience are barely polling above 1 percent nationally or among likely caucus-goers in this key early voting, red-purple state. Their low ratings -- or recognizability -- comes despite national security registering as one of the top issues for Republicans and remaining a central focus of both parties’ stump speeches in a field 22-candidates deep.

Santorum earned national recognition in part with a hawkish security stance three years ago as runner-up to Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination in 2012; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., leading GOP voice on national security in Washington from his Senate Armed Services Committee seat recently retired from the Air Force Reserves after 33-years; Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a former Air Force pilot; former Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb was secretary of the Navy and an assistant secretary of defense. All are struggling in the polls, and even for recognition.

Their struggles are on painful display as the 2016 candidates make the presidential pilgrimage this week and next around the Iowa State Fair, hoping to make their mark and give their cash-and-attention anemic campaigns some much needed momentum. Webb, the second candidate to speak at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox, a political rite of passage at the fair, reminded voters no other Democrat has his defense credentials, including as a decorated Vietnam veteran.

“The number one responsibility of the president of the United States is that burden of being your commander in chief and making these ultimate decisions about foreign policy and when to use military force,” he said, and then jetted off almost immediately to New Hampshire.

But attendees were abuzz Friday at the following day’s expected visit from Donald Trump, a brash businessman with no national security or political experience who recently recommended the U.S. “bomb the hell” out of Iraq’s oil fields, and  “go in and take the oil,” as part of his solution to defeating the Islamic State terrorist group.

Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq from 2008 to 2010, who retired Friday, has deftly batted away Trump’s suggestion. But Santorum, while declining to back Trump’s call to bomb Iraqi oil fields, told CNN Tuesday he more or less supports Trump’s approach. Santorum offered a more measured approach on Friday to fighting ISIS, calling for arming allies engaged in the fight, including the Kurds, and embedding U.S. troops with Iraqi forces, with some ground troops to support them as a result. He’d include “potentially some ground troops to work with other indigenous forces to take that ground back because we’re not gonna do it via the air.”

He wouldn’t commit to any number. “I don’t know the answer to that yet,” he said. “I would support whatever is necessary to begin to move ISIS out of Iraq, to begin to shrink their territory and to prove to the radical Islamic world that they are not a legitimate caliphate … we need to show that Allah is not blessing them by defeating them.”

Still, he said he’s certain more is needed than what the U.S. is doing now -- more than 3,500 American troops in Iraq, with more than 6,000 airstrikes at a cost of billions of dollars. “The commitment can’t be numbers,” he said, “It’s not about numbers, it’s about winning, and we have to put in a strategy that can win, and I’m open to a lot of ideas that can get that accomplished. Clearly, we’re not winning … we’re barely holding our own.” That assessment directly refutes Odierno’s parting review, given Wednesday, of U.S. gains against ISIS.

Santorum’s slight shift shows the struggle the lower-tier candidates have with Trump -- while observers have disputed the validity of some of the recent polls, his numbers put him decidedly out front. Nationally, he’s at 23 percent to the next closest rival, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz at 13 percent, according to a NBC/Survey Monkey poll out Monday. In Iowa, he’s at 22 percent, leading neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s 14 percent. Here, likely Republican caucus goers also think Trump is best suited to handle terrorism, at 21 percent, versus Cruz at 13 percent, according to a Wednesday CNN/ORC poll. A mere Trump name drop could be a ratings boost to the bottom-rung candidates, but they’ve also railed against the Fox News process that determined the staging of the first presidential debate.

“Fox News, what they did with that debate …” Santorum said through gritted teeth Friday at the fair, to a man who’d just interviewed him on camera.

Candidates such as Santorum are banking on the theory, according to his campaign, if they can just get that first look, candidates with a record are the ones with staying power.

“We have a good, strong track record of being on the right side of these issues and providing leadership, and I think that’s going to become a very important thing as this goes on,” Santorum said.

And if not, he’ll always have Iowa.

“Where’s the fried butter?” he asked. “I think it’s in this neighborhood.”