US Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has ended his campaign for the party’s nomination following disappointing results in the Iowa caucuses.
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Santorum floundered right off the bat when asked to list Rubio’s “top accomplishment” while in office.
“I would just say that this is a guy who’s been able to, number one, win a tough election in Florida, and bring people together from a variety of different spots”, Santorum said.
“Rick, I think, has a message for them that is phenomenal”, he said. The fact that he understands our security threat very well, in great detail at a very sophisticated level I think that is going to be reassuring to people who are really concerned about how the next president is going to keep us safe.
Santorum was a senator representing Pennsylvania from 1995 to January 2007. “Jeb Bush ran Florida”. He finished third in this week’s Iowa caucuses and is in second place among New Hampshire voters, who head to the polls next week. “No. 2, yeah, he spent four years in the United States Senate being frustrated like everybody else that nothing got done, and then you can’t point to him and say well nothing got done and therefore he has no accomplishments”.
Eventually, however, Santorum did offer an example of a Rubio achievement, albeit a vague one.
He later mentioned Rubio’s efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act by adding a provision into the Senate’s latest spending bill to curb how much assistance insurance companies can get from the government. “I know that he fought for that to stop bailing out insurance companies”, Santorum said vaguely.
“I don’t endorse lightly”, Santorum said. “Again, he was on the campaign trail and accomplished that”.
Santorum also had problems raising money. The aide had not yet seen the interview.
Appearing on MSNBC Thursday morning after announcing Wednesday night that he would drop from the race and endorse Rubio, Santorum stammered around the question of Rubio’s achievements in his role as senator.
US Senator Rand Paul and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have also dropped out after poor finishes in Iowa.
However, Santorum said that Rubio shares his values. Rick Santorum, who failed on Monday to duplicate his Iowa caucus victory of four years ago, will end his presidential campaign, CNN reported.
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Santorum was uniquely ill-suited to make a promise-not-experience case for Rubio.
