Rick Santorum did not declare victory in a speech to supporters early Tuesday morning-- the Iowa caucus results were still too close to call.
He did, however, give thanks to three sources of support: his wife, God, and Iowa voters. “You have taken the first step of taking back this country," Santorum told his supporters at his Des Moines, Iowa headquarters.
In a long and personal speech, Santorum outlined his vision of limited government, informed by Christian belief and a focus on the family.
The choice, Santorum said, is “whether we will be a country that believes that government can do things for us better than we can do for ourselves, or whether we believe, as our founders did, that rights come to us from God, and when he gave us those rights, he gave us the freedom to go out and live those rights out to build a great and just society, not from the top down but from the bottom up.”
Santorum also cast himself as the candidate best positioned to appeal to struggling blue-collar voters.
“If we have someone who can go out to western Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Wisconsin and Iowa and Missouri and appeal to the voters that have been left behind by a Democratic party that wants to make them dependent instead of valuing their work, we will win this election,” Santorum said.
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