SALON

Thursday, Mar 8, 2012 3:09 AM UTC

Santorum: Mississippi Could Make It A 2-man Race

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Santorum: Mississippi Could Make It A 2-man RaceRepublican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during a rally, Wednesday, March 7, 2012, in Lenexa, Kan. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)(Credit: AP)

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — Urging conservatives not to yield, Republican Rick Santorum told supporters Wednesday that they could make the GOP presidential contest a two-man race if they deliver him a victory next week and offer an embarrassing loss to rival Newt Gingrich in the South.

Santorum and Gingrich have been competing to emerge as front-runner Mitt Romney’s chief rival, yet they continue to split the party’s right-leaning bloc. The division has allowed Romney to shore up delegates and momentum, including six of the 10 states that weighed in on Super Tuesday. Santorum won three yet remained far behind Romney.

That could change with a Gingrich loss in what is seen as the former Georgia congressman’s backyard, the former Pennsylvania senator said.

“If you deliver a victory for us on Tuesday, you will make this a two-person race,” Santorum said. “And once it’s a two-person race, the conservative will be the nominee. You can change it all, Mississippi.”

It’s not clear that Gingrich would immediately drop out if he were dealt defeat in Mississippi and Alabama, which vote on March 13. However, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told reporters in Montgomery, Ala., that Gingrich must win both states to justify staying in the race.

Gingrich canceled a trip to Kansas — Santorum visited the Midwestern state on Wednesday — to focus on the two deeply conservative Southern states. He has posted just two victories so far — South Carolina on Jan. 21 and his home state of Georgia on Tuesday.

“Nominate someone who is not for Wall Street bailouts, unlike Gingrich and Romney. Someone who has not bought into the idea of man-made global warming, which we all now know was not climate science, it was political science,” Santorum said.

“You want someone who’s going to stand by their convictions, not change with the climate? Then Rick Santorum is the person you want to nominate out of Mississippi,” he said.

Santorum also hit socially conservative issues hard, too. Neither Gingrich nor Romney has a record without blemishes and Santorum is hoping religious conservatives reward him the way they did in Iowa.

“I stood tall for the values that the people of Mississippi want to see in their nominee, and that’s why I’m asking for your help and support on Tuesday,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Jackson, Miss., contributed to this report.

More Erik Schelzig.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations