Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum tells
Newsmax TV he isn't discouraged by his low standing in the GOP presidential polls just more than a month ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
He won Iowa in 2012 in a come-from-behind victory.
"I go back and look at the polls not from this time but five weeks before the primary four years ago, and Newt Gingrich was nine points ahead of Mitt Romney and I was sitting at 3 percent or 4 percent," Santorum said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show." "I look at it as I'm pretty much in the same place I was four years ago."
The strong social conservatives in Iowa are currently leaning toward businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, but Santorum said neither has strong conservative backgrounds, and he believes Iowans will begin to see this before the Feb. 1 vote.
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Cruz favors states' rights over fighting against same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana, Santorum said.
Cruz "doesn't agree with it but he's not going to fight it," he said. "That's not what people are looking for. They're looking for someone who has a very clear vision of what's right and what's wrong and be able to lay that vision out for the American people."
Trump has been hinting at former President Bill Clinton's history with women after his wife, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, said Trump had a "penchant for sexism."
Santorum said he sees no reason to talk about Bill Clinton's past since he believes Americans already are familiar with it.
"Character is one of those issues, and I don't think there'll be any shortage of information to voters about the character of the people involved of the Clintons," he said.
President Barack Obama has vowed to leave "it all on the field" as he enters his last year in office rather than be a lame duck with no further accomplishments on gun control and other issues.
Santorum said he believes him.
"I don't doubt that President Obama is going to use every power he doesn't have to try to continue to transform America," he said. "It's a very frightening thing to think that here he is promising more even though he knows he doesn't have the ability to legally do any of the things he wants to do."
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