Conservative stalwart Rick Santorum is jumping into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, calling on Americans to pray for a spiritual revival “to heal our land.”
The former Pennsylvania senator is pledging to focus his campaign on fighting for American workers while also standing strong on conservative social issues.
“As president, I will stand for the principle that every life matters – the poor, the disabled, and the unborn,” Santorum said.
He also vowed to fight to preserve religious freedoms, to “fight for the freedom for you to believe what you are called to believe, not just in your places of worship, but outside your places of worship too,” he said.
Santorum is among the nation’s most prominent social conservatives, having dedicated much of his political career to opposing same-sex marriage and abortion rights, while advocating for conservative Christian family values.
The 57-year-old former senator officially declared his candidacy Wednesday, flanked by factory workers and six of his seven children in a cinderblock warehouse near his western Pennsylvania hometown.
The newly declared candidate was also quick to jump right into the foreign policy fray over comments from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who blasted hawkish Republicans Wednesday, accusing them of inadvertently helping create ISIS.
Santorum told ABC News that Paul just doesn’t get it when it comes to ISIS.
“I think that is fundamentally a misunderstanding of the nature of the enemy we face,” Santorum said. “ISIS came about because they hate everything that we believe in and that we stand for. That’s what the problem is; they hate who we are.”
This will be the second White House run for Santorum. He ultimately won 11 states in the GOP’s 2012 primary election after an unexpected and narrow victory in the opening contest in Iowa. He emerged as a conservative favorite after touring the state’s 99 counties in a pickup truck.
“The last race, we changed the debate. This race, with your help and God’s grace, we can change this nation,” he said.
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