Conservative Santorum makes a long-shot bid for GOP nomination


ROAD TO 2016

Rick Santorum

Age: 57, born May 10, 1958 in Winchester, Virginia

Political party: Republican

Political experience: Member of U.S. House 18th Congressional District, 1991 to 1995; member of U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, 1995 to 2007. Member of so-called “Gang of Seven” that exposed the Congressional Banking and Congressional Post Office scandals. Presidential candidate in 2012; announced presidential candidate for 2016.

Business: consultant, private-practice attorney and news

Education: Undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University, master’s degree from University of Pittsburgh, law degree from Dickinson School of Law, now part of Penn State

Family: Wife of 25 years, Karen; children Elizabeth, John, Daniel, Sarah Maria, Peter, Patrick and Isabella.

Interesting factoid: Isabella “Bella” Santorum was born with a condition called Trisomy 18 and wasn’t expected to survive her first birthday, but turned 7 in May of this year. Santorum and wife Karen wrote “Bella’s Gift: How One Little Girl Transformed Our Family and Inspired a Nation.”

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Republican Rick Santorum is having trouble getting traction as he makes his second consecutive bid for president.

Polls show Santorum, a former U.S. senator from rural western Pennsylvania, trailing far behind frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the crowded 17-person GOP field.

He and fellow Republican Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, both ran in 2012.

Santorum,who was runner-up for the Republican nomination race four years ago, announced his second presidential bid in May, vowing to restore a middle class “hollowed out” by government policies.

He appealed primarily to social conservatives in 2012. But he is donning a new mantle of economic populism, that he’s labeled “blue-collar conservatism.”

“Working families don’t need another president tied to big government or big money,” he has said.

With backing from evangelical Christian voters, Santorum, a 57-year-old Catholic and father of seven, won the Iowa caucuses in 2012. He went onto victory in primaries in 10 other states, dragging out Mitt Romney’s quest for the GOP nomination.

To date, he has taken rides on the Truth-O-Meter 57 times, receiving 6 True, 7 Mostly True, 13 Half True, 14 False and 5 Pants on Fire ratings.

Here’s some of the statements we’ve fact-checked. Read them all at http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rick-santorum/.

Rick Santorum on Thursday, September 1st, 2011 in a Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Florida

Says Rick Perry “provided in-state tuition… for illegal immigrants.”

In a Sept. 12, 2011 debate in Tampa, Santorum said Texas Gov. Perry had “provided in-state tuition for — for illegal immigrants.”

Perry responded: “In the state of Texas, if you’ve been in the state of Texas for three years, if you’re working towards your college degree, and if you are working and pursuing citizenship in the state of Texas, you pay in-state tuition there. … And I’m proud that we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them, ‘You go be on the government dole.’ “

Perry signed into law on June 16, 2001, a proposal allowing certain illegal immigrants to attend Texas colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates. Undocumented immigrants with a Texas high school diploma or GED who have lived in Texas for at least three years may qualify for in-state tuition if they sign an affidavit saying they intend to apply for permanent residency as soon as they can.

From 2002 to 2010, according to the coordinating board, 35,200 students used the affidavit method to attend Texas colleges or universities at in-state tuition rates.The annual number of beneficiaries rose from 733 in 2002 to 16,476 in 2010, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Perry isn’t solely responsible for the Texas law. But he signed it into existence and has stood by it.

We rated Santorum’s claim as True.

Rick Santorum on Sunday, April 5th, 2015 in an interview on “Face the Nation”

“Ninety percent of American workers don’t own their own business.”

Santorum argues that the Republicans should focus more on people working for businesses than people who own businesses, if only because of simple math.

“I’ve made the central focus of what I’ve been out talking about the fact that 90 percent of American workers don’t own their own business. They’re actually working for businesses and that Republicans better have a message that appeals to their place in the world today and their opportunity to rise in society,” Santorum said on CBS’s Face the Nation on April 5, 2015.

We wanted to know whether Santorum is correct that 90 percent of the American workers do not own their own business.

We concluded that there are different ways to count whether someone owns a business, and so the percentages are approximate.

Overall, we rated Santorum’s statement Mostly True.

Rick Santorum on Sunday, November 23rd, 2014 in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union”

“There are more people living in this country who were not born here than at anytime in the history of the country.”

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Santorum criticized President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Obama’s plan could affect about 4 million immigrants currently living in the United States ill. Under the plan, if illegal immigrants meet certain requirements, they could qualify for a work permit and avoid deportation for a limited number of years.

Santorum said the president’s plan will entice more undocumented immigrants, hurting the American-born population that he said is struggling for better employment and wages.

“There are more people living in this country who were not born here than at anytime in the history of the country,” Santorum said.

Obama’s plan only applies to illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. Still, we wondered about Santorum’s claim that America’s foreign-born population is the highest it’s ever been.

Immigrants made up a bigger share of the total population from 1860 to 1920 than they do today. This measurement is by far the more useful of the two, experts said, as it accounts for total population growth.

Santorum’s claim is partially accurate, but missing important caveats.

We rated it Half True.

Rick Santorum on Friday, August 28th, 2015 in an interview with Bill Maher

“The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2.”

Santorum sparred with liberal talk show host Bill Maher on a topic near and dear to both men’s hearts for different reasons: climate change.

Maher kicked off the debate by naming climate change as one of his main concerns for the 2016 election and challenged Santorum’s skepticism. Santorum, who has repeatedly called climate change “a hoax,” shot back by arguing that there really isn’t scientific consensus.

“I’m not alone,” Santorum said on Maher’s Aug. 28 HBO show. “The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2.”

Santorum, pressed by an incredulous Maher, repeated the claim: “There was a survey done of 1,800 scientists, and 57 percent said they don’t buy off on the idea that CO2 is the knob that’s turning the climate. There’s hundreds of reasons the climate’s changed.”

Several readers wrote to us asking about Santorum’s numbers, so we asked his campaign to send us the survey as well. They didn’t get back to us, but we did find the figure.

In short, Santorum’s claim commits “two orders of mischaracterization,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, who studies climate change public opinion at Yale University.

“Basically, Santorum’s claim is not consistent with the results from our survey,” said Bart Verheggen, the survey’s lead author.

The real finding of the survey actually backs the idea of scientific consensus on climate change, despite varying levels of confidence, said Verheggen.

“It is clear from our survey that a strong majority of scientists agree that greenhouse gases originating from human activity are the dominant cause of recent warming,” he said.

That’s consistent with most of the literature on scientific opinion about climate change, experts agreed.

We rated Santorum’s claim False.