Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said on CNN “State of the Union” this morning that a lawmaker who is “willing to work with the other side” is “the real key that I think the tea party folks and conservatives generally have sort of had enough with.”
The onetime presidential hopeful got into the conversation about moderates when he championed the candidacy of Dan Liljenquist in the Utah primary versus longtime Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
“What does moderate mean?” Santorum said. “What does moderate mean? …Moderate in this town and moderate understanding is doing more government — in other words, we’re still going to grow government; we’re just going to grow it less. We need to stop that.”
Host Candy Crowley asked Santorum if there was any position he would want in a Mitt Romney administration, such as attorney general.
“I want to help Mitt Romney get elected president, and I’ll be happy to help him and advise him if he wants my advice as president, but my objective right now is to serve my family and provide for them,” he said. “It is pretty much a flat no.”
He added that he doesn’t “back away” from things he said about Romney during the primary, “but at the same time, clearly the difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney is a chasm, and I have a great degree of comfort in supporting Governor Romney as the choice between the two.”
Santorum also said that Romney is “trying to walk a line” after Obama’s Friday immigration enforcement change.
“He is trying to walk a line as not to sound like he is hostile to Latinos,” Santorum said. “But at the same time, I think that you need to hammer the president on this now habitual abuse of power.”
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