Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum spoke to a crowd of over four-dozen people Sunday night, in Atlantic as part of his “Faith, Family and Freedom” tour across the Country. The former Senator from Pennsylvania said he feels “very good” about his campaign in these last few weeks before the January 3rd Iowa caucuses, and urged the party faithful to attend the caucus and vote for candidate who will “Fight for America.” Santorum says “This is the most important election in your lifetime.” He says Iowans can’t be experiencing what’s going on in America and not know how critical the upcoming election is. Santorum says Iowans should get out the vote at the caucus, even if the vote isn’t for him.

Rick Santorum at the Farmer's Kitchen in Atlantic, Sunday

National polls currently show him lagging, but Santorum, who spent 12 years as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and four years in the House, isn’t letting that stop him from crisscrossing the state. Sunday’s appearance in Atlantic marked the second time he’s been to the community. To date, he’s attended 350 similar town hall meetings in Iowa.
During his most recent visit, Santorum said “Iowa needs to elevate a conservative to be out there on the national stage, to be a clear contrast to Barack Obama, and make him the issue in this campaign.” Santorum promised to balance the budget within five-years by cutting 5-trillion dollars in spending over in that length of time, and tax entitlements immediately. He says the only program he will not cut, is the Defense Department. He says that’s not the area that’s causing a problem in Washington. Defense spending, he says, has been cut 40-percent over the past 50-years, and he won’t cut it’s budget, because it’s “A dangerous world out there, made more dangerous” by President Obama.

Santorum suggested changes by the government in how businesses are taxed and regulated will spur spur economic growth in the country, but the economy will only be as strong as families are. He says families will not end up poor if couples marry and wait to have children until they’re married, and their children graduate from high school. He says “Marraige is important for the economic and social stability of our country,” yet politicians will only speak about it when they are trying to redefine it. Santorum wrote a book about a half-dozen years ago called “It takes a family,” in response to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book “It Takes a Village.” He says he wrote it because he’s passionate about families, but he’s also passionate about limited government. The two, he says, go hand-in-hand.

He says “You can’t have limited government if you don’t have strong families, and you can’t have limited government, if you don’t have people living good, decent, moral, virtuous lives.” Santorum says the goverment creates new laws aimed at regulating our lives and constaining bad behavior, because people are living their lives immorally. Santorum also spoke at a town hall meeting Sunday morning in Council Bluffs, with a similar-sized crowd in attendance.