Bracing for Defeat, Santorum Uses the Waning Spotight to Reminisce

In 2012, he won Iowa in a surprise. This time, he’s reveling in past successes.

Tom Williams/Zuma

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On the edge of Sioux City, Iowa, in the muddy fields off Highway 20, a dirt road leads to large yellow mega-church atop a modest hill. It was there, at the conservative Cornerstone World Outreach, that Rick Santorum finally got his standing ovation.

Four years ago, the former senator from Pennsylvania was poised for a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses. He topped Mitt Romney with the support of evangelical voters, among them the controversial pastor of Cornerstone, Rev. Cary Gordon, whose influence among evangelicals in the state draws presidential contenders to seek his endorsement.

Gordon endorsed Santorum four years ago. The two have traveled to Israel together, and Santorum’s campaign they are good friends. But in 2016, the pastor has chosen not to back a candidate. In a long and winding article published on TheIowaRepublican blog this week, Gordon, an immigration hard-liner, blasted Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump as all being too weak on the issue. (Cruz, who is working hard to woo the types of evangelicals who are influenced by Gordon, might have the most to lose from his decision to stay out of the race.) Although Gordon did not endorse Santorum this time, he did welcome him on Sunday, and allowed Santorum to preach to several hundred listeners in his pews.

Here, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the congregation got to its feet and clapped for Santorum. And Santorum, at the podium in what may turn out to be one of the final days of his campaign, chose not to dwell on the present. Instead, he went down memory lane, to four years ago, when his presidential campaign was on the verge of its biggest moment.

“It’s déjà vu for me, because four years ago at this time I was here,” Santorum said. “Pastor Cary gave me an opportunity to come and talk to the church.” Santorum said. At the time, he recalled, Gordon gave him a sack with stones in it, signifying that Santorum was David going up against Goliath.

“While to the world that didn’t happen,” Santorum conceded—the Goliath of this story, Romney, went on to win the Republican presidential nomination—”we were successful in many races going forward in the primary, but ultimately I did not succeed.”

So Santorum recounted some of those victories. He told the story of his youngest child, Bella, who has trisomy 18, falling ill after the South Carolina primary. He left the campaign trail to be with his daughter, who had become “deathly ill.” But after a night in the hospital, her condition improved unexpectedly, and he returned to the campaign trail with a massive rally in Missouri. “Amazingly, we won Missouri that next week, and Colorado and Minnesota and the campaign took off again,” he said. “We called it the Bella surge.”

“Well, things didn’t go out successfully for us, if you will,” he continued, “and here I am back in Iowa. We’re out again fighting the same fight.”

As Santorum braces for what’s almost certain to be a poor showing in the caucuses Monday, his sermon offered a glimpse into what it might feel like to be on the verge of defeat. “What you and the world may see as success,” he said, “isn’t necessary how God sees success.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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