Rick Santorum’s Bet on Missouri - East Idaho News
News

Rick Santorum’s Bet on Missouri

  Published at

Getty P 110211 SantorumClose?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1328297614572Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images(HANIBAL, Mo.) – Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum is spending the day Friday in Missouri, four days before the state’s primary, even though not a single delegate will be awarded to the winner of the contest.

The primary is little more than state-sanctioned straw poll, and the winner earns nothing more than bragging rights and perhaps a leg up in March’s winner-take-all caucus.

“People say the election Tuesday is just a beauty contest, a preference a poll,” Santorum told a gathering Friday morning.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, however, will not be on the ballot Tuesday, and Santorum is hoping that a victory in a head-to-head matchup against frontrunner Mitt Romney would give his campaign a much-needed boost.

“You hear Congressman Gingrich say we need to have one conservative candidate as an anti-Mitt Romney. I don’t buy any of that,” Santorum said. “Now we have right here in Missouri, you have Rick Santorum versus Mitt Romney and we’ll see how people will vote. What we have found is that I am the only conservative alternative in this race to both Gingrich and Romney.”

Santorum bested Romney in Iowa by just 23 votes following a recount there, but has not taken a top tier spot in any of the subsequent contests. Missouri’s caucus takes place on March 17 and the winner takes all the state’s 52 delegates. Santorum has built his campaign around conservative social values and restoring manufacturing to rural America, two positions he hopes will resonate with voters in Missouri.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION