Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested Tuesday that Barack Obama’s campaign team told him they were privately afraid the former senator could have ridden a wave of working-class votes to beat the President in the 2012 election.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to promote his new book “Blue Collar Conservatives,” Santorum was asked whether he thought he’d win if his family was game to launch another presidential bid. He lost the Republican nomination last time around to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R).
“Look, I thought I could have won last time,” he said. “I’m convinced. You know I asked one of the Obama minions who were running the campaign ‘Hey, why didn’t you guys help me? I was up there battling Romney and all these folks at MSNBC were saying wouldn’t this be great if Santorum were the nominee, why didn’t you help me? Why didn’t you go out and bang me a little a bit, hit me you know, as being too conservative?'”
“And the consensus was, ‘We didn’t want you, because of this,'” Santorum added, holding up his book.
The former presidential hopeful then recounted how he met with Romney’s campaign manager and pollster after dropping out of the race. Romney’s team showed him a poll from Pennsylvania that found Santorum down by four points among voters who went to the polls during the workday, but up by 21 points after 5 p.m.
“When working people go to the polls,” host Joe Scarborough pointed out.
“This is it. And that’s what the other side is scared to death of,” Santorum said.
Watch below:
Image via MSNBC
This post has been updated.
