Santorum on “talk radio”

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican, will be in Iowa on Thursday for a series of events, culminating with a speech in Dubuque Thursday evening that’s organized by the American Future Fund.  Santorum spoke this morning via conference call with a handful of Iowa political reporters and some Pennsylvania reporters.  He sounds like a potential presidential candidate.  Santorum said he intends to “speak into the moment” and “confront” the Obama Administration’s record.

“I don’t think we’ve been particularly articulate,” Santorum said of his fellow Republicans and their response to Obama policies.  “…We’ve been at times pretty shrill…One of the voices of the opposition right now has been talk radio.  I think talk radio has done a great job and I’m not being critical, but, you know, look, part of talk radio is entertainment and hyperbole — you know, keeping an audience and while, you know, it serves a very important and useful purpose, you know we also need policymakers to go out there and be a little less shrill and a bit more pointed as to the criticisms and the antidotes to the problems that confront America and that combination is something that we just need to be a little better at.”

Santorum, in response to a follow-up question, said he listens to both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

“I think they both make a tremendous contribution to the national debate and I think they’d both tell you they’re in the entertainment business and part of what they do is, you know, say things in a way that can attract people to listen to them and they have a different role than policymakers. I don’t think they would argue that.  I think they play a vitally important role and, in fact, I don’t know where the conservative movement would be right now but for the talk radio and conservative websites and blogs that have really tried to hold things and tried to rebuild things, so they have played a vitally important role during this time, as sort of leading the opposition and now it’s time for the opposition.  Now it’s time for Republican leaders to stand up and some are doing so, but not in great numbers, and being more specific about the criticisms and offering alternatives.  I mean, it’s not Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity’s job to be proposing alternatives to health care reform. I mean, their job is to be analysts of what’s going on out there right now…to analyze and comment on those alternatives…but they’re not a policy factory, so I wouldn’t expect them or even, you know, desire them to be policy people.  They’re commentators and they do a very good job at it…but for them, we’d have ObamaCare passed in August.”