9 Things You Should Know About Rick Santorum

photo: mediaite.com

(The Fiscal Times) By By Eric Pianin and Michelle Hirsch - Rick Santorum first won election to Congress in 1990, largely by blasting veteran Democratic Rep. Doug Walgren for living outside his Pennsylvania congressional district for most of the year. More than a decade later, while a member of the Senate, Santorum enrolled five of his children in a Pennsylvania-based charter school in western Pennsylvania although his family resided most of the year in Northern Virginia.

The on-line charter school district announced in November 2004 that it did not believe Santorum met residency requirements and demanded repayment of $67,000 in tuition costs. Although Santorum was later absolved of any penalties, Democrats were quick to label him a hypocrite for doing precisely what he had criticized Walgren of doing. That controversy contributed to Santorum’s resounding defeat two years later at the hands of Democrat Robert Casey, Jr.

Until now, stories like that have received scant attention on the Republican presidential campaign trail because the former lawmaker and lawyer was barely a blip on the political radar screen. Though he relentlessly crisscrossed Iowa’s 99 counties in his trademark sweater vests and hammered away in debates at better-known and better-financed challengers, analysts once predicted that Santorum would be among the first to drop out of the race.

But in the wake of his striking performance in Tuesday night’s Iowa caucuses – falling just eight votes short of former governor Mitt Romney’s first-place finish – Santorum can expect to come under intense scrutiny in the coming weeks.

In a remarkable sign of how badly splintered the GOP has become, Romney barely eked out a victory after a long night of vote counting with 30,015 votes or 25 percent of the total, compared to 30,007 votes or 25 percent of the total for Santorum. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a darling of libertarians, finished third with 26,219 caucus votes, or 21 percent, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich finished a distant fourth, with 16,251 votes or 13 percent.

Just as Gingrich saw his brief surge in the polls collapse under the heat of media scrutiny and negative campaign ads, Santorum invariably will undergo similar treatment.

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