Santorum 'open' to 2016 presidential run

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said Monday that he remains "open" to again seeking the Republican presidential nomination, after finishing second to Mitt Romney earlier this year.

“I’m open to it, yeah,” Santorum told the Weekly Standard. “I think there’s a fight right now as to what the soul of the Republican party’s going to be and the conservative movement, and we have something to say about that. I think from our battle, we’re not going to leave the field.”

Santorum prevailed in 11 of the Republican primary contests, and the Pennsylvania lawmaker pointed out that number was equal to the races Ronald Reagan won in the 1976 GOP primary. Reagan went on to win the 1980 Republican nomination and serve two terms as president.

Santorum said that Romney, who drew just over 6 million more votes throughout the 2012 primary, had not done enough to highlight the encroaching role of government in the lives of Americans.

“We didn’t make that argument in this race. Our candidate didn’t make that argument, as some of us said during the campaign, because he was not capable of making that argument,” Santorum said. “In my opinion, what could have been and what should have been a referendum election on what it means to be an American, what it means for us as a country to head down the road toward European socialism, we just simply didn’t make the argument at a time when I think America was ripe to hear the argument.”

Santorum added the GOP would have been more competitive in Midwestern swing states like Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin had it adopted more populist messaging.

During the Republican primary, Santorum built off his narrow win in the Iowa caucus to challenge Romney, the presumptive favorite. Nearly all of Santorum's wins came in the Central time zone.

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