JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) - Elements of the Republican Party remain divided and distrustful of one another despite the yearlong effort by the Republican National Committee to unify competing factions, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said in Iowa Wednesday.
“I think it’s clear the party has got some division,” Santorum told reporters after being interviewed for “Iowa Press,” the Iowa Public Television program. “I think on both sides there’s suspicion of the other side.”
Tea party conservatives feel unappreciated for the enthusiasm they’ve injected into the party, which helped win the U.S. House majority in 2010, Santorum said. And mainstream Republicans feel wrongly accused of compromising their conservative principles.
Tea party challengers are going after sitting U.S. senators in Kansas, Mississippi and Kentucky primary elections this spring. Chief among them is Kentucky Republican Matt Bevin’s challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP’s leader.
Santorum argued for growing the party from the middle, within its working-class ranks, to bridge the two factions.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus commissioned a group of party leaders to study in what age and ethnic groups the GOP’s 2012 losses were most glaring. Priebus announced a year ago a plan to reach out to younger and more racially and ethnically diverse voters, especially with stepped-up social media.
Santorum said “blue-collar conservatives” were lost in that discussion.
Republicans “only talk about job creators, not job holders,” Santorum said during taping of the program. “I am really concerned about where the Republican Party is for average working America.”
Santorum ran for president in 2012 and narrowly won Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, but GOP officials first said Mitt Romney won. He returned to Iowa for the second time since that presidential election to endorse Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz for Iowa’s 3rd U.S. House district. Schultz was a leading Santorum supporter and campaign activist before the 2012 caucuses.
Other Republicans considering 2016 presidential campaigns have visited Iowa multiple times as well, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry, both of Texas.
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is planning next month to make his second trip since campaigning in the state as Romney’s running mate in 2012. Ryan is scheduled to headline the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner April 11.
Santorum said he is open to running for president again, saying he’s “doing everything I would be doing if I was going to run.”
On Wednesday, he also planned to sit for press interviews, visit past supporters and headline a fundraiser for Schultz, one of four Republicans vying for the seat being vacated by retiring 10-term Rep. Tom Latham.
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