Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum railed against the Republican National Committee’s debate rules on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday with guest host Jonathan Karl, calling them “arbitrary” and saying national polls are “irrelevant.”
The former senator from Pennsylvania also touted his record in the 2012 primaries, only receiving one percent of votes in the national polls yet winning the Iowa caucuses, arguing “national polls mean nothing.”
KARL: It looks like you’re not going to be on that debate stage, you’re not in the top 10, you’re quite a ways out, what do you say about these debate rules that can leave you, the runner-up last time, out of the first debate?
SANTORUM: Yeah, they’re pretty arbitrary. I saw a poll recently, that said that they asked Iowa caucusgoers, if they could name the presidential candidates, 80 percent could name three and that’s people here in Iowa that probably study this more than anybody else. These polls, these national polls are irrelevant — I was at 1 percent in the national polls four years ago an ended up winning 11 states, four million votes and won the Iowa caucus. In fact, I won the Iowa caucuses and two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which I eventually, like I said, won — I was at 2 percent in the national polls. National polls mean nothing. This is an arbitrary figure and unfortunately the networks and the RNC have gone along with this irrelevant measure of legitimacy of candidacy. And then have the ability to influence who is in the top 10 by the amount of coverage they get, the amount of advertising dollars…
KARL: But to be clear — this is the chairman of the Republican Party, this is the RNC that have signed off on these criteria. I mean you’re being frozen out of this first debate.
SANTORUM: I have said it from day one. well, look, here’s what I know, four years ago, there was a straw poll, I finished fourth. Way down in the pack. The two people, the person that finished first, didn’t win a gate, a few days later, another candidate came in with tens of millions of dollars, was at the top of the polls in August, and he didn’t win a delegate. So I’m not worried about what’s happening here in August, whether it’s a debate or the like. I’m looking for the opportunity for all the candidate in this race to get an opportunity to be heard on a national stage, because they deserve it, these are really good qualified men and women. I guarantee you someone in that first debate is going to be someone who’s going to get a lot of delegates come next year and it will be another incident where the RNC and the national media missed it.