Santorum Relishes the Role of Underdog

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says the 2012 presidential election will be the most important in the nation’s history since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln — another long-shot candidate — won the presidency.

Speaking at a GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Sarasota, Florida, last week, the former two-term senator told a crowd of about 300 people that he’s familiar with the role of an underdog.

Santorum, the son of an Italian immigrant, said that few people gave him any chance when he first ran for Congress in 1990 against 14-year House veteran Doug Walgren in suburban Pittsburgh’s eighteenth congressional district.

Santorum, who had little name recognition at the outset of that campaign and was vastly outspent — raising only a quarter of a million dollars to Walgren’s $717,124 — garnered 51 percent of the vote in toppling the seven-term incumbent. His victory stunned almost everyone.

“Taking on impossible tasks doesn’t intimidate me at all,” said Santorum.

Santorum, who’s expected to announce his candidacy in western Pennsylvania on June 6, has been lagging at around 2 percent in most national polls since forming his exploratory committee in April.

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