Santorum Runs Again?

He hasn’t made a formal announcement yet, but sitting down with the Washington Post to mull your (possible) presidential campaign seems to be good way let the world know that, yeah, you’re probably running. So let’s just consider Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania’s former U.S. senator, a lock to run for the 2016 Republican nomination. The Post’s headline even drops the pretense: “Rick Santorum is running for president again,” it shouts.

“Again.” (He ran and lost the nomination in 2012 to Mitt Romney.) Only this time, he says, he’s ready.

Where he had to build his operation from the ground up in 2012, Santorum now has a grass-roots operation called Patriot Voices, which boasts 150,000 activists across the country. Its current push, an online petition drive to oppose President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration, has generated what Santorum strategist John Brabender says are “30,000 new e-mail relationships.”

Whether Santorum can raise the money he needs is another question. Foster Friess, the benefactor who ponied up $2.1 million to a pro-Santorum super PAC in 2012, says he would support him again. The former senator is sounding out other deep-pocketed donors, whom he declined to identify.

Strikingly the story doesn’t make much mention of Satorum’s well-known social conservatism — never mentioning his anti-gay-marriage stance or anything associated with it. He said that voters are already familiar with his stands on social issues. Instead, he’ll emphasize his stances on other hot-button issues, like immigration.

“We’re just obviously in a better place right now,” he told the Post. “Our message will be a lot more focused this time than it was last time.” [Washington Post]