Factbox: Who is Rick Santorum?

4 Jan 2012, 5:16 pm   -   Source: SBS
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Rick Santorum believes he could cut $5 trillion in spending over five years. (Getty)

Rick Santorum believes he could cut $5 trillion in spending over five years. (Getty)

Rick Santorum is a former Senator from Pennsylvania and held the Republican party's third-highest position from 2001 to 2007.

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Rick Santorum is a former Senator from Pennsylvania and held the Republican party's third-highest position from 2001 to 2007.

His campaign strongly emphasises his traditional family values and his commitment to reducing the number of people on welfare benefits.

Most notable is his stance on Iran, which he believes to be a serious and immediate threat. Alongside funding for pro-democracy groups and publicising of its human rights abuses, he advocates:

"Work[ing] with Israel to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat immediately; and developing a potential plan for military action if needed."

Santorum opposes what he calls 'frivolous lawsuits against the gun industry', saying that as a native of a state with a rich hunting and fishing industry, he understands the importance of the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms).

He also opposes Obama's health reforms and has vowed to repeal them if elected, replacing universal care with a 'market-driven, patient-centred solution'.

His fiscal policy includes freezing military spending to avoid any cuts for five years, in order to 'prioritise national security and defence.'

He wants to slash resources to the Environmental Protection Authority and the United Nations, and halve the staff of USAID.

He has also vowed to stop any remaining payout of the Obama administration's stimulus package.

Santorum has a history of offending the gay and lesbian community with comments like this one in 2003:

[Gay sex] destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong healthy families... In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. ... It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”

Gay rights activist Dan Savage struck back by turning his name into a neologism referring to anal sex, which became the top Google hit for any search of his name.

He petitioned Google to change the result, but Google refused.

Watch one of Rick Santorum's campaign ads:

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Your Comments

the old swithcheroo

dino - from coolangatta, 4 months ago

Sounds like Rick wants to destroy Iran so that he can recreate it in the United States...

Free speech

Tess - from Australia, 4 months ago

Steve- I object to you making a complete generalisation that all apprently "normal" people assuming you mean heterosexuals find BEING gay offensive... That is the view of some and most certainly not all.... Also to Dan though there are a lot of straight people who have campaigned and supported equal rights for the gay and lesbian community for a long time...not everybody takes it for granted.

@Steve

Dan - from Sydney, 5 months ago

There is nothing "normal" about discriminating against gay people. While Santorum has a right to make his views heard, he has no right to introduce bigotted legislation to deny gay people the opportunities that straight people have long taken for granted.

RE: Details, please

Rose Ann Rabiola Miele - from Boulder City, NV, 5 months ago

Can Mr. Santorum give details to his 'market-driven, patient-centred solution' to health care? Exactly how is this supposed to work?

Free Speech

Steve - from DFW, Texas, 5 months ago

Mr. Santorum is just as entitled to his beliefs as any gay person. To the "normal" person, the homosexual lifestyle is offensive. The gay community just needs to get over it, this is America you know. Others are just as entitled to free speech as are the gays.

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