(CNN) — As voters in Wisconsin, Maryland, and the District of Columbia prepare to cast ballots on Tuesday, Rick Santorum would not say in an interview on CNN’s “John King, USA,” if this is his last stand.
“My epitaph has been written many, many times throughout the course of this campaign,” he said. “So I’m just going to take it a day at a time and we’re going to keep working very, very hard and go out and articulate the principles that I think will win this election in the fall.”
Tuesday’s vote is seen as the next important milestone in this GOP race – as more and more uncommitted delegates become committed, Santorum will have fewer opportunities to win this race outright. But he told CNN’s John King that his “plan is to take this – take this all the way.”
He sustained his criticism of Mitt Romney, who leads on the delegate count, on health care, but saved his harshest critiques for President Barack Obama.
“He wants to take this money that’s quote saved by or taxed on oil companies and redistribute to his friends in the green energy business,” Santorum said of the president’s energy initiatives and call for Congress to repeal tax subsidies which go to major oil companies. Senate Republicans blocked a related measure on Thursday.
“It is all part of President Obama’s and the left’s radical environmental ideology that is driving up electric cost, driving up oil cost and gasoline prices,” Santorum continued.
He allowed that White House plans to implement previously announced sanctions on Iran are a “positive step in the right direction,” but said the administration has “taken backward steps,” too.
“He’s agreed to negotiate with the Iranians, really outside of the conditions that have been set forth by the U.N. resolution, which has said that there should be no negotiations with Iran until they cease the enrichment of the – of the uranium,” Santorum said of the president.
“And the Obama administration has set aside those preconditions, allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium as they talk. This is exactly what the Iranians want, which is time. They’re buying time.”
