Santorum: I’ll Be Baaack…In 2016

In his speech to supporters Tuesday evening after losing three more primaries, Rick Santorum repeated his prediction Republicans will lose the presidency this year if they nominate Mitt Romney, and virtually announced his own candidacy for 2016.  

The man who once declared himself the Jesus candidate wrapped himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan and called on Republicans to "move straight to 1980."

In the last 120 years only one Republicans has defeated an incumbent Democrat for president, Reagan in 1980.   Santorum said Reagan was rejected as too conservative by the "Republican establishment" in 1976 in favor of the "moderate" candidate, Jerry Ford, who lost to Jimmy Carter.

"The one time that we did [defeat a Democratic incumbent] in the last 120 years the Republican Party had the courage to nominate the one candidate everyone said was too conservative," Santorum said.  Clearly he had himself in mind when he said, "Let's not make the mistake of 1976 again," but his message seemed to be "I'll be baaaaaack."

Santorum lost reelection to the Senate in 2006 by 18 points, and polls show him trailing Romney in the April 24 primary in his home state of Pennsylvania.  His prediction of victory, as in recent primaries in the industrial states, is more than hype than reality.

But don't be surprised if the Santorum 2016 campaign begins on November 7, if President Obama is reelected this year.  You heard it here first.

Listen to the speech and see if he didn't also try to compare himself to George Washington, or maybe he just garbled his message.