Rick Santorum: I'm Not Sweating The CPAC Straw Poll

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who's currently in the opening phases of a run for the presidency, told TPMDC today that the CPAC presidential straw poll, the results of which are due tonight, is far from his mind as he works the conservative crowd at this year's conference.

"Nothing," Santorum said flatly when I asked him what he's done to win the straw poll, which pundits often point to as an early gauge of a potential GOP nominee's support with the conservative base of the party. Santorum said he's not paying attention to the poll, which he appears on for the first time this year.

It's likely at least one other presidential candidate at CPAC has a very different take on the straw poll than Santorum does. Mitt Romney, who spoke here on Thursday, has won the last three CPAC straw polls by campaigning hard among the supporters here. Romney, whose first steps onto the national political stage were marked with criticism that the former Massachusetts governor was not conservative enough to be the GOP nominee, has used the staw poll victory to bolster his claims that he carries the conservative mantle.

Santorum, of course, doesn't have a problem selling his conservative credentials to Republican voters. During his more than a decade representing Pennsylvania in Congress, Santorum was a social conservative firebrand, at the forefront of the "family values" movement of the 1990s.

Speaking with reporters after he addressed the CPAC crowd this morning, Santorum continued to occupy the far right lane of the social policy highway. As about the current push to eliminate the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and allow homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces, Santorum said he worried what changing the policy might do for military readiness.

Santorum said he's heard advocates of eliminating DADT say that if homosexuals weren't allowed to serve, the military would lose 13% of its active-duty personnel. "I have doubts if it would be 13%," he said. Santorum added that he thought that the military could suffer more losses from heterosexuals who would quit if forced to serve side-by-side with open homosexuals.

Which is not to say that Santorum thinks that homosexuals shouldn't serve at all. He just thinks the current policy requiring them to hide their sexuality while in uniform for the military than a shift to serving openly. That's not the take on DADT offered by some of the nation's highest-ranking military leaders, who have advocated for an end to DADT.

But Santorum said he questions that opinion, telling reporters he fears those leaders are worried more about doing what's "politically correct" than giving an honest take on DADT. He said he thinks the upcoming Pentagon review of the policy might not be enough to get the truth about what eliminating the policy might mean for the American military.

In his speech to CPAC this morning, Santorum outlined his concerns about the DADT review, as Dave Weigel reports.

"I'm not so sure that we have now so indoctrinated the officer corps in this country that they can't see straight to make the right decision," Santorum said to the crowd, according to Weigel.

He called for a outside panel of experts to review DADT when speaking with reporters after the speech. "I'm suspect of what this analysis might be," he said of the Pentagon review.

As for his presidential run, Santorum may not be concerned about the CPAC straw poll, but he's certainly worried about saying anything bad about Iowa and New Hampshire. He'll be visiting both states soon, and seemed extremely eager to talk them up with reporters today.

"They're America's HR department," he said. "They're a cross-section of the nation."