Rick Santorum Hits Gingrich On Social Issues, Claims He’s Pushed Them ‘To The Back Of The Bus’

Rick Santorum joined the social conservative pile-on against current Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich on Sunday, telling ABC’s This Week with Christine Amanpour that the former House speaker has pushed social issues to “the back of the bus“:

AMANPOUR: Is he a real conservative with the social values that…

SANTORUM: I think Newt has consistently put those in the back of the bus. He has never really been an advocate of pushing those issues. Newt is someone who likes to get issues that are 80 to 90 percent of the polls. And 80 percent of the polls are generally not necessarily conservative, strong conservative issues. But that’s how Newt has always tried to govern. And I respect that, that’s certainly a way to do so. I tend to take the position that it’s important to lead with what you believe is right for America and try to bring the American public along instead of trying to find where everybody is and then try to do that.

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Indeed both Santorum and Bachmann — who round out the bottom of the pack in a recent poll from the Des Moines Register — have attacked Gingrich on his commitment to conservative social issues like abortion in their bids to court social conservatives ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. Leaders of Iowa’s Evangelical community have yet to unite behind a single candidate and remain split over Gingrich’s candidacy. While the FAMiLY Leader seems poised to endorse him, an Iowa group calling itself Iowans for Christian Leaders in Government has released an ad targeting Gingrich for his multiple marriages and extramarital affairs.

Gingrich’s record on social issues does betray a more moderate streak. In 1998, for instance, Gingrich called “for tolerance of candidates who support partial-birth abortion, saying he would campaign for them: ‘It’s the voters of America who have a right — in some places they’re going to pick people who are to my right, some places they’re going to pick people who are to my left and in both cases, if they’re the Republican nominee, I am going to actively campaign for them.’”