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| Rick Santorum announces second run for president – live | Rick Santorum announces second run for president – live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.08pm ET17:08 | |
| Rand Paul, the Republican presidential candidate, invoked the Ku Klux Klan on Tuesday to explain why he opposed the construction of a Muslim community center – pejoratively known as the “Ground Zero mosque” – near the site of the September 11 attacks in lower Manhattan. | |
| During an appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Republican senator from Kentucky said he had been “horrified” at the Muslim community center proposal but that he opposed any law that would prevent it. | |
| “When they told me that they were going to build a mosque at 9/11 [sic], I was horrified and thought that was a terrible thing,” Paul said. “But I’m not for a law to prevent them. If you want to march down the street and you’re a part of the KKK, I’m horrified by that, and object to it. But there are certain – the first amendment is about the right to be despicable.” | |
| A plan to erect a 13-story Muslim community center, which would have included a space for prayer, at a site north of the World Trade Center that already hosted prayers became mired in political controversy in 2010. Prominent Republicans from Newt Gingrich to John McCain to Sarah Palin condemned the development plan. | |
| Read our full coverage here. | |
| 12.06pm ET17:06 | |
| The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs (@bencjacobs), after some robust Bernie Sanders reporting yesterday, turns to the Santorum announcement. | |
| The Guardian confirmed with a source familiar with the former Pennsylvania senator’s thinking that Santorum will launch his second bid for the White House today, Ben reports: | |
| Santorum will hold a rally at Penn United Technologies, a factory a few miles from the western Pennsylvania town where he grew up, to announce his decision. | |
| The former two-term senator finished second to Mitt Romney in the 2012 GOP primary and won 11 states. An ardent social conservative, Santorum was considered an afterthought for much of the Republican primary before he surged in the run-up to the crucial Iowa caucuses. Although Romney was initially given credit for winning Iowa, a recount showed Santorum had won by a hair. | |
| Santorum hopes to triumph in the crowded GOP field in 2016 by touting his message of “blue-collar conservatism.” However, he faces new obstacles in his second run for the White House. Unlike 2012, there are a number of strong contenders this year, such as Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, who appeal the Republican Party’s evangelical base. | |
| Further, Santorum faces the possibility of being excluded from televised debates, as he is just at the national polling threshold necessary to participate. | |
| Prior to his White House bid, Santorum served two terms in the House and two terms in the United States Senate representing his home state of Pennsylvania. The former senator lost his 2006 bid for re-election to Democrat Bob Casey by a margin of 59%-41%. | |
| 11.35am ET16:35 | |
| Rick Santorum: Game on! again | |
| Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who has made something of a career of upsetting those who would count him out, is running for president once again, AP and ABC News report. | |
| We’re scheduled to hear from the candidate at midday. | |
| 11.07am ET16:07 | 11.07am ET16:07 |
| Good morning and welcome to what promises to be a positively hopping day in the national politics. Teed up for today is nothing less than a major presidential announcement, a surprise challenge on the ground to Hillary Clinton and an effort to make sense of comments last night by Senator Rand Paul about the Ku Klux Klan, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in lower Manhattan and “the right to be despicable”. | Good morning and welcome to what promises to be a positively hopping day in the national politics. Teed up for today is nothing less than a major presidential announcement, a surprise challenge on the ground to Hillary Clinton and an effort to make sense of comments last night by Senator Rand Paul about the Ku Klux Klan, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in lower Manhattan and “the right to be despicable”. |
| We’ll be at the scene for a Paul campaign appearance in Chicago this morning, before skipping to | |
| Pittsburgh | |
| Cabot, Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum, the runner-up in the 2012 Republican nominating contest, is scheduled to announce that he’s back in the saddle. Last time around he won 11 states! | |
| The day’s liveliest action, however, may play out in South Carolina, where Carly Fiorina, the Republican hopeful who has been lighting up Iowa, has scheduled dueling events with Clinton, the Democratic standard-bearer. Will Clinton pay Fiorina any heed? Will Fiorina manage to steal some of Clinton’s steam? | The day’s liveliest action, however, may play out in South Carolina, where Carly Fiorina, the Republican hopeful who has been lighting up Iowa, has scheduled dueling events with Clinton, the Democratic standard-bearer. Will Clinton pay Fiorina any heed? Will Fiorina manage to steal some of Clinton’s steam? |
| We’re going to hear from Bernie Sanders, too, as he takes his message of taming the banks to the good people of New Hampshire. Read on ... | We’re going to hear from Bernie Sanders, too, as he takes his message of taming the banks to the good people of New Hampshire. Read on ... |
| Updated at 11.36am ET |