Santorum: I'd support any GOP candidate in 2012
Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said he'd support "anybody in the Republican field" who won the GOP presidential nomination, although he noted that Ron Paul would "give me a little indigestion."
Santorum, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, said he'd have "no problem" supporting any of his Republican competitors were they to win the nomination - though he pointed out that the "better candidate out in field" was himself.
"I mean, Ron Paul would give me a little indigestion," quipped the former two-term Pennsylvania Senator. "I'd have to take some antacids on foreign policy."
Other than that, he said, he found all of the GOP candidates "far superior in many other ways than this president."
"I would have no problem supporting them."
When asked if fellow GOP contender Herman Cain was "for real," Santorum said, "certainly."
"Certainly Herman Cain is for real," Santorum said.
Still, the staunchly anti-abortion conservative pointed out what he argued were ideological inconsistencies in Cain's policy platform - particularly regarding Cain's take on abortion rights.
"You can't be for... be pro-life and then say people have a choice to do whatever they want," Santorum said, referencing a recent CNN interview in which Cain suggestedthat decisions about whether to have an abortion should be left to families, not the government.
"This is the kind of seemingly trying to have, you know, be all things to all people," Santorum said. "I think conservatives, after they look at his record and look at what he believes in, are going to question whether he really is a conviction conservative, particularly on some of these moral/cultural issues and Second Amendment issue."
Santorum also pointed to Cain's support for the 2008 Wall Street bailout, as well as his call to impose a nine percent national sales tax, as going against the conservative grain.
"Someone who wants to impose a national sales tax... I haven't talked to one conservative or seen one conservative come out and say, 'Gee, this is a great idea to impose a national sales tax.' Even those who supported his [9-9-9 tax] plan originally said that's probably not a good idea," he added.
