Color him awkward: Rick Santorum describes Asian-Americans as 'yellow'-skinned during presidential campaign stop in northern Iowa 

  • Former senator claimed in Mason City, Iowa Americans' skin color was no longer the biggest predictor of their economic outcomes
  • 'I'm talking about black, brown, yellow – whatever, or whatever it is, Asian?' he said during a pizzeria speech to three dozen Iowans
  • Campaign aide insists politically insensitive racial language isn't part of Santorum's regular vocabulary
  • He argued the breakdown of America's nuclear families was responsible for stagnating wages and economic despair across all demographics
  • Hillary Clinton was also in Mason City, speaking to a closed room at the home of a married gay couple, barring access to reporters and the public

By David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.com In Mason City, Iowa

Published: | Updated:

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum stepped carelessly into racial politics in northern Iowa on Monday, referring to Asian-Americans as 'yellow'-skinned.

At a Pizza Ranch restaurant in the town of Mason City – made famous by the Meredith Wilson musical 'The Music Man,' Santorum spoke to a dining room of about three dozen people drawn by his reputation as a stern social-values conservative.

They got their money's worth: $10.50 bought an informal lunch where they heard him cite Robert Putnam, 'a liberal Harvard professor' whose latest book 'Our Kids,' he said, links poverty and lagging economic indicators to a decades-long decline in the American nuclear family.

'Putnam, the liberal, you know what he said? It doesn't matter the color of your skin. He said skin color doesn't matter anymore when it comes to these things. It doesn't matter – I'm talking about black, brown, yellow – whatever, or whatever it is, Asian?'

He railed against 'the idea of skin color being the determination of opportunity in America,' and said both Putnam and the libertarian author Charles Murray had concluded having two married parents in a household was a better predictor of economic success for children later in life.

ALL COLORS WELCOME: Rick Santorum said Americans who are 'black, brown, yellow' and other skin colors are mainly disadvantaged because of the demise of two-parent households – not because of their race 

ALL COLORS WELCOME: Rick Santorum said Americans who are 'black, brown, yellow' and other skin colors are mainly disadvantaged because of the demise of two-parent households – not because of their race 

Santorum spokesman Matt Beynon told Daily Mail Online as Santorum continued to speak that the word 'yellow' as a proxy for Asian-Americans isn't normally part of his vernacular.

'I think he was trying to say "across the board",' Beynon said.

Asked if he thought people would find the term offensive, Beynon insisted that 'it doesn't take away from the point he was making.'

But Santorum insisted 'the breakdown of the American family determines more of your outcome' than any American's race.

'The breakdown of the family is making it harder and harder for children raised in single-parent homes,' he said, 'in a neighborhood with single-parent homes, going to school in that neighborhood school with predominantly single-parent families.'

'Their ability to rise is dramatically lower than everybody else's.'

Santorum is in the beginning stages of making a case that he is the best-positioned Republican to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats' front-runner, in the 2016 presidential election.

He laid out a series of issues including late-term abortions and nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, claiming that as a senator he had stood on the side of the angels while Clinton and other Democrats – including then-fellow lawmakers Barack Obama, John Kerry and Joe Biden, had emerged on the wrong side of history.

'Guess who's come out on top against Hillary Clinton again and again and again,' he asked.

Santorum also described a stark contrast between his hand-shaking, all-access event and Clinton's just a few miles away and a few hours later.

Clinton met with supporters at the home of two supporters, in a session that was televised on C-SPAN but closed to reporters and the public.

He said Clinton was engaged in a 'palace guard campaign' that would ultimately turn off most Americans.

'It's hard to say you're going to be out there for people if you never talk to people,' he said. 

Without making a specific pledge to work for the repeal of Obamacare, Santorum claimed it would be 'possible to put the genie back in the bottle' if a Republican president were to be elected in November 2016.

And he railed against what he said is the interventionist tendency of the current Supreme Court, saying that America's top jurists 'are sort of shoving things down Americans' throats that Americans don't really want – and of course Roe vs. Wade was one of them.'

Santorum didn't mention gay marriage, although Clinton's meeting on Monday afternoon in a posh section of town came at the home of one of the first gay couples to be married after Iowa legalized same-sex unions in 2009.

But he returned over and over to discussing the breakdown of America's once robust nuclear-family norms, and said the right president could restore the kind of social order that promotes upward mobility and economic growth.

PIZZA RANCH: Santorum railed against Hillary Clinton before a group of three dozen Iowans but insisted he won't run a 'nasty and personal' presidential campaign

The Obama White House, Santorum said, is obsessed with using the presidency's ' bully pulpit' to promote global warming policy. 'It's all the president wants to talk about,' he said, and 'everybody's on the bandwagon.'

'Now imagine a president who identifies that the number one problem in Americas is strengthening the nuclear family.'

But while he had harsh words for Clinton's policy preferences, mocking her 1996 book 'It Takes a Village' – 'The village, of course, is the government,' he said – Santorum pledged not to run a negative campaign.

'Last time it got nasty and personal,' he said, recalling the bitterly fought 2012 campaign.

'We don't need nasty and personal. I don't do nasty and personal.'

One elderly lady seated near the front of the dining room put her hand up to ask a question but could only managed to say, 'You're fantastic.'

Without skipping a beat, Santorum shot back: 'Thanks, mom!' 

THE 2016 FIELD: WHO'S IN AND WHO'S THINKING IT OVER

More than two dozen people from America's two major political parties are considered potential presidential candidates in the 2016 election.

Eight – including two women, an African-American and two Latinos – have formally entered the race. A long list of others are biding their time and assessing their chances.

REPUBLICANS IN THE RACE 

Ben Carson       Retired Physician

Age: 63

Religion:              Seventh-day Adventist

Base: Evangelicals

            Résumé: Famous pediatric neurosurgeon, youngest person to head a major Johns Hopkins Hospital division. Created a charity that awards scholarships to children of good character.

Education: B.A. Yale University. M.D. University of Michigan Medical School.

Family: Married to Candy Carson (1975), with three adult sons. The Carsons live in Maryland with Ben's elderly mother Sonya, who was a seminal influence on his life and development. 

Claim to fame: Carson spoke at a National Prayer Breakfast in 2013, railing against political correctness and condemned Obamacare – with President Obama sitting just a few feet away.

Achilles heel: Carson is inflexibly conservative, opposing gay marriage and once saying gay attachments formed in prison provided evidence that sexual orientation is a choice.


Carly Fiorina         Former CEO

Age: 60

Religion:      Episcopalian 

Base: Conservatives

                Résumé: Former CEO of Hewett-Packard, former group president of Lucent Technologies, onetime US Senate candidate in California

Education: B.A. Stanford University. UCLA School of Law (did not finish). M.B.A. University of Maryland. M.Sci. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Family: Married to Frank Fiorina (1985), with two adult step-daughters. Divorced from Todd Bartlem (1977-1984).

Claim to fame: Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company, something that could provide key ammunition against the Democratic Partys' drive to make Hillary Clinton the first female president.

Achilles heel: Fiorina's unceremonious firing by HP's board has led to questions about her management and leadership styles. And her only political experience has been a failed Senate bid in 2010 against Barbara Boxer.

 

Mike Huckabee     Former Arkansas governor 

Age: 59

Religion:            Southern Baptist

Base: Evangelicals

Résumé: Former governor and lieutenant governor of Arkansas, former Fox News Channel host, ordained minister, author

Education: B.A. Ouachita Baptist University. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (did not finish). 

Family: Married to Janet Huckabee (1974), with three adult children. Mrs. Huckabee is a survivor of spinal cancer.

Claim to fame: 'Huck' is a political veteran and has run for president before, winning the Iowa Caucuses in 2008 and finishing second for the GOP nomination behind John McCain. He's known as an affable Christian and built a huge following on his weekend television program.

Achilles heel: Huckabee may have a problem with female voters. He complained in 2014 about Obamacare's contraception coverage, saying Democrats want women to 'believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar.' And in 2015 he earned scorn for hawking herbal supplements in infomercials as a diabetes cure.

Ted Cruz            Texas senator

Age: 44

Religion:         Southern Baptist

Base: Tea partiers

                    Résumé:US senator, Texas solicitor general, US Supreme Court clerk, associate deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush

Education: B.A. Princeton University. J.D. Harvard Law School.

Family: Married to Heidi Nelson Cruz (2001), with two young daughters. His father is a preacher and he has two half-sisters.

Claim to fame: Cruz spoke on the Senate floor for 21 hours in September 2013 to protest the inclusion of funding for Obamacare in a federal budget bill.

Achilles heel: Cruz's father Rafael, a Texas preacher, is a tea party firebrand who has said gay marriage is a government conspiracy and called President Barack Obama a Marxist who should 'go back to Kenya.' 


Rand Paul      Kentucky senator

Age: 52

Religion: Presbyterian 

Base: Libertarians 

                  Résumé: US senator, board-certified ophthalmologist, congressional campaign manager for his father Ron Paul

Education: Baylor University (did not finish). M.D. Duke University School of Medicine.

Family: Married to Kelley Ashby (1990), with three sons. His father is a former Texas congressman who ran for president three times but never got close to grabbing the brass ring.

Claim to fame: Paul embraces positions that are at odds with most in the GOP, including anti-interventionist foreign policy, criminal drug sentencing reform for African-Americans and limits on government electronic surveillance.

Achilles heel: Paul's politics are aligned with those of his father, whom mainstream GOPers saw as kooky. Both Pauls have advocated for a brand of libertarianism that forces government to stop domestic surveillance programs and limits foreign interventions.

 

Marco Rubio         Florida senator

Age: 43

Religion:            Roman Catholic

Base: Conservatives

                  Résumé: US senator, speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, city commissioner of West Miami

Education: B.A. University of Florida. J.D. University of Miami School of Law.

Family: Married to Jeanette Dousdebes (1998), with two sons and two daughters. Jeanette is a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader who posed for the squad’s first swimsuit calendar. 

Claim to fame: Rubio's personal story as the son of Cuban emigres is a powerful narrative, and helped him win his Senate seat in 2010 against a well-funded governor whom he initially trailed by 20 points.

Achilles heel: Rubio was part of a bipartisan 'gang of eight' senators who crafted an Obama-approved immigration reform bill in 2013 which never became law – a move that angered conservative Republicans. And he was criticized in 2011 for publicly telling a version of his parents' flight from Cuba that turned out to appear embellished.

DEMOCRATS IN THE RACE 

Hillary Clinton Former sec. of state

Age: 67

Religion: United Methodist 

Base: Liberals 

                            Résumé: Secretary of state, US senator, US first lady, Arkansas first lady, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville law faculty

Education: B.A. Wellesley College. J.D. Yale Law School.

Family: Clinton's husband Bill was the 42nd President of the United States. Their daughter Chelsea is marreid to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, whose mother was a one-term Pennsylvania congresswoman in the 1990s.

Claim to fame: Clinton was the first US first lady with a postgraduate degree and presaged Obamacare with a failed attempt at health care reform in the 1990s.

Achilles heel: A long series of financial and ethical scandals has dogged Clinton, including recent allegations that her husband and their family foundation benefited financially from decisions she made as secretary of state. And her performance surrounding the 2012 terror attack on a State Department facility in Benghazi, Libya, has been catnip for conservative Republicans.

Bernie Sanders*  Vermont senator

Age: 73

Religion: Judaism

Base: Far-left progressives

                              Résumé: US senator, US congressman, mayor of Burlington, Vermont 

Education: B.A. University of Chicago.

Family: Sanders is married to Jane O’Meara Sanders (1988), a former president of Burlington College. They have one child and three more from Mrs. Sanders' previous marriage. His brother Larry is a Green Party politician in the UK and formerly served on the Oxfordshire County Council.

Claim to fame: Sanders is an unusually blunt, and unapologetic pol, happily promoting progressivism without hedging. He is also the longest-serving 'independent' member of Congress – neither Democrat nor Republican.

Achilles heel: Sanders describes himself as a 'democratic socialist.' At a time of huge GOP electoral gains, his far-left ideas don't poll well. He favors open borders, single-payer universal health insurance, and greater government control over media ownership.

* Sanders will run as a Democrat but has no party affiliation in the Senate.

REPUBLICANS IN THE HUNT

Jeb Bush, former Florida governor

Bush has a father and a brother who occupied the Oval Office, and the capacity to raise massive amounts of campaign cash. He has alienated conservatives, though, by embracing immigration reform and 'Common Core' education standards.

Chris Christie, New Jersey governor

Pugnacious and unapologetic, Christie would bring an ego-driven brashness to the race – although his abrasive style and echos of his 'Bridgegate' scandal might ultimately sink him. 

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator

Graham was a non-factor until a March summit in Iowa where he stole the show and put himself on the map. Arizona Sen. John McCain has praised him as the best person to help right America's foreign-relations ship 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor

Jindal's main claim to fame is his strident opposition to federal-level 'Common Core' education standards, which included a federal lawsuit that a judge dismissed in late March.

John Kasich, Ohio governor

Kasich is a popular governor in the battleground Buckeye State, but has little name-recognition elsewhere. He has accommodated liberals on some issues and could be seen as a more palatable version of Jeb Bush for Republicans who are anxious about electing a family dynasty.


DEMOCRATS IN THE HUNT

Joe Biden, U.S. vice president

Biden would be a natural candidate as the White House's sitting second-banana, but his reputation as a one-man gaffe factory will keep Democrats from taking him seriously. 

Jerry Brown, California governor 

Brown has been a presidential candidate three times and earned the nickname 'Moonbeam' for his liberal policy ideas. Today he's seen as a centrist but is likely leaning against another run.

Lincoln Chafee, former Rhode Island gov.

Chafee is a Republican-turned-Democrat who has launched a presidential exploratory committee and has distinguished himself from most in his party by attacking Hillary Clinton.

Martin O'Malley, former Maryland governor

O'Malley is a guitar-playing everyman who had limited success as his state's chief executive, showing political weakness by failing to secure a victory for his hand-picked successor.

George Pataki, former New York governor

Pataki is a long shot with almost zero name-recognition outside his home state, but he pared down the size of the state government and cut taxes during 12 years in office.  He toyed with a run in 2012 but ultimately decided against it.

Rick Perry, former Texas governor

Perry was a top-tier candidate in 2012 until his 'Oops!' moment in a debate, when he couldn't remember one of his own policy positions. He now also faces a criminal indictment in Texas over tenuous claims that he abused his power.

Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania sen.

Santorum is a perennial White House hopeful who won the GOP Iowa Caucuses in 2012 on the strength of ceaseless retail campaigning. He's best known as a religious-right crusader.

Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor

Walker built his national fame on the twin planks of turning his state's budget shortfalls into surpluses and beating back a labor union-led drive to force him out of office. Both results have broad appeal in the GOP.

Donald Trump, real estate tycoon 

Trump, the host of 'Celebrity Apprentice,' could self-fund an entire campaign without spending a life-changing portion of his net worth. He has loudly criticized President Obama and claims he can negotiate with foreign governments better than anyone else. 


  

Mark Warner, Virginia senator 

Warner is a former Virginia governor who won a tough Senate race in a battleground state. He's also known as a tough budget negotiator. 

Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senator

Warren is a populist liberal who could give Hillary Clinton headaches by challenging her from the left, but she has said she has no plans to run and is happy in the U.S. Senate.

Jim Webb, former Virginia senator

Webb is a centrist Democrat and a Reagan-appointed former Navy Secretary who's hawkish on defense policy. He has launched a presidential exploratory committee.

 

 

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