Santorum Says Wife Disapproved of His Obama, Snob Remark
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that his wife, Karen, reprimanded him for calling President Barack Obama a "snob."
"She understands that sometimes I get fired up, as she can, too, and sometimes step over the line. I think she rightly comes after me and says, you know, 'Rick, you gotta go back and walk this back,'" Santorum said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"She's a very good governor for me," Santorum added. "She makes sure that I try to keep things in perspective."
In a speech two weeks ago, Santorum said Obama was a "snob" for saying that everyone should go to college. (Several fact checking websites, including PolitiFact, have reported that Obama did not actually say that.)
In a CNN interview later that week, Santorum said, "it was a strong term, probably not the smartest thing. But you know what, I don't give prepared talking point speeches written by other people. I got a little passionate there and I used a harsher word than I normally would."
Karen Santorum also reportedly told her husband he used inappropriate language when he said that reading John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about his Catholic faith made him want to "throw up."
Several pundits have argued that both of those remarks are partly responsible for his decline in national polls and failure to win the Michigan primary.
In an interview last week with Politico, Karen Santorum spoke about guiding her husband on his choice of words.
"When you're married, it is everything. Your hair is out of place. You didn't say that right. You should've said this. You didn't say that," Karen Santorum explained.
"She is very direct," Rick Santorum said Sunday. "We have a wonderful, very, very special relationship. She watches everything I do like a hawk."
