Santorum: Ryan Will Win VP Debate

In town for Family Day at The Citadel where his son is a student, former GOP presidential candidate and Sen. Rick Santorum spoke to Charleston Republicans in North Charleston Thursday.

He told a small crowd at the Charleston GOP Headquarters at 4952 Centre Pointe Drive, North Charleston that Vice Presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan will be successful in tonight's debate with Vice President Joe Biden.

"I'm very optimistic about tonight, I think Paul's going to do a great job tonight, Paul has a lot of strengths," Santorum said. "He's a very smart guy, he's very deep in policy, he understands the numbers.

"Paul's biggest problem is he understands the numbers too well. He just likes to talk about numbers and that is a problem that can be fixed," he continued. "I think you saw that quite frankly with Mitt Romney."

Echoing comments Pres. Barack Obama made during campaign stops following the first Presidential debate two weeks ago, Santorum said in the 18 debates both men participated in during the primary campaign, he never saw the Mitt Romney that showed up to debate Obama on the stage.

"That Mitt Romney could talk about the person and relate it, and yes, use numbers, but put them in a context that related to the average person," he said. "And so what that tells you, as someone who's gone through this before, that is something that is teachable. You can teach someone to say, okay, look you the concept, now here's how you take that concept and you bring it home in a way that people can understand and relate to."

Speaking to reporters, Santorum said he was fond of the former staffer who has recently been accused of sexual misconduct at The Citadel.

"It's disappointing all the way around and Stephen was a great and loyal employee and one that we have a lot of fondness for and we're praying for him," Santorum said. "I hope everything works out for everyone involved."

He went on to lay much of the blame for the recent sex scandals at the Citadel and other colleges and uniersities at the feet of American popular culture.

"You have all these young people who are in a culture that is, in my opinion, a popular culture that is sending all the wrong signals about what sex is and what it should be about, and as a result we've seen a lot of bad behaviors," he said. "And it's a very tough thing for colleges to deal with and that's not what their in the business of dealing with and hopefully they'll from the mistakes they made."

Santorum also said conservative criticism of Romney shifting positions to the middle in the general election campaign are baseless, and that he has been pleasantly surprised that Romney has not shifted positions.

"Conservative critics are saying Romney's moving to the middle and he's changing his position on all these things, and the bottom line is I don't see that," Santorum said. "I honestly don't see it, and as someone who ran around the country with an Etch-a-sketch expressing my concern about Romney and what he would do if he got the nomination, the tax policy he's put forward is the tax policy he put forward in the primary."

He said Romney's position on abortion remains pro-life and he believes Romney will be a pro-life president, even if Romney isn't as vocal or articulate on the issue as Santorum would like.