Rick Santorum Denies Making 'Black People' Remarks, Claims To Be 'Bigger Player' In 2012 Primary Race

Santorum Denies Making Controversial Remarks

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum denied recently making comments about "black people's lives" after receiving criticism for the remarks.

Santorum took heat after saying, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money." During an appearance on FOX News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," he denied ever making the comments, saying the remark was the result of "a little bit of a blurred word."

"I looked at that, and I didn't say that," Santorum told O'Reilly. "If you look at it, what I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of -- blah -- came out. And people said I said 'black.' I didn't."

The GOP hopeful touted his past help of black colleges to further defend himself against criticism over the claims.

"And I can tell you, I don't use -- I don't -- first off, I don't use the term 'black' very often. I use the term 'African-American' more than I use 'black," Santorum said. "I can tell you as someone who did more work for historically black colleges, I used to have -- every year, I used to bring all the historically black colleges into Washington, DC to try to help them, because they get very little federal money through the bureaucracy, and so I help to try to introduce them to people in the Department of Education so they could have more resources."

Santorum also got defensive over his presidential run less than a day after he took a close second place at the 2012 Iowa Caucuses, saying this campaign "isn't my first rodeo."

"I've been in a lot of tough campaigns in Pennsylvania," Santorum said when asked if he is "ready to be demonized."

"We're going to have resources," Santorum said. "We're going to be a much bigger player than I think everybody anticipates right now."

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