前參議員桑托勒姆第二次競選總統爭取共和黨提名

White House on Wednesday, joining an already crowded field seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

The 57-year-old Santorum will make the announcement at a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania, the state he represented in both the House and Senate for several years from 1991 until 2007, when he lost his Senate re-election bid.

Santorum was little regarded when he launched his first bid for the Republican nomination in 2012, but stunned political observers when he narrowly won the influential Iowa party caucuses over Mitt Romney, drawing supporters attracted to his strong social conservatism. Santorum went on to win 10 more state caucuses and primaries before his campaign lost momentum to Romney, the party's eventual nominee.

Despite his strong showing in 2012, Santorum faces another uphill battle in the upcoming race, with well over a dozen candidates who have either formally entered or are considering entering the race, including former governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee, current senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and retired surgeon Ben Carson, many with strong social conservative credentials.美國前參議員裏克.桑托勒姆星期三將宣佈競選共和黨總統候選人提名。這是他第二次競選總統。

57歲的桑托勒姆將在賓州一家制造廠宣佈參選。他1991年到2007年曾代表賓州出任聯邦衆議員和參議員，但2007年競選連任參議員失敗。

桑托勒姆第一次競選共和黨候選人時並不被看好，但令政治觀察家感到吃驚是他卻在有影響力的艾奧華州共和黨黨團投票中以微弱多數擊敗羅姆尼，並以他強烈的社會保守主義吸引了很多支持者。接着他又在10個州贏得共和黨的選票，但最終還是輸給了獲得共和黨提名的羅姆尼。

儘管2012年競選政績不錯，桑托勒姆這次參選仍將是一場苦戰。目前已有10幾位共和黨人正式宣佈或考慮宣佈參加競選黨內提名，包括前州長傑布·布什和赫卡比，參議員保羅、盧比奧和克魯茲，以及退休外科醫生卡森等，其中很多人具有很強的社會保守主義業績。