Former United States Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum visited Jefferson and Menlo on Sunday.

About 30 people attended an open forum with the former senator from Pennsylvania at Greene Bean Coffee.  Santorum spoke about the importance of national security and the issues with America providing funding to Iran.  A main topic he talked about was not supporting gay marriage and urging the American people that they have the final voice, not the Supreme Court.  He also touched on having a strong, healthy family life where a mother and father raise their children in a positive manner and not allowing the federal government to intervene with education.

Santorum told Raccoon Valley Radio that he believes the Iowa caucuses are more important than this week’s debate that will be on national television.

“You have three or four candidates who are running national ads (and) spending millions of dollars so they can get into the debate.  Instead of spending time here talking to folks here in this state.  There’s 16 candidates and I know you see candidates here, but you don’t see the number here that quite frankly that you should be seeing at this point in time.”

In the evening, Santorum attended the Adair County GOP Golf Tournament banquet in Menlo.

Santorum has visited 59 of Iowa’s 99 counties with the goal of reaching all of them by Labor Day.