Rick Santorum joins Boyd Huppert live from Luverne, Minn.
LUVERNE, Minn. - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared "live" on KARE's ten o'clock news Monday night - by accident.
Santorum was leaving a Pizza Ranch restaurant after a rally in Luverne. He stepped onto the sidewalk and found himself summoned for an impromptu live chat with reporter Boyd Huppert.
Earlier in the evening Santorum delivered a message of faith and limited government to more than 400 people at Luverne's historic Palace Theatre. "What the President is doing is undermine the very fundamental values of this country," said the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
Trailing front-runner Mitt Romney in the Florida primary by a wide margin, Santorum shifted his efforts elsewhere. When questioned Monday night, Santorum disagreed with the notion that he had pulled out. Instead he said he left Florida to tend to his sick daughter in the hospital, then "thought we'd get a head start and hit Missouri and Minnesota today and go out to Colorado and Nevada tomorrow."
Santorum's three-year-old daughter was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. He thanked his backers for their prayers and called his daughter's recovery amazing. "She woke up this morning, she had a big smile on her face, and I thought 'Okay, daddy can go back to work.'"
Santorum told supporters he hopes the strong support he gained in Northwestern Iowa during that state's caucuses will follow him across the border into Minnesota. Luverne sits just ten miles from the Iowa state line.
Florida's primary will be held on Tuesday and Minnesota's caucuses a week after that.
(Copyright 2012 KARE. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)