Video: Rick Santorum Explains the Birth of the 'Sweater Vest'

01-11-2012
aid=27583

Watch Rick Santorum explain how his sweater vests became the national rage. This interview was done in Bedford, N.H. on Tuesday afternoon.

Stay in the know. Get The Brody File Weekly:

David Brody: How do you like the sweater vests? This is the national rage.

Rick Santorum: The story of sweater vests is actually pretty funny. Because it’s cold in Iowa in December and January, and I don’t wear overcoats. I just don’t. because she’ll tell you why. I don’t carry umbrellas or hats or gloves or overcoats. I don’t do any of that stuff. Why?

Karen: Because he loses them.

Rick: Because I leave them behind. I’m always thinking about the next thing, and I won't own an umbrella. I’d rather get wet. I’m not going to pay for something I know I’m going to have for two days, and then leave it somewhere.

Brody: That’s fiscal restraint.

Rick: That is fiscal restraint. And so, I don’t wear overcoats, so I was packing. And I had never worn a sweater vest before this most recent trip to Iowa. I packed a couple of sweater vests thinking it’s going to get colder, I’m not going to have an overcoat. And so I better have something that on a real cold day I have a little bit of extra.

One day I put a sweater vest on, didn’t really think anything of it. And had a speech that evening that Mike Huckabee had an event promoting his documentary called “The Gift of Life,” in Des Moines, and everybody out there was dressed in suits and ties, and I walk out like this, with a sweater vest.

And according to the people there, maybe it was the speech that it clicked for me. The people in that audience were like this is the guy. I got that sense from just after that event that it clicked when they had the chance to see Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, and me.

And in that moment, I felt more than any moment that we had finally clicked. Sort of the virtual world said wow that speech blew everybody else away. And they started to say, it must have been the vest, and it’s like, what? So, they started to put out this thing about the vest, and everybody starts making fun of it, and I said, look I’m at 4 percent. Any attention I get is good attention, so I thought, I have one other sweater vest.

So I wore one the next day and of course, everybody started talking about it again. Then my staff says well, we got to get him some more sweater vests. So they went out for a late Christmas present, got me three more sweater vests. So I start wearing those, and that’s sort of how it happened.

Blog Keywords: 

Blog Posts: 

The Brody File