compared himself to the Christian savior.

Santorum told the crowd that during a radio interview earlier in the week, a man had phoned in to tell him, "We don't need a Jesus candidate; we need an economic candidate."

"My answer to that was, we always need a Jesus candidate," Santorum, who is a Catholic, recalled.

"I don't mean that in saying we need a Jesus candidate, someone who's a Christian, but we need someone who believes in something more than themselves, some higher power, some god," he added. "When we say, 'God bless America,' do we mean it or do we just say it?"