EAST PEORIA, Ill. — Hours after he said he doesn’t “care what the unemployment rate’s going to be,” Rick Santorum admitted to an Illinois crowd that he sometimes wishes he had the opportunity for a “do-over.” 
 
 “Issues are important in a campaign. “Now when you got out there and you don’t talk from a teleprompter, and you’re not, you know, reading notes that someone else gave you, occasionally you say something things, you wish you had a, you know, a do-over,” he said. Santorum tried to clean up the comment a bit on the rope line, saying this: 
 
 Of course I care about the unemployment rate, I want the unemployment rate to go down, but I'm saying my candidacy doesn't hinge on whether the unemployment rate goes up and down, our candidacy's about something that transcends that. Read more about: Rick Santorum, Unemployment, 2012 Elections
– Rick Santorum had a pretty big oops moment yesterday while campaigning in Illinois, when he boldly stated, "I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me." His campaign "doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates," apparently. He explained: "We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says that the president runs the economy?" Santorum later backtracked a bit, Politico reports, explaining that he does "want the unemployment rate to go down." The Romney campaign was, of course, gleeful over the gaffe, and Romney quickly used it in his own Illinois speech, ABC News notes. Hours after saying it, Santorum told another crowd in the state that sometimes "you wish you had a … do-over," adding that when you don't use a "teleprompter" or "notes that someone else gave you," these things happen. "But you know what," he concluded, "I think it’s important that you get a sense of how real the candidate is, mistakes and all."