The wife of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says that God is responsible for her husband’s recent surge in popularity.

“I personally think this is God’s will,” Karen Santorum told GBTV’s Glenn Beck on Thursday. “I think He has us on a path. And I do think there’s a lot more happening that what we are seeing.”

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“How close do you think we are to losing the republic?” Beck wondered.

“Oh, it’s such a concern,” Karen Santorum warned. “I just really believe so strongly. This is why we are making the sacrifice we are as a family to give all. Because I do believe if President Obama is elected again, I do believe we are going to lose our nation as we know it.”

“Before we made the decision [to run], it was about a year, a year and a half, and initially when Rick mentioned it, I was just, ‘No way.'”

“I said we need to pray about it,” Rick Santorum recalled. “She said, ‘No, I’m not going to pray about it. God couldn’t possibly want you to do this.'”

But Karen Santorum said she eventually sought God’s guidance on the matter.

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“I really started to pray about it, and I did always feel in my heart that God had big plans for Rick,” she explained. “Eventually it was there, that tugging at my heart.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Beck asked.

“It is hard because you know it’s a hard path,” Karen Santorum agreed. “What did it for me, though, was Obamacare. Because we have, as you know, a little precious — a little angel, little Bella — special needs little girl. And when Obamacare passed, that was it. That put the fire in my belly.”

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“How much danger are the most vulnerable in our society in if Obamacare actually kicks in and the whole bell curve?” Beck pressed.

“It’s all about utilization,” Rick Santorum replied, referring to the false claim that the Affordable Care Act would create “death panels.”

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“It’s all about how do we best allocate resources?” the candidate added. “It’s not the death panel itself. I think Sarah [Palin] was talking about the broader idea of what socialized medicine is. And that is government allocating resources based on how to get the best bang for your dollar. It’s all about utility. It’s all about usefulness of the person to society instead of the dignity of the human life.”

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain have all claimed that God urged them to seek the Republican nomination for president.

Watch this video from GBTV, broadcast Feb. 23, 2012.

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(H/T: The Washington Post, The Right Scoop)