Daily Santorum: 4/18/11

If polls represent the horserace for the Republican presidential nomination writ large, straw polls are the race at its smallest, most elemental level. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the race is often won with handshakes in hamlets rather than statewide television ads. So all the Donald Trump mania should be couched with the fact that he has yet to attempt a ground game in those states and it's rather hard to picture The Donald mingling with commoners.

So how did Rick Santorum straw up this weekend?

Our Former Senator was in New Hampshire, getting his tea party on in honor of tax season, and he placed sixth in a tea party straw poll taken at the big rally in Concord won by Tim Pawlenty. But later on, Santorum tweeted the news that he won a tea party straw poll in Rochester with 26 percent of the vote. More importantly in Twitter news, a fact that shockingly was not mentioned in the local coverage of the Rochester event, Rick won the mini golf competition by shooting a 43 (according to a tweet from state director Mike Biundo).

Santorum's press shop also passed along word that he placed second in the Dorchester County, S.C., GOP Convention straw poll and third in the Charleston County, S.C., GOP Convention straw poll.

The Schedule: Nothing today, but he'll probably be on the move this week at some point.