Daily Santorum: Glamorous Life
AMES, Iowa -- The glamor of a race for president was on full display Monday for Rick Santorum. First, mechanical problems on his commercial flight forced him to spend seven hours in the Detroit airport en route to Des Moines, which he later chalked up to God telling him he needed to spend more time on the phone raising money. He canceled three events, making his only campaign appearance of the day at the Pizza Ranch, a local chain that serves up a buffet special. Most of the restaurant was taken up by youngsters receiving taekwondo belts. The Story County GOP was in a cramped room in the back, as shown by The Malloy BlackBerry.
Santorum gave a 20-minute stump speech, leading with his large family -- an instant humanizer -- and talk about his underdog races for Congress. He talked about being ignored and underestimated by the national press, and it's true that only a trio of local reporters and yours truly were in attendance -- but it's not like a Santorum visit is an event. This is his 19th trip to Iowa. His state "coalitions director" and Iowa campaign veteran Jamie Johnson introduced him by saying Santorum planned to visit all 99 counties and was the only candidate to make that pledge. This, apparently, had not been officially pledged by the candidate and Santorum said afterwards he was a bit surprised by the claim.
But his Sestakian tirelessness in constantly chewing through the Big Three early states and answering every question doesn't make 99 counties out of the question. "His campaign staff said he'd answer questions all night if we let him," said Story County GOP chair Cory Adams. He nearly did.
Johnson cut off the questions after seven, when Santorum had been there nearly an hour. They were on topics from Israel to oil pipelines, giving a brief glimpse into how Iowans really kick the tires of their candidates. Then Santorum went out into the Pizza Ranch lobby -- the taekwondo kids were gone by now -- and shook every hand and signed every autograph. He sat down and ate with a family that wants to prepare a big event for him at their barn before the Ames Straw Poll in August. An hour later, the monthy county meeting broke after its official business and Santorum was still there, greeting the second wave. After 9:30 p.m. he finally left, driven by a staffer in a Pontiac to crash at a Ramada.
Santorum and his people often speak of the momentum these repeated visits have, and there's some evidence in the polls to support it. I put the question to Adams, and he said it's not about quantity but quality of visits. He noted that in 2008 Democrat Chris Dodd moved his family to Iowa to campaign then flopped at the caucuses. On the Republican side Mitt Romney was "here a lot" and won the straw poll but lost to Huckabee in the real thing.
Today, the journey continues with glad-handing in Oskaloosa, Creston and Council Bluffs -- crossing the southern part of the state from east to west -- and he'll be back again, no doubt.
Links: The Des Moines Register has a rundown from Santorum's speech last night with a focus on the foreign policy aspects, and Vanity Fair has a look at his new Web ad making fun of magazine star Jon Huntsman.