Daily Santorum: Polls still dismal
Just ahead of GOP presidential opponent Rick Perry's trip to Pittsburgh to talk energy issues, Rick Santorum was back in his home city last night to address a pro-life banquet. Which reminds us that Santorum took on the Texas guv on energy issues Tuesday night at Dartmouth. Here's the Pgh Business Times:
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said during the debate that a he had a "bold energy plan" that included drilling, and tweaked Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow presidential candidate.
"I don't want to brag, governor, but Pennsylvania is the gas capital of the world right now, not Texas," Santorum said. The discussion went on to Santorum's plan for manufacturing jobs that would appeal to Pennsylvania and other industrial states.
The ex-Senator's Catholic faith usually gets him a warm embrace, but not from the left-leaning Faith in Public Life. From Time's Swampland blog:
The Catholic principle of always considering the needs of the poor first is all over Catholic social teaching. It’s such a key tenet that it was one of the first concepts I learned in a graduate course on Catholic social thought and teaching. So the folks at Faith in Public Life perked up when they heard Santorum go after Rick Perry on immigration policy in a debate last month: “Why should they [illegal immigrants] be given preferential treatment?”
In fact, the Catholic bishops make no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants in Faithful Citizenship, the guide for Catholics that they recently reaffirmed and re-released (emphasis mine): “The preferential option for the poor includes all who are marginalized in our nation and beyond.”
Poll results continue to be dismal for Santorum. The latest nationwide Rasmussen study has him at 2%, while Herman Cain and Mitt Romney lead at 29%, Newt Gingrich is at 10% and Perry 9%. Public Policy Polling also has Cain and Romney head-to-head at the top nationally and Santorum at 1%. For the first time, though, we see some sort of kind pollster words for him, from PPP's Tom Jensen:
I'm a little surprised Rick Santorum hasn't had a surge yet given all the unrest in the Republican field. He has pretty solid favorability numbers at +25 (43/18). That makes him more popular than Romney (narrowly) and Perry and Bachmann by a wide margin. Only Cain and Gingrich do better among the GOP contenders.