Daily Santorum: What Now?
Things are happening too fast in this wild GOP campaign for Rick Santorum to even enjoy yesterday's/this morning's shocking second-place/near-tie in the Iowa caucuses. It validates the far-right/social conservative strategy he's been following for months now -- despite being left for dead along the way -- but now that he's followed the Mike Huckabee road there, how does he avoid his distant 3rd in N.H. in 2008?
From Jim Geraghty at the National Review:
A big question about Santorum has been whether he can assemble a campaign infrastructure in all the states to come, but somehow I suspect that the considerable number of anybody-but-Romney Republicans will eagerly step forward and help assemble that infrastructure. If the race comes down to Romney and Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator will have access to funds from the grassroots. Perhaps not enough to go toe-to-toe with Romney, but enough to make it competitive.
One down, two two go on Santorum's big bets on the early states. His campaign manager Mike Biundo is from N.H. and his communications director Hogan Gidley is the former executive director of the S.C. Republican party. A PAC that jumped early on the Santorum bandwagon in Iowa will also advertise in S.C., writes Dan Hirschhorn at The Daily:
A super PAC that spent half a million dollars boosting him in Iowa has already decided to buy TV ads in South Carolina, The Daily has learned, though it’s less likely to do so in New Hampshire. Santorum has campaigned in South Carolina more than anyone in the field, and more in New Hampshire than anyone other than Romney and Jon Huntsman.
Santorum has four full-time paid staffers in South Carolina, and five in New Hampshire, where the campaign has already bought TV time.
Another huge Santorum cheerleader -- conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin at the WashPost -- gets her told-ya-so moment:
He’s still the underdog. He’s still got big challenges.But he is running a thinking person’s race and one that puts a premium on governance. For those who like to think merit and character still matter, it’s a feel-good experience watching him run his race, win or lose.
In the short term, Santorum hopes to capitalize on Rick Perry’s decision to head back to Texas to reassess and Michele Bachmann’s decision to cancel plans to campaign in South Carolina Wednesday. His advisers hope Jon Huntsman siphons independent and centrist voters away from Romney. With far less money to compete, Santorum hopes that two debates coming this weekend will give him enough free media to build on post-Iowa momentum.
He plans to spend six of the next seven days there — with a detour to South Carolina on Sunday.
But we told you things are happening fast. Rick Perry late this morning signaled (maybe) he'll still make a bid in conservative S.C., while Michele Bachmann has dropped out. And Mitt Romney is still in the driver's seat for the nomination for a multitude of reasons.