The Other McCain

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Rick Santorum Gets ‘The Kind of Optics a Cash-Strapped Candidate Can’t Buy’

Posted on | December 29, 2011 | 26 Comments

DAVENPORT, Iowa
That’s how Alexander Burns of Politico sums up the elements that compose the last-minute “Santorum Surge” here in Iowa. The question is how high that surge will go, and the situation here in Iowa is so turbulent now that it is impossible for anyone to say. I spent hours driving to Pella yesterday for a Rick Perry event and I’ve got photos, videeo, etc., I’ve yet to upload. But as I was driving back — intending just to drop by the Santorum event in Cedar Rapids and shoot some quick photos for the blog prior to writing my American Spectator column about the Perry campaign — the news broke about the CNN poll.

In fact, I heard the news on the car radio, which I’d just turned to a Cedar Rapids talk-radio station when the host introduced his next guest, a guy named . . . Rick Santorum. And in making the introduction, the host mentioned the new CNN poll. Obviously, this news changed my plans:

Rick Santorum took time to shake the hands of everyone who attended his “Faith, Family & Freedom Rally” [in Cedar Rapids] Wednesday night, and stayed nearly an hour after the scheduled end of the event to answer questions from the Republican audience. Only then did he take time to talk to the press.
“People are trying to determine right now, ‘Who can we really trust?’” the former Pennsylvania senator told a small group of reporters at a brief impromptu press conference after the event. “I think it’s going to build. I feel very good that we’re not going to stop there and, hopefully, keep moving up the ladder.”
The Republican presidential candidate was responding to the latest Iowa poll by CNN and Time magazine that shows him now in third place in the Hawkeye State, moving ahead of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The poll confirmed the widespread impression of many Iowa-watchers that Santorum’s low-budget campaign is surging in the final days leading up to next Tuesday’s precinct caucuses. According to the CNN/Time poll, Santorum’s support has increased from 5 percent to 16 percent in the past three weeks, while Gingrich’s support has collapsed from 33 percent to 14 percent.
Santorum refused to speculate on how far “up the ladder” he might climb by the time votes are counted Jan. 3. “No, I’m not going to pick a number and no, I’m not going to tell you what place I’m going to finish,” he told reporters. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator. And let me ask you something: Why is Rick Santorum’s campaign “cash-strapped”? Don’t you people know how to click on the link to his Web site and give him money? I think you do. So go do it now.

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Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in Iowa, Iowa, Rick Santorum

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/Bannor007 Dan Gillen

    Why on earth would I want to give him money?  This is turning into 2008 all over again.  Rick Santorum is now playing the part of that dolt Huckabee.  He’s a candidate with no money, and no organization who’s going to propelled by evangelicals because of his mix of pandering and identity politics.  He’s also a dead duck out of the state but this might get him enough momentum to spit the vote with the other conservative candidates handing Mittens the nomination.   

  • Anonymous

    I never understood how the most electable candidate in the race — who won TWICE in a Democrat congressional district and TWICE in a state that has 1 million more Democrats than Republicans — including winning a race against an opponent managed by venerable Democrat strategist James Carville — ever had issues with “electability”.  

    EVERY conservative I know had a “I love Santorum, but can he win?” thing going on.   That was almost entirely attributable to the MSM which had selected its “acceptable, moderate, ‘frontrunners’” and pretty much forced them on the electorate.  

    But anyone who did the research, and saw, particularly, the Rick Santorum speech at Dubuque in 2009 (on C-Span’s archives), delivered without notes or a teleprompter, knows that this guy would shred Barack Obama in a one-on-one debate.  

    So the answer on “electability” is “Yes!”, bigtime, and there should be no doubt.  Moreover, he has organization in NH and SC, so he can go the distance.

    Perry’s proven he’s not ready for prime time; Bachmann is gaffe and mistake-prone; she’d get “Sarah Palin” treatment in the popular media (Saturday Night Live, late night comics, etc.) Gingrich is as maleable as Romney, with a different position depending on the audience.   I cannot imagine anyone with a conservative bent and hoping to win supporting anyone other than Rick Santorum.

    Santorum 2012.  Give America a Chance, Again.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Bachmann’s so-called “gaffes” were blown all up out of proportion by the same media you are criticizing for their treatment of Santorum and whom others criticized for their treatment of Cain. You don’t get to bitch about your candidate being slighted when you jump on the media meme about others and take off running with it.

  • Gimlette

    Alright.  I’m listening.  

    How does he win the general election without PA? What states do you see him winning?  What battleground/purple states do you think he has an edge in over Obama?  Do you think he can win Florida, because he sure isn’t going to win NY, CA, or IL. Or PA.  

    Or, is he just in to grab a couple of delegates in IA and pray Romney pays off all of his campaign debt in exchange. And then goes forth to raise his speaking fees 15%.

  • Anonymous

    Jump on a B.S. media meme and run with it?
    Sorta like the Malkin site, Hot Gas?
    As for Santorum, besides swearing to start Armageddon, what will he do about any of the corruption and lawlessness that is totally out of control in D.C. and the source of all woes?

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    If all he’d wanted to do was rake in the jack, he could have done that writing a newsletter and sticking earmarks in bills he knew he could vote against and they’d still pass.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    I didn’t sour on Bachmann because of her gaffes.  I soured on her because of her profound lack of judgment in hooking up with the anti-vaccine kooks.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Maybe we should elect someone who’s passed one bill in twenty-five years and expect him to cut five government agencies.

    Santorum was the floor lead on welfare reform and one of the Gang of Seven who broke the House Bank and Post Office scandals.  He has a better record at cleaning out the garbage than most anyone else still in the GOP race.

  • http://twitter.com/sdo1 Steve in TN

    19.

  • Gimlette

    Never mind the fact that he hasn’t been able to vote against diddlysquat since 2008.   

    How does he win without PA?

  • Anonymous

    You’ve been reading too many other pundits.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Anyone still think the VA FUBAR was the candidates’ fault?  ”Virginia GOP to demand loyalty oath to vote.” 
    http://tinyurl.com/dyweesz

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ EBL

    You know you want to follow the herd.  And cowboy “the other mccain” is here to round you up.  

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Yet when the vaccine controversy was actually first started, way before Bachmann made it an election issue in the debates, it seems like the entire conservative wing of the GOP were “anti-vaccine kooks”.

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ EBL

    I know that number.  I know why you cited it.  

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  • Mike F.

    OK, E-Verify….talk to me. Coulter got my attention on this issue.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    I don’t know about the conservative wing, but I didn’t buy it, and my brother with the two autistic kids was livid at the bullshit.  You can imagine his opinion of Bachmann.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    It was a big issue back when Perry first started the Gardasil program. For what its worth that’s one of two things I agreed with Perry on over Bachmann the other one being this bullshit about a border fence in the middle of the Rio Grande. But that’s neither here nor there, the point is the Gardasil program was controversial during its very limited life, and it was conservatives who were against it. Bachmann was merely reminding conservatives of an issue that was pretty much over with by then, but which they did care about at one time, as a way of pointing out the kind of things Perry was noted for.

  • Quartermaster

    Really! I really don’t like Mittens or Newt, but Santorum on Immigration leaves me cold. His position can only be described as insanity.

    The skinny blonde attorney is right on this one, alas.Frankly, we have a bunch of midgets running for POTUS.

  • Quartermaster

    Nah! Coulter is right about Santorum. Sorry.

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  • Anonymous

    This ‘surge’ is coming purely at Newt’s expense- and a direct result of unprincipled scumbag Romney and his ma$$ive war chest.

    But the only real result of all this will be as Mittens intended, with Newt taken down suddenly he’s out front in ‘conservative’ Iowa… with the only worst candidate than him -Ron Paul- right up top there with him… great!

    Of course, this is precisely why I switched from Bachmann to Newt… she and Santorum don’t have the skills  to beat Obama or run the country imho, and backing such candidates will only hand the nomination to Romney…  and maybe the WH right back to Obama,  too 

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