SANTORUM DROPS OUT

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UPDATE 6 p.m. ET: In a post at Rachel Maddow’s blog (!) lefty Steve Benen says, “Santorum has done something I honestly didn’t think was possible,” going on to list the miraculous successes of Santorum’s low-budget underdog operation. Beyond the credit due to the candidate and his family — his wife and kids were, at one point, nearly the only people working full-time for his campaign — much of the credit goes to the scores and hundreds of dedicated volunteers whom I mention below.

Also: Because he went so long without any significant media recognition, Santorum was always the most accessible of the candidates and was willing to answer almost any questions. That got him in trouble a few times, and drove his staff and consultants nuts, but the folks in the press corps — including liberals who totally disagreed with Santorum on the issues — appreciated the honesty and openness of his campaign.

UPDATE 4:50 p.m. ET: Video of Santorum’s speech today:

UPDATE 4:40 p.m. ET: A volunteer just started the “Rick 2016” Facebook page.

UPDATE 4:20 p.m. ET: In a message on the Team Santorum Facebook page, the campaign’s grassroots coordinator Shelley Ahlersmeyer links Rick and Karen Santorum’s note of thanks to their supporters.

The story of Santorum’s grassroots army has been seldom mentioned in the media, even in my own coverage of the campaign. Some people were mystified by how Santorum kept winning — from Colorado to Louisiana — and so often out-performing the polls.

Shelley Ahlersmeyer had run grassroots outreach for Mike Huckabee’s 2008 campaign, and when she joined Team Santorum, it was a big gain for his campaign that didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved at the time. Ahlersmeyer brought with her not only her experience, skill and energy, but also extensive connections with Huckabee’s volunteers from four years ago.

So: How did Santorum win, for example, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, states that had seemed likely to go for Newt Gingrich? How did Santorum stay competitive in Michigan and Ohio, despite being massively outspent by Romney?

Three words: “Phone from home.”

A comparative handful of fired-up, dedicated volunteers — mostly moms and grandmothers — each made many thousands of phone calls to Republican primary voters in those states. Exactly how many people participated in Santorum’s phone-from-home program, I don’t yet know, but there were a hard-core handful who have spent practically every day for the past four months calling up total strangers and asking them to vote for Rick Santorum.

God bless ’em, they pulled off a miracle or two — Rick’s campaign manager, Mike Biundo, told me that the top campaign staff didn’t think they could win Mississippi until they saw the votes come in — and those volunteers deserve far more credit than they got.

Linked by The Lonely Conservative, Republican Redefined and Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE 3:50 p.m. ET: Michelle Malkin came through with a crucial endorsement of Rick Santorum on Jan. 31 — the day of the Florida primary — and says of his scrappy underdog campaign:

Rick Santorum fought hard, he fought well, and he gave voice to a large contingent of grass-roots conservative activists across the country who wanted a candidate who lived the values he preached. He held Mitt Romney’s feet to the fire on health care, challenged Newt Gingrich’s green flirtations and past support for the individual mandate, and took on Ron Paul’s foreign policy extremism. His presence improved everyone else’s game — and that will serve the GOP ticket well this fall, whoever ends up on it.

Let’s not talk about that yet, huh? By the way, Michelle Malkin is hereby formally invited to “DoomCon 2012,” which I hope to convene in Tampa the day before the RINO coronation Republican convention in August. The general theme will be, “How screwed are we?”

UPDATE 3:55 p.m. ET: I hope Jeff Goldstein can make it to Tampa, too.

UPDATE 3:40 p.m. ET: Chris Moody, my young friend who was covering his first presidential campaign this year, reminds us how it was:

In the final days before the first Republican caucuses in Iowa — a contest on which Santorum rested his entire strategy — it appeared that his campaign would be laid to rest in the state where it was born. Iowa Republicans did not turn their eyes to the man who had spent more time in their state than any other candidate until the very end, but they ultimately awarded him with a surprise, hair’s-breadth victory — not formally confirmed until weeks after the vote–that helped keep his fledgling campaign afloat into the spring.
The first public whispers of his impending rise came with a CNN poll released three days after Christmas that showed Santorum in third place among likely Iowa caucus-goers, higher than he had ever been before in a public opinion survey.

Oh, that wasn’t first whisper, Chris: Have you already forgottten the Dec. 1 earthquake in Vanuatu? And I was calling it the “Santorum Surge” for weeks before that CNN poll confirmed my insight. Just the other day, I recounted some of those headlines.

UPDATE 3:05 p.m. ET: Video report from Associated Press:

Donald Douglas at American Power:

Santorum’s campaign represented the great hope of “full-spectrum conservatives” in 2012, and his exit will leave a mark on the general election campaign, as social issues and working class concerns will continue to resonate with the electorate into the fall.

I’d been planning to travel tp Pennsylvania next week to cover the campaign leading up to the April 24 primary. Now? To look on the bright side, I can begin planning for “DoomCon 2012.”

*** PREVIOUSLY (2:36 p.m. ET) ***

The news broke online while I was sending an e-mail, and I just watched Santorum’s speech on TV.

UPDATE: You know what’s gonna hurt? Telling my son Jefferson.

UPDATE II: Lisa Graas must be heartbroken.

UPDATE III: Chris Stirewalt and his fellow Romneyites on Fox News are talking about how Mitt will win now. We won’t forget their glee.

UPDATE IV: More of the news I missed at The Hill. As one commenter said, “We’ll always have Iowa.” And New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Louisiana, to name some of the places I encountered Santorum on his long, wild campaign trail.

154 comments

  1. You seem to pride yourself on being one of the few adults in the room, so why are you being so touchy about people’s tepid reactions to Romney’s corronation?

    You, more than anyone, should appreciate how this works: When the GOP establishment relentlessly and successfully runs full-court pre$$e$ on behalf of its preferred progresso-“conservative” candidate, they get our votes, but nothing else.

    I wouldn’t expect someone like you to demand free lunches.

  2. Let’s see, who’s the fool?  The guy who is pointing at an unbroken record of RINOs losing the WH or the cheerleader for the guy who has never really shown he has any grassroots support at all? The same grassroots whom he needs to win the WH?

    So please, stop with the defensiveness. You know your guy is just as likely to lose as McCain but you can’t bring yourself to face the music.  Come on PT, you can admit it.  You know we’re screwed.

    P.S. Stay away from arguing the relative merits of Christian vs. Mormon doctrine, you look foolish when you do. And by the way, if an avowed atheist ran for office, a statistically insignificant amount of people would vote for him. That’s how people view “arcane” belief systems.

  5. Think of it this way…

    Adjoran has a pair of twos, and the really big  guy across the table from him is named Freddie ‘the Fish’ Moscavionne.  Adjoran is bluffing for everything he’s worth as its the only play he has.

    Its actually admirable.

  8. It’s been a hoot watching all the snarky “conservatives” claiming
    Palin wasn’t a real candidate,
    Bachmann wasn’t really conservative,
    Perry wasn’t really conservative,
    Cain wasn’t really conservative,
    Santorum wasn’t really conservative,
    Newt wasn’t really conservative.

    All so we get stuck with Romney.

    Sheer genius, that.

  9. This whole primary thing has got to change. Congrats to those who got to participate in the process. If letting every state vote is “damaging to the party”, maybe there’s something wrong with the party.

  14.  Take responsibility for your own actions for once.  You can vote for whoever you want to, but don’t pretend that if you do anything besides support our nominee, you are helping Obama in some measure.

    If your intent was not to support the democratically elected nominee of the Party, that makes you a RINO.  Just don’t try to deny it.

  17.  I’m NOT complaining about tepidity.  I am recognizing desertion and disloyalty, and trying at least to help the deserters save some tiny sliver of dignity by not adding outright dishonesty to their perfidies.

    I see no phantom “Establishment” forcing millions of voters to vote for Romney in the primaries.  Offer proof if you have it – besides your imaginary villains.

    At this point, you have a choice between two and only two outcomes.  No sane person can believe that the next person to take the oath will be either Obama or Romney. 

    I’m not asking anyone to like it, I am asking them to make it openly, and not try to cop out by claiming they aren’t making a choice.

    Vote for our nominee, or you are supporting Obama in effect.  Even if you’re in a red or blue state that won’t change with your vote (as if you could ever know that for sure), popular vote nationally counts for something as we found in 2000.  Had evangelicals not stayed home after the Bush DUI, it wouldn’t have been close.

  18. As usual people ignore the huge grass roots support Rick Santorum got. I’d like to thank all of those people that worked so hard.  I know how much it hurts, because that’s how I felt when Sarah didn’t run.   I hope Bella is going to make it, because it still doesn’t seem like she’s out of the woods yet.

  20. Cute. But that is what I said.

    But thanks for cheering me up.  It does make me feel better when I’m reminded that I don’t care about the opinion of Luzer RINOS.

  21. He had a good run, too bad he couldn’t have held out — but with his kid and all (his campaign took a lot of work, and a sick kid makes that kinda hard)…I can understand why he suspended.

    Let’s see how this goes; long time between now and November.
    Let’s see what Romney’s campaign does now — that will be a big tell going forward.

  22. And then West would lean over to Romney’s ear, and whisper a few words after Romney would go very pale, and  all that nonsense would stop immediately.

  23. Your vote doesn’t matter because we’re smarter and better looking than you.

    More seriously,  I was pleased this time to actually have a vote that mattered.  It was a pleasing novelty.

  24.  THANK YOU! We have not voted in my state yet, and it will be ME, not the GOP establishment who makes the decision about who will get my precious vote. I know I am not the only person who feels this way.

  25. Yup, it’s going to be mayo on the crap sandwich. I can’t stand Mitt Romney, but I’ll vote for a headless torso over Obama. Hell, I’ve been voting for headless torsos since 1988, so what’s one more? Better to have to eat a crap sandwich, than be force fed from Obama’s shit smorgasbord. 

    Anyway, now that we know who the nominee is, maybe we can start focusing on getting conservative majorities elected to the House and Senate.

  26.  You mean really fucking dumb? Yeah. I’m sure you’re right about that. If you vote in primaries, you ARE the so called “establishment”, for godsake.

     Enough with this stupidity already.

  27. After considerable searching, I settled on Cain, he got knocked out.
    I thought Newt looked like a fighter, he self destructed.
    I (quietly, so as not to jinx him) pulled for Santorum, now he’s out too.

    I’m making it official – I am endorsing President Obama for re-election.  With my track record, he’ll lose in a Carter-style landslide.

    For all our sakes, I HOPE the voters have enough sense to make that last part happen.  Romney was my last choice but even he’s much better than O.

    Thanks, Zilla for that shot in the arm!

  28. I will still be voting as well, but I am undecided about how to cast the most effective protest vote. I would love to select everybody except Romney, but since the ballots are machine-read no one would get the message.

    I don’t blame any GOP establishment for Romney’s nomination, the choice was the voters’ and the candidates’, and now here we are with the weakest possible challenger to the weakest president in my short lifetime. Romney is clearly more palatable than Obama, and I can only hope the general electorate will come to the same conclusion.

  30.  Santorum absolutely went negative on Romney– I don’t know what race you were watching.  But again, I’m not a Romney supporter, nor do I think he will win, nor necessarily was he the most electable candidate. But he is the candidate the Republicans are putting up.  If he’s less than perfect for you, as he certainly is for me, concentrate on the Senate where we have a number of great possibilities.

  31. Exactly.

    This is the way I’m leaning at this moment:
    -Help as many Congressional candidates as possible who share our values.
    -Vote for Willard, but do not work for him – he doesn’t want us hanging around the offices anyway.

  33. RSM, thanks for your excellent coverage of Santorum’s campaign. It was the highest quality gonzo-ness on the interwebs.

    So what will you do for an encore?

  34. I agree.  I think Romney will take the Mittens off once he gets the nod.  Saw his Wisconsin win speech, and he seemed positively animated and chomping at the bit (for him, that is).

  35.  Gee, I guess yer super smart after all. I guess Duhh Stablushmint does make Romney the guy people vote for after all….but not you smart people, though.

    p.s. Don’t flatter yourself. There’s not a goddam thing “precious” about your vote.

  36. I have candidate and senate voters to work for.  If Romney doesn’t need my vote let’s see how he does without my donations. 

    Stacy, you should check out ted Cruz down in Texas.  Shiner Bock is awesome!

  37.  Zilla, this is typical of what we are going to see in Romney backers.  And it’s going to get worse as their candidate flounders.  If it wasn’t so bad for the country it would be hilarious.

  42.  I didn’t argue about the merits of the religions, just simply pointing out that those that believe in neither are not likely to let it influence their vote, for good or bane.

    Now granted, their perception of the candidate as good, moral, upright citizens definitely matters to most, and this will be taken as an indication of how their religion has influenced and molded their character.

    But the “arcane” aspects of either religion is not the concern of most folks. To put it in vulgar format, we simply don’t give a good shit.

  43.  To be fair, MANY evangelicals stayed home, but if you dig into it I’m sure you will see that many voted for Bush as well. The ones who did not, based on that reported DUI, in effect taking the chance of throwing the election to Al Gore of all people, are no better, if as good, as the RINOs and moderates they constantly rail about. To be blunt, the party is better off without such asshats.

  47. Santorum did the right thing, and I’m not talking about the right thing for Romney, or the party, or even the country, he did the right thing for his little girl, who should be his number one, and frankly for the time being at least his only priority.

    His daughter sure as hell looked happy today, she was the only one who’s smile seemed genuine. In fact, it looked like happiness borne of relief.

    And then there was that son of his, with the glasses. What’s with that guy anyway? Talk about somebody being like a robot. I bet if Rick told him “son you just won two hundred million dollars in the lottery”, he’d have the exact same reaction as if Rick said “son, I just found out you only have two months left to live.”

    Oh well, I’m just glad it’s over with for their sake. They’re probably good people who didn’t deserve this disruption in their lives.

  49. I’m actually not a Republican. I’m a conservative.  And as I said above, I’ve voted for the squishy GOP nominees in the past, for all the good it did.  I’m just pointing out neutral object facts.  Moderate (and liberals like Mitt) Republicans don’t make it into the WH. That’s just the way it is.  The Romneybots are giving us Obama for the next 4 years.  It makes me sad.

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