Rick Santorum Adds Staff, Offices, Money and Key Endorsement in South Carolina

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Rick Santorum brought his surge to South Carolina yesterday:

Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign announced yesterday that it was opening “five new campaign offices to supplement its existing South Carolina headquarters in Mt. Pleasant, SC.” The new offices are in Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Spartanburg, Rock Hill and Columbia.
“We feel very confident … that the voters are going to end up coalescing around Rick Santorum, and I think that South Carolina is a good place to start that,” his campaign manager, Mike Biundo, told reporters Tuesday night in New Hampshire.
Biundo said Santorum’s campaign in the Palmetto State will benefit from the addition of the staff that helped the former Pennsylvania senator come within eight votes of beating Mitt Romney in Iowa.
“We took all our Iowa staff that wanted to go down,” Biundo told reporters. “We feel very good about our operation in South Carolina. I think we’re going to do very well there. … We’re already up with ads. We’ve gotten a mail piece out. … We’re gonna go everywhere on the ground. We’re obviously gonna put a lot more money into media than we did [in New Hampshire], certainly more than we did in Iowa, as well. … I think we have about a million dollars committed [to advertise in South Carolina] between what we’re putting in and what we’re gonna put in. So I feel pretty good about that now and we’ll be adding more and reassessing as things go along.”

Those quotes are based on a press “gaggle” with Biundo that I got on video Tuesday night but didn’t have time to post until now:


In other Santorum news, he announced 169 “county captains” in South Carolina and announced this morning that Santorum had won the endorsement of South Carolina state Rep. Greg Delleny, who was named the state’s “Pro-Life Legislator of the Year” in 2008, and recognized as “Legislator of the Year” in 2007 by the Palmetto Family Council.

Ed Morrissey is analyzing the latest Florida poll, but that’s getting way ahead of the game. The key point here is that while there was only a week between Iowa (Jan. 3) and New Hampshire (Jan. 10), there is an 11-day interval between New Hampshire the South Carolina primary Saturday, Jan. 21, then 10 days before the Florida primary on Tuesday, Jan. 31. We’ll have two debates in South Carolina (Monday on Fox and Thursday on CNN), and a lot more polls between now and Jan. 21.

So if Santorum can get his mojo working in South Carolina, he’ll have a chance to turn a good performance there into money and momentum in Florida. I strongly suspect that South Carolina will be the end for Rick Perry and I heard a rumor yesterday that if Santorum out-performs Gingrich in South Carolina, Newt might quit and endorse Santorum, with the hope of rallying conservatives in Florida to stop Romney.

Today I’m back home, quite literally blogging in my pajamas and trying to rest up before going back out on the campaign trail. My current plan is to leave early Sunday, although this plan is to a great degree dependent on tip-jar hitters. So if you’re feeling an urge to contribute $10 or $20 to the Shoe Leather Fund — hey, don’t fight the feeling!

35 comments

  1. It wouldn’t surprise me if Gingrich and Santorum have a deal about the loser dropping out, especially if it looks like one of them could have taken Romney out without the other in the race.

  5. When Santorum wins it all he’ll owe some thanks to you, McCain. I’m dead serious. Hope you get that ambassadorship (or any other kind of ship, for that matter.)

  6. I’m just about there.
    About ready to send that check.
    Hoping Santorum closes the sale with Tea Party conservatives in SC.

    “throw em the heater Ricky”

  8. Huh?  Wouldn’t it make more sense just to drop out and endorse Santorum?  Are you familiar with Newt Gingrich at all?  Do you know who he is?

    Newt has never done anything except promote Newt.  He looks at the world as the class he couldn’t win tenure at Georgia Western College to teach.

  9. At this point, Gingrich is simply blowing brain bubbles, and is determined to make his departure as damaging as possible, nothing more.  This is the Newt the old folks tried to warn you about, GOP voters…

  11. Greg Delleny is not only a strong pro-life Representative, but also great on taxes and spending, and as a bonus sends the left (yeah, we have a few) into fits of apoplexy, which means he must be doing something right.  But I doubt seriously if he has 10% name recognition statewide. 

    Santorum does have a reasonable chance of coming in second here, thanks to Newt and Perry going completely off the deep left end on Bain.  Both are walking it back – Perry already lost his top bundler here, Wynn, who wants no part of the anti-capitalist agitprop – but it is too late. 

    This is what most people are talking about, though, which means the details of Santorum’s lifelong relationship with Big Labor haven’t hit the fan as of yet.  Or the fact that he went from the Senate to K Street.  Or his history of supporting federal spending programs.

    As long as the subject is Romney’s record and Newt’s instead of Santorum’s, Rick has a chance.  (At second).

  13. I don’t see either Gingrich or Santorum dropping out after South Carolina.  Perry will drop out after SC, though.  It’s not out of the question that Gingrich could win South Carolina, with Romney and Santorum fighting for second.

    Wouldn’t that take the wind out of the Romney sails, if he finished 3rd to Gingrich and Santorum?

  14. It has been amazing to me, the amnesia Republican voters, especially conservative ones, have with Newt’s tenure as Speaker.  I read on various blogs that Newt was “kicked out” b/c he was for conservative reforms while his opponents were for the status quo.

    The historical truth of Newt’s Speakership has been left by the wayside.

  15. Nope. Haven’t met the chap. 

    And I hereby denounce myself for having speculated that Gingrich had any motivation other than devouring whatever billy goats passed under his bridge.
    I forgot how he’s exactly like someone who conspired to have his brother-in-law killed. 

  16. They don’t have to make a deal for one or the other to drop out. As long as Romney is kept below 1100 delegates by the time of the convention they can simply agree to release their own delegates to whichever one has the most by that time.

  17. He’d go into pure panic mode then, not that you would ever know about it. His surrogates in the media would sure be sweating bullets. We might finally get to see if Chris Christie really can bounce back up to a standing position automatically upon falling straight to the ground.

  18. The Old Guard was willing to keep Newt after he didn’t go to prison over his ethics violations.  It was the conservatives who kicked him out.  But you can’t talk to some of the Newt backers – Paulbots got nuttin’ on ’em.

  20. Um, he lost the Iowa caucuses and the Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Michigan primaries scattered through the calendar.  Also Puerto Rico and DC, so he was 25-7 or something overall, but his nomination was never in doubt after New Hampshire.

    In fact, even before New Hampshire, “I paid for this microphone!” pretty well sewed it up.

    So, what does that have to do with 2012?

  21. It’s more likely Zombie Reagan will rise from the grave and eat Mitt’s brain than he will lose SC at this point.  Gingrich and Santorum may stay in, but who is going to write them checks?

    It takes more than a few internet cranks to run an actual campaign.

  23. Considering that I think the RINOs in the party need their fingers broken with a hammer to release the death grip they have on the steerinng wheel…I’m okay with ‘Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war’.

    Newt….Teach the Establishment fear since they will learn from no other school.

  24. So RINO financiers are threatening to sit out unless they get their chosen boy in.  Cute.

    Why don’t we just go to having a Praetorian Guard auctioning off the Caesarship?

    If they dare pull that stunt you suggest, they will so regret it.

  25. The crowd of the Dead were gathered on that night, and shuffles and whispers ran through them.

    Who would speak this night?  Who would dare the crowd? Who would have Courage?

    And Zombie Reagan rose and spoke of liberty and life and love of country and God, and it was like they were alive once more.  Many clapped as he wound up his speech, with body parts falling off as they hooted and hollered.  And Lenin looked down ashamed, and ground his teeth, and then spit out them upon the ground when they came loose in his skull.

    And then Zombie Reagan finished his speech…

    “And furthermore….Romney Delenda Est!”

    And patriots from all generations cheered.

  30. I think you’re overstating his negatives a bit but let’s just grant that you’re right and Santorum is not a pure conservative.  I’m looking at the field and there are precisly ZERO conservatives running for president.

    I don’t see a Mark Levin or a RSM or even a Sarah Palin running so where do we turn if not to Santorum?

    If he comes out of SC in second place then he will soon have some fairly major name recognition and he has already shown he can run a decent campaign on minimal dollars so I’m thinking that Santorum could get through Super Tuesday with no problem whatsoever.  If he can start racking up some delegates then who knows, maybe we get a brokered convention.

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