This reminds me of that scene in the movie "The Perfect Storm," when the terrified meteorologist looks at the radar in panic and says, "It's happening!"
At the start of the month, Rick Santorum needed the following things to happen in order for him to be competitive in Iowa: Newt Gingrich needed to fade. Evangelicals needed to move toward his campaign. Then voters needed to see some tangible sign of momentum, in order to speed up the tortoise-like pace of his Iowa campaign.
The former Pennsylvania senator has now gotten at least a dose of all three ingredients. Gingrich’s campaign has lost ground in every recent Iowa poll. Santorum won the endorsement of a number of high-profile Christian conservatives, including the head of The Family Leader. And today, Santorum placed third in an Iowa poll for the first time, running fairly close behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in a CNN/Time magazine survey.
The survey may not be all it’s cracked up to be: it only tested Republican voters, even though non-Republicans can get access to the caucuses. But it also followed a PPP poll released Tuesday night showing that Santorum has the highest net favorability rating of any Republican candidate in Iowa.
Whatever else, Santorum seems all but certain to post the highest finish in a presidential primary or caucus of any former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, which is quite an achievement. On one level, it's shocking that Santorum's rise in the polls has taken so long -- putting ideological critiques aside, he's clearly one of the sharper tools in the GOP's rusted 2012 shed, and he's targeted his appeal to the same evangelicals who gave the Hawkeye State to Mike Huckabee in 2008.
I think his biggest problem, politically, is that he talks like someone who's spent most of his adult life as a Washington insider, circa 1990s, and doesn't know how to "bring tha crazy" the way that the talk radio/Tea Party faction of the party likes it. Yes, a man who spoke in a political interview about "man-on-dog sex" isn't crazy enough for the modern Republican Party. Ponder that. And, at the end of a day, Santorum is a man who wears out his welcome -- his 59 percent rejection by Pennsylvania voters in 2006 was the highest I've ever seen for an incumbent senator not facing corruption charges.
Santorum's surge means people may finally look at his actual record. It won't be pretty. The real Senator Rick Santorum was a shameless pimp for Big Pharma who battled to hold back the working class Americans at companies like Wal-Mart and Outback and who founded a charity which was exposed (by Your Blogger) as not especially charitable. Maybe that kind of record is "evangelical," but not in any sense that I'm familiar with.
Comment removed.- Gee Will, Santorum is only in third. I like how you ignore the fact that Romney is well in the lead. Kind of throws your previous blogs into chaos where you said Repubs were crazy when you thought Paul or Gingrich was going to win. Way to ignore the real story for partisan cheap shots.
— CD75 - All of this sports reporting on the primary doesn't matter. Mitt Romney will be the President Elect this time next year.— Mr. Smith
Been waiting for you to remind people what a dreadful guy Santorum really is. Yes,m compared to Bachman, Perry, (the late) Cain, and even, I have recently come to believe, Paul, Santorum seems truthful, intelligent, normal, and sane--but look with whom he is being compared. I hate to agree with Mr. Smith, but this time he is partly right--Romney will be the nominee (but I do not think the president-elect).- Santorum, ironically, turnes out to be the poster child FOR abortion.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
- Comment removed.
- Santorum would represent the evangelicals in Iowa much better than he would represent the USA.— wokmaster
- Sharp? sanctorum is about as sharp as an old brick. And just as intelligent.— mike l
- If the Republicans really want to be competitive, they need to start looking at Huntsman. Santorum is joke. He was rated one of the most corrupt Congressman. I lean left, but even I would vote for Huntsman over Obama and that's saying a lot.— CCRN
sanitarium is friggin crazy. ya gotta love him. he's the no. 1 reason I'm embarrassed to be a fellow Penn State alum. much more embarrassing than sandusky.— Ryan- Santorum Thinks he is The Second Coming Of Jesus Christ at least thats the way he sounded in one his Fund Raising Letters when he was running for reelection of US Senator several of My friends thought the exact same thing when we discussed his Fund Raising Letter . A Guy that was His Roomate when he Won for Congress the First Time said His Ego was so Big he did not know How Santorums head would fit through the Door of the US Capital Building— Jack Rabbit
- Your wrong...it is Will Bunch whose head won't fit through the door as he can't handle criticism...censoring any comments that undermine his premise. LOL! — davidjones
- Santorum surging from behind? That's just nasty! (google it.)— ddt58
- "Yes, a man who spoke in a political interview about "man-on-dog sex" isn't crazy enough for the modern Republican Party." . . . It's time to launch Batty 2012, don't you think? A Pantload in Every Potty.— montani semper liberi
- Santorum bases his campaign on one issue. Male-female relationships. Since I don't think that particular subject should be subject to government review, I think I wont even bother to think about him anymore. He's a silly candidate for really silly people who wouldn't recognize an issue if they fell over it.— palmer1619
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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