Even With Recent Gains It Doesn't Look Good For Santorum

[DaGoose]

Time and math work against Santorum's White House bid

Santorum effectively became the only conservative challenger to Mitt Romney left standing when he narrowly won the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday, as good as ending Newt Gingrich's presidential ambitions.

"It's a little too late for Santorum," said Republican strategist Adam Temple.

Although he could do well at Missouri's caucuses this weekend, Santorum already is starting behind in next week's Illinois primary after failing to qualify for several ballots there. In the District of Columbia, another place where Santorum is not on the ballot, 19 delegates are up for grabs on April 3.

I don't see Illinois giving a nut like Santorum a win, anyway.

Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania votes on April 24 but even an enormous statewide win for him there, which seems unlikely given his massive Senate loss in the state in 2006, would not give him enough delegates to really contend with Romney.

Time and math work against Santorum's White House bid - Yahoo! News

How well will Santorum do in Pennsylvania? I predict he'll win but by a very small margin.

 

[waltky]

Wear and tear of the campaign trail startin' to show through...

'Rick Santorum’s nice-guy persona is turning a bit testy lately'
26 Mar.`12 - After a rally at the South Hills Country Club in Wisconsin, Rick Santorum fired back at a reporter in response to his statement that "Romney is the worst republican in the country."

For a while, it had seemed that Rick Santorum’s crabby days were behind him. Gone were the sarcastic potshots at reporters and peevish outbursts aimed at his political opponents. He had transformed into the Mr. Rogers of the presidential race: good-natured, self-deprecating and downright likable. But that nice-guy image has gone down the drain lately, with a series of provocative remarks and testy exchanges that have coincided with his slipping presidential fortunes. He may have hit a low point Sunday, when he uttered an expletive in response to a question from a New York Times reporter.

Asked what he meant when he said in a speech that rival Mitt Romney was the “worst Republican in the country” to go up against President Obama, Santorum lashed back at reporter Jeff Zeleny in an exchange that was captured by CBS. “Stop lying!” he responded. “I said he was the worst Republican to run on the issue of Obamacare. And that’s what I was talking about!” In case there was any doubt that he meant it, he suggested that if he saw such a statement in print, it would amount to “bull----.” For a candidate seeking to be the conservative standard-bearer in the election, it is perhaps not the worst thing to be caught on tape cursing out a reporter from a mainstream newspaper. Santorum’s campaign attempted Monday to capi*tal*ize on the incident, sending out a fundraising letter accusing the Times of being a liberal bully.

But for people who have followed Santorum’s decades-long career in politics, it was the latest sign that Santorum is reverting back to a prickly persona that predated his rise in the polls. “Most of us who followed his career were just stunned at how, for seven or eight months, he was remarkably disciplined,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. Lately, he said, he has seen signs of a more familiar Santorum. “He’s visceral, emotional, provocative,” Madonna said. “It’s who he is.”

Santorum, who spent 12 years in Congress, developed a reputation as a passionate but sometimes hotheaded advocate for his causes. He was known for scolding fellow Republicans for crossing the George W. Bush White House and for making sometimes inflammatory comments — such as when he was quoted criticizing AmeriCorps as a program “for hippie kids to stand around a campfire to hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ at taxpayers’ expense.’’ (He later became a supporter of the program.) There were hints of that ornery personality in the early days of the presidential race, when media coverage of his Iowa stumping was scant. At that time, Santorum often complained loudly during debates that he wasn’t getting enough questions and used his stump speeches to criticize the media for its lack of attention to his campaign.

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[waltky]

Now how embarrassin' would dat be?...

Santorum might drop out rather than lose home state primary in Pennsylvania
4/04/12 - The possibility of a loss in his home state of Pennsylvania might force Rick Santorum to drop out of the Republican primary sooner than he’d planned, say GOP strategists.

Santorum is notoriously strong-willed, and those close to him say that party elders will not be able to convince him to exit the race if he thinks he has a shot at the Republican nomination. But one of Santorum’s close friends told The Hill that while the former Pennsylvania senator remains confident about winning his home state and using that to build May momentum, if that confidence falters, he might exit the race. Pennsylvania state Sen. Jake Corman (R), a longtime friend of Santorum and his family, said if it appeared Santorum wasn’t going to win the state, the former senator could drop his campaign. “He’s a realist; he doesn’t have his head in the clouds,” Corman told The Hill. “As long as he sees a pathway to the nomination he’s going to stay in it, but he won’t stay in it to prove a point. If he gets to the point where he doesn’t think he’ll be the nominee, he’ll get out.”

Santorum is running second in the delegate count to rival Mitt Romney, and the party establishment is increasing pressure on the former senator to exit the race and clear a path for the former Massachusetts governor. And while he led Romney by six points in a Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania voters out Tuesday, that was before Romney’s win in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. It’s also a decline for the former senator, who led Romney by double digits earlier this month. Many Republican strategists argue that Santorum has resurrected his political career after a bad 2006 Senate loss with his surprisingly strong presidential campaign — but that another loss in his home state could undo all that work, leading to predictions that if he thinks he could lose Pennsylvania, he might bow out. “If he loses Pennsylvania twice, that’s going to really hobble him in the future. That’d be very hard to live down,” said Kirsten Fedewa, Mike Huckabee’s 2008 communications director.

Fedewa speculated that Santorum may be encountering what Huckabee faced near the end of his campaign. “There’s a point on the campaign trail where you start seeing diminishing returns, thinner crowds, you’re not getting the big boost on your website fundraising, the enthusiasm factor is dying down,” she said. “He’s going to be feeling it on the stump and seeing the impact on his campaign. He’s an anti-establishment candidate, so what the establishment does or doesn't do isn’t going to persuade him — but when he sees the intensity factor waning, that’s going to weigh heavily.” Santorum is campaigning hard in his home state. The last two primary nights he’s held his post-election rallies in Pennsylvania. He’s scheduled to spend Wednesday campaigning there. The former senator has insisted he’ll stay in the race through the April 24 primaries that include Pennsylvania as well as a number of states friendly to Romney: New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware, and fight on through May, when the map includes a number of states where Santorum could be in good shape.

But Romney is not going to cede Pennsylvania. His campaign sent full-time staffers to the state last week and he will stump there Wednesday. A super-PAC that backs him has made inquiries about the costs of television buys in the state and has indicated it will make a large buy there soon, according to local sources. Romney also has the endorsement of four Pennsylvania lawmakers — one more than Santorum’s three, according to The Hill’s tally. On top of that, Santorum’s fundraising might have slowed to a trickle as his star has faded — and if he continues his campaign, there could be severe backlash from establishment Republicans that might limit his future role in the party. “The biggest problem for Santorum is there’s a three-week lull, no way to break the media narrative that Romney has this sewn up and a continued race will only hurt the nominee,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak told The Hill on Monday. “Santorum’s desperately trying to survive until May … when does the pressure become too much?”

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