PPP polling shows Santorum with a huge surge in support since he won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and non-binding Missouri primary, to the point that he leads nationally with 38 percent, to 23% for Romney, 17% for Newt, and 13% for Ron Paul.
Although a surge of this magnitude is not reflected in numerous other polls conducted in recent days, it does seem intuitive that Santorum would gain support as he claims the mantle of leading not-Romney.
This may be a case of PPP being boldly wrong as it was in Florida (where it predicted only a single digit win for Romney), or being ahead of the curve.
Clearly Santorum has momentum. I would argue that’s because people know very little about him in contrast to Newt and Romney, so he fits the bill of the winnable “true conservative” not-Romney.
But in fact, Santorum is not as conservative as people think, except for his social conservatism, and has a record of putting power in the hands of the federal goverment. That is the “true conservatism” Santorum stands for, not the conservatism of the Tea Party movement which brought us to victory in 2010.
When Santorum lambasts “radical individualism” he demeans the smaller government movement embodied in the Tea Party movement — keeping government out of our lives is not radical, unless you are a big government conservative/liberal.
We’ll see if the surge is a surge or a mirage, as PPP notes the weakness of Santorum’s support:
Of course if there’s been one constant theme in this GOP race it’s that once you get to the top you tend to start heading back down. Only 48% of voters say they’re solidly committed to their current candidate choice, while 52% say they’re open to changing their minds. Santorum’s support isn’t that solid and when Romney uses his superior resources to pulverize him, we could see this lead evaporate just as quickly as it was built up. But for now there’s been a stunning reversal in the race and Santorum’s your new leader.
If Santorum does not turn mostly caucus wins into wins in big primary states where everyone is competing, I predict a rapid fall back to earth.
Question of the day and next couple of weeks:
What is Santorum’s great political achievement?
In the meantime, Newt says he’s not going anywhere (via Hot Air), nor should he in my view until after Super Tuesday:
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Comments
Astroman, you aren’t a parent are you? I would be questioning Gingrich’s motives if he were in same position with a special needs child with serious respiratory problems. His kids are grown and appear to have done quite well for themselves, despite whatever type of parent he was. Unfortunately for you, I am a parent and even when I saw the Romney Dog article I could not believe a grown adult could be that ignorant. So like it or not, Santorum like Romney always mention what great “Family Guys” they’re (like its on a conservative check off list) and if that is one of their selling points, I look for little things like that. If you didn’t notice I said it would have been nice for at least his wife or one of older sibling to be there for the child after hospital especially since what I said about lingering respiratory illnesses. My child is 2 1/2 and his is 3, no child at these ages are comfortable with anyone but there parents when their sick. So if you don’t get it, well to bad.
“Unfortunately for you,” I am a parent, thank you very much. So you don’t know as much as you think you do.
And it is precisely because I am a parent, I do not appreciate people trying to tell me how I am suppose to be raising my children. Every family, child, and parent-child relationship is different. Maybe the child was with grandma? Maybe grandpa is the designated care giver since the child has had special needs? Who knows. Who cares. It seems apparent to me that the Santorums are good parents and a strong family.
So how about you keep your nose out of their family business and keep it in your own family’s business? And here I thought only liberals believed that garbage of how it takes a “village” to raise a family…
Astro- Starting to think the “Village” idea of Hillary’s was based on your upbringing. Read my post again & I tell you exactly why I look at his “Family Man” virtues. If that’s his selling point, I have a right to look at what he does with that family. Santorum’s the first to say he’s running for president because he worries for his kids future. Well, that future is very limited for that child under the best of conditions. Only an idiot would take a child to where there will be 100’s of people shaking hands, shouting in each others faces, etc. That is as bad to me as putting her in a car with no child seat. And any parent with half a brain knows respiratory problems in young children can be fatal – most parents would never risk it. In this case Rick was thinking only of numero uno – Rick. But like I said, you were the “Village” poster child so don’t expect you to know.
“But like I said, you were the “Village” poster child”
Nice. Stay classy.
What was Santorum’s greatest political achievement?
Winning three caucuses last week
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