Is Santorum Catching Fire or 2 Weeks From End?

With one interesting exception yesterday that I discuss below, nearly every single poll has been horrible reading for Senator Santorum, since he began his Presidential campaign.  A painful example of this point was the December Gallup poll that found Senator Santorum would be an acceptable nominee to just 27% of Republican primary voters and unacceptable to 62%.

The negative 35 score made Santourm the least acceptable of all the Republican candidates.  Santorum was a tiny bit more unacceptable than even Governor Huntsman, who has annoyed many Republicans, by refusing to drink the climate and evolution denial Kool Aid demanded by so many conservatives.

Despite the normally terrible polls, Santorum has soldiered on, moving his entire family months ago to Iowa, and betting everything on the Iowa caucus.  And a Public Policy Polling poll yesterday provided actual data, documenting small gains for Santorum in Iowa.

PPP had Paul in the lead, Romney second, with Gingrich collapsing to 14%, and Santorum rising to 10% from 6% and 8% in the two previous polls. The last three PPP polls show a modest trend toward Santorum.

But while the poll contained good news for Santorum, it also revealed a major obstacle to winning Iowa.
Santorum's is splliting the 2008 Governor Huckabee vote between Bachmann, Perry, and himself, all of whom had 10% of the vote in the PPP poll.  The split of the Christian conservatives in at least three ways means that a breakthrough for Santorum is difficult.

To achieve it, he must manage to get many of the Bachmann and Perry voters to move to his camp and gain a good chunk of what he must hope is a collapsed Gingrich Iowa candidacy.  Can he move from 10% to 25% in two weeks?  It is possible and more possible than just 5 days ago, but still would rate among the biggest political shocks of the last 30 years. 

But catching fire for Santorum means winning Iowa.  Second will not be good enough, since he is running on vapors, has no money, and has put what little he has into Iowa.  Without a first place finish, there is no second act for Rick Santorum, especially since New Hampshire comes next, and its more libertarian electorate is not fertile ground for him.

Aside from this presidential cycle, Rick Santorum is trying to restart his political career after his 2006 shellacking by Senator Casey.  An Iowa win would do that, even if it meant following in Governor Huckabee's footsteps and losing the nomination to Mitt Romney.

An Iowa victory for Santorum would mean that Pennsylvania would be home to 2 big, national Republican names:  Senator Toomey and himself.  Senator Toomey's rise eclipsed Senator Santorum, within Pennsylvania and national Republican circles, but an Iowa victory would change all that, creating the possibility that Santorum and Toomey would duke it out for the Vice Presidential nomination.

The odds remain strong that Rick Santorum is 2 weeks from the end of his campaign, but his political career was born in a surprise and a rebirth will require the biggest surprise of all.  While he has few resources to build on his modest Iowa momentum, Senator Santorum has his dogged will, his message, and the biggest asset of all--competing in the the craziest, most fluid political year in living memory.