Rick hopes Iowans heart Santorum
Rick Santorum says of his 2012 presidential campaign that he's
in it to win it. As for how he will win it, his campaign strategists
are looking no further than Mike Huckabee's losing 2008 campaign:
Huckabee 2008 is the model for Santorum 2012, as Santorum tries to build out a coalition from the same evangelical base that powered the former Arkansas governor to a darkhorse Iowa caucus win and on to a second place delegate finish. If they get their way, his strength in Iowa will hold him through a lesser showing in the more moderate New Hampshire primary, but then he’ll come back strong in South Carolina.
That seems like a dumb comparison, mostly because Huckabee lost the nomination. I mean, if you're trying to compare yourself to another campaign in order to prove you can win the nomination, shouldn't you compare yourself to a campaign that actually won the nomination?
I suppose there's less flattering comparisons you could make about Rick Santorum, but it still doesn't seem particularly wise. Moreover, it's not particularly apt: of all the currently declared candidates, the one who is most similar to Mike Huckabee is probably Herman Cain. Huckabee rose from obscurity to contention not just because he was evangelical, but because Iowa Republicans liked him. Cain is every bit as conservative as Santorum on social issues, but conservatives just seem to like him more.
For example, a recent poll of Georgia Republicans put Cain at the top of the GOP field in the state. Santorum wasn't even on the radar screen. And in PPP's latest poll of Republicans in Iowa, Cain placed second with 15% of the vote despite being nearly anonymous just a few months ago. Santorum wasn't included in the horserace poll, but PPP tested the favorables for both Cain and Santorum. Cain's were 38/24, up from 15/9 in two months earlier. Santorum clocked in at 29/18, down from 27/11 a couple of months earlier, so while Cain surged in awareness and popularity, Santorum's slight movement was in the wrong direction.
In the end, neither Herman Cain nor Rick Santorum are going to win this campaign, but Cain will end up having a bigger impact on the race than Santorum, frothy mixture or not.