Can Rick Santorum, one of this year’s long-shot candidates for president, make a bid for a win in the Iowa caucuses next year? According to ABC News, that’s exactly what the former senator from Pennsylvania is trying to do:
Rick Santorum hopes that Republicans who are disappointed with Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and are not excited by Mitt Romney will take another look at the rest of the pack instead of hoping for a new candidate to enter the race.
Santorum has essentially moved to Iowa, and he hopes that some big moments at recent debates in Florida and South Carolina — along with his strong social conservative credentials — will start a brushfire of support in the plains, much like it did for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee four years ago.
Just a month out of her Ames Straw Poll victory, Michele Bachmann, another social conservative who had a similar Iowa strategy, seems to be in freefall, and Santorum is hoping to grab the space that the Minnesota congresswoman previously inhabited, and the voters that go along with it.
Santorum has essentially moved to Iowa, and he hopes that some big moments at recent debates in Florida and South Carolina — along with his strong social conservative credentials — will start a brushfire of support in the plains, much like it did for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee four years ago.
Just a month out of her Ames Straw Poll victory, Michele Bachmann, another social conservative who had a similar Iowa strategy, seems to be in freefall, and Santorum is hoping to grab the space that the Minnesota congresswoman previously inhabited, and the voters that go along with it.
The polls in Iowa and nationally haven’t been reflected any surge from Santorum. The RealClearPolitics poll average for Iowa gives Santorum 4.3 percent of the vote, a full 20 points behind Rick Perry the state’s front-runner. In the national polls, Santorum is only a blip at 2.2 percent.
