The conventional wisdom says Mitt Romney is the candidate that President Obama and his allies fear, while they’re allegedly salivating at the thought of facing Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Of course, conventional wisdom didn’t have Santorum coming from sixth place in the polls with three weeks to go and effectively tying Romney in Iowa — where he and Romney ended up separated by just 0.007 percent of the vote. (In Olympic swimming, any race decided by less than a hundredth of a second is declared a tie — as slight variations in the smoothness of the pool’s walls could well be responsible for any smaller margin — and Iowa’s vote counting process certainly isn’t as smooth as the walls of those pools.) 

Conventional wisdom may also be wrong about Santorum — as well as Gingrich — in a general election race. To see why (in Santorum’s case), one need look no further than the strong, heartfelt, well-conceived speech he delivered on the night of the Iowa caucuses. It’s a speech that deserves a viewing (see it here), and it showed why Santorum has the potential to be a formidable opponent to Obama.