Outside the Santorum headquarters I was approached by Rod Olson, who flew in on Wednesday from Modesto, California, to work for Santorum. He’s a stay-at-home dad whose wife Kristin Olsen is a member of the California Assembly. Campaigns for him “are like fantasy baseball, he said, and he’d been planning to come out to New Hampshire and work for someone. “I looked at Romney,” he says, but watching the Iowa caucus returns, “When I saw Rick Santorum turn to his wife and quote C. S. Lewis, I said I’m for him.”
It turns out you can rise pretty high in Santorum campaign staff ranks pretty quickly. On Thursday night Rod Olsen is one of the lead staffers at the candidate’s appearance at the Southern New Hampshire 912 Committee event at Windham High School, counting the number of TV cameras (17) so the campaign can relay that information to reporters. All 660 seats in the plush auditorium were filled, as they were for a 912 Committee event for Gingrich I attended in December. At the event Santorum is introduced by state Senator Jim Luther, who endorsed him after Iowa: only in America would a Catholic be introduced by a Luther.
In Gingrich headquarters I was approached by Scott Robertson, a San Francisco real estate developer. “I just came up from Iowa,” he says, where he was a Gingrich caucus speaker in Polk County. “I was surprised, every Paul person I could easily flip” by talking about Israel, Russians in the Middle East, the fact that he has no plan for replacing the Federal Reserve. As for Gingrich, “once you explain the baggage,” you can win them over too. Robertson didn’t have to change planes to get to Manchester. “I flew my Skymaster to Iowa,” he explains, and then flew it on to New Hampshire.
Another Californian spotted at a Santorum event in Manchester: Bob Mulholland, former and longtime executive director of the California Democratic party. He had a dim view of Santorum’s potential as a general election candidate–and an even dimmer view of his campaign’s ability to advance events–and a big smile on his face.
