JOHNSTON, Iowa — Whether or not Rick Santorum wins the caucuses that he currently leads by a handful of votes, his success here can be traced to his personal strategy of holding hundreds of events in the state’s 99 counties to interact with voters. How personal?

“I have Rick Santorum’s cell phone number, and I text him regularly and he texts me back,” Rick Cowman, a Santorum supporter who I spoke with just after the Pennsylvania Senator addressed the crowd at the Stoney Creek Inn. “That’s impressive.”