Rick Santorum has never gained traction, but Michele Bachmann did gain traction and very quickly proved that she couldn’t stay in the top tier of candidates. I can see conservatives coalescing around Santorum and having him become the anti-Romney in time for Iowa and then South Carolina and Florida, but Bachmann already fizzled under the lights and won’t get a second chance.
Santorum is more conservative and trustworthybthan Romney, Newt or Perry, and more knowledgable, polished and eloquent than Bachmann or Cain (and I’d say is just as conservative as even those two). Sure, he lost reelection in PA in 2006 against the son of the universally beloved late Governor Bob Casey, but it’s not like electoral acumen are strong points for Bachmann (who routinely runs a few points behind the GOP presidential candidate and nearly lost the most Republican district in MN in 2008) or Cain (whose only previous electoral experience was his second-place finish in the 2004 GOP Senate primary in GA). And, lest we forget, prior to running into that liar Bob Casey, Jr. in ridiculously anti-Republican 2006, Santorum had been remarkably successful at being elected in Democrat turf despite (or, I would say, because of) his social and economic conservatism (with a bit of blue-collar protectionism sprinkled in). Santorum was first elected in a blue-collar Dem district near Pittsburgh in 1990, in an upset that no one predicted. He was redistricted in 1992 into an even more heavily Democrat CD (58% for Dukakis in 1988, and carried by Clinton by 22% in 1992), and he somehow won again. In 1994, Santorum was elected to the Senate over Harris Wofford, who just two years earlier had defeated the strongest candidate the GOP could throw at him, former PA Governor and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. And in 2000, in the face of a presidential election in which George W. Bush got only 46% in PA, Santorum defeated a pro-life, pro-gun Democrat Congressman from the Pittsburgh area by a larger margin than Gore’s PA margin over Bush. So Rick Santorum knows how to win elections.
I think that the GOP nominee will be either Romney, Newt or Santorum, but that if Santorum does poorly in Iowa it will become a two-man race between Romney and Newt. If you don’t want Newt or Romney to get the nomination, I don’t see any other option than to support Santorum right now.
I think Santorum will be the “big surprise” coming out of Iowa this year. He might not win, but he’ll be in the top 3.
Bachmann got a big boost after the Iowa straw poll but then Perry soon came on the scene and stepped on her toes. People went for Perry because he was believed to be the conservative savior who had that in charge presidential quality and was a governor of a major state. Naturally people would go for a governor rather than a representative but Perry then shot himself in the foot. He spoiled it for Bachmann and then he spoiled it for himself. It was too bad for Bachmann because she is much more conservative than Perry.