Santorum, as much as I like him, has been touring Iowa in a pickup truck. The guy is among the least financed candidates. That cannot sustain itself for very long.
This is all about splintering the conservatives to pave the way for Romney.
I grant that you may be right... though I hope not.
More importantly, I don't think Murdoch exercises anywhere near the level of on-the-ground influence in actual news reporting that some credit him for doing. That's just not the way media work. If there is a reporter for FOX or any other media outlet who has dirt on Santorum, that reporter will be verifying it and doublechecking it now, and won't be waiting to run it until after other candidates are eliminated. Murdoch is a newsman, not primarily an advertising executive like the heads of many other media operations, and I cannot see him encouraging (let alone tolerating) a reporter who would hold back a scoop knowing that there are other reporters on the same trail.
I fully grant it's very possible that the Romney campaign has dirt they plan to spring on Santorum in the next couple of weeks by feeding it to friendly reporters at FOX or someplace else. That's what campaigns do, and I would do the same if I were a campaign manager.
79 posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2012 1:46:38 PM by mikhailovich: “Santorum, as much as I like him, has been touring Iowa in a pickup truck. The guy is among the least financed candidates. That cannot sustain itself for very long.”
I grant your point about financing, but could I suggest that “touring Iowa in a pickup truck” is a really good idea no matter how much money the candidate has (assuming he owned the pickup all along and isn't a “poser”).
We have a local Democratic official in our county, now retired, who has ties going back for generations in our area. He built a successful business, made a ton of money, but not only kept a small cattle operation which he tended personally but also always made a point of driving his pickup truck with at least one hay bale in the back around election time.
Pickups are good politics in rural America. Showing off lots of money isn't.