The Iowa Caucuses are only a month away and Gallup’s latest GOP presidential primary tracking poll shows Mr. Santorum in 6th place in low single digits behind Michele Bachmann but ahead of Rick Santorum. While the poll was taken the week Herman Cain dropped out (Dec. 1 - 5), nevertheless Mr. Santorum continues to optimistically face an uphill battle to gain attention from Republican primary voters who eagerly became bandwagon fans to Republican campaigns that became disappointments to them later on.
“We feel our campaign is very much on the rise right now and people are looking for someone that can hold up under the strain. I think a lot of people are seeing that a lot of candidates rose and fell And now they’re looking for someone who can rise and sustain it,” Mr. Santorum told me on Wednesday in Washington D.C.
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“Someone who has he experience and who has weathered storms before and can deal with the scrutiny that’s going to come their way. I feel very good that people are looking in our direction and looking for someone that has a strong positive message and a record to back it up and a record of accomplishment to back it up,” Santorum added.
As a result of Herman Cain suspending his presidential campaign, there is conventional speculation that a chunk of former Cain supporters will head towards supporting former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as the conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
However, it has been reported that Bachmann campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart said that a number of former Cain supporters called the Bachmann Campaign to give their support, when Mr. Cain was on the verge of becoming a non-candidate.
Sanotrum said his campaign is also benefitting from former Cain supporters as well
“We’re not spinning this. We’re actually getting folks coming to our town hall meetings who were Cain supporters. We have some announcement coming up here in the next few days to folks who had endorsed Cain that are moving in our direction, so we feel very good. We’re going to pick up a lot of those Cain supporters,” Mr. Santorum said. “There’s a lot of time. There’s four weeks between now and election day (in Iowa).”
Santorum also received complimentary words from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last weekend on the Fox News Channel, prompting some to wonder if her support in the future could help the Pennsylvania Republican go further in the primaries.
“As my folks out there in Iowa are telling me, getting folks to come on board is getting easier everyday,” he said.
Mr. Santorum is participating in Donald Trump’s and Newsmax’s sponsored debate on December 27. Whether the debate turns out to be only a two man forum, Santorum appeared eager to be part of the debate, calling it “a great thing.” Perhaps he is right. Mr. Santorum, right now, is the only other GOP candidate who is part of the forum besides front-runner Newt Gingrich—an opportunity for Mr. Santorum, who complained to moderators about being marginalized in a number of debates in the past.
Santorum said that he had not met with Mr. Trump, as other candidates have in the past, but has talked to the New York City businessman on the phone, saying: “I’ve talked to him on the phone once to correct the record on some of the things he’s been saying about me, but I look forward to having a debate and as I’ve said before, given what some of these other moderators have said in this debate Donald Trump can’t be any worse.”
