2008 Presidential Candidates

Is the Rick Santorum Surge Sustainable Or Will Mitt Romney Engage in All-Out Negative Campaigning?

By Onelove on | From hinterlandgazette.com

Is the Rick Santorum Surge Sustainable Or Will Mitt Romney Engage in All-Out Negative Campaigning? (Wikipedia)

COMMENTARY: As crazy as this may seem, Rick Santorum is now the frontrunner in the Republican race in Mitt Romney’s home state of Michigan. No matter how Mitt Romney tries to shrug off any possibility of a loss, he must either be stunned that Rick Santorum is leading him in the state in which he spent his formative years or coming to the realization that he is possibly the weakest link in the Republican Party to being able to beat President Obama in November.

(CNN) – Mitt Romney may lay claim to home field advantage in Michigan, but according to a new poll released 12 days before the state’s Republican primary, Rick Santorum is on top of the field in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

According to a survey out Thursday by the Detroit News and CNN affiliate WDIV, 34% of likely Republican primary voters say they’re backing Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, with 30% supporting Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who’s making his second bid for the White House. Santorum’s four point margin is within the poll’s sampling error.

The survey indicates that 12% back former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with 9% supporting Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and 12% undecided. The poll was conducted entirely after Santorum’s victories over Romney, Gingrich and Paul last week in caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a non-binding primary in Missouri. Santorum’s sweep of the February 7 contests sparked his surge in national and state polling, and cemented the perception that Romney was having a hard time locking down support of core conservatives.

Michigan and Arizona are next up in the primary and caucus calendar, with both states holding primaries on February 28. The 30 delegates up for grabs in Michigan will be divided proportionally, while the 29 delegates at stake in Arizona are winner take all.

The latest polls are showing a trend Mitt Romney would prefer not to see — Rick Santorum overshadowing him, starting with the Public Policy Polling and with the Detroit News poll. Rick Santorum’s surge isn’t limited to Michigan. He has also pulled ahead of Romney in the national-level polling and is showing huge leads in Ohio, which happens to be an important state in Super Tuesday. This trend is quite different from Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina surge and even Herman Cain’s surge that was unsustainable. It seems that Rick Santorum has some momentum and may be the one to give Mitt Romney a run for the nomination. In fact, I would venture to say, Rick Santorum, though he has said some crazy things in the past (including singling out blacks on welfare and saying contraception should be banned), would be a far more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney. He is more in line with Main Street, in terms of financial assets, than Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney still has the organizational and financial advantages over Rick Santorum, but sometimes that’s not what voters want. Rick Santorum’s rise has been dramatic and I would venture to say, if Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul end up staying below 15%, then it will be very hard for Mitt Romney to stop Santorum’s rise unless he engages in negative warfare over the next ten days, as he did to Newt Gingrich in Florida. The problem is, Rick Santorum doesn’t have the baggage of Newt Gingrich and he hasn’t had a long political career for Mitt Romney to pick apart and use against him. His social views are pause for concern, but he is a likable person, quite the opposite of Newt Gingrich. Like President Obama, Rick Santorum has been a good father and a good husband, unlike Newt Gingrich, who is a bottom-feeder in my opinion. Rick Santorum’s favorability ratings, are more positive than any other Republican candidate. So, I would be willing to bet that Rick Santorum would be a far more credible GOP presidential candidate than Mitt Romney, who is as stiff as Al Gore.