By John Stang
Slate’s Dave Weigel is trying to get ahead of the curve by predicting that Rick Santorum will be the next shiny object the GOP flocks to:
Look at polls from this point in 2007. At this point, Mitt Romney was just starting to lose his lead in Iowa to Mike Huckabee. In New Hampshire, which was a far more open race,Mitt Romney led John McCain by better than 15 points, and Rudy Giuliani was in a strong third, fighting for the lead. Hey, go back eight years — at this time in the cycle, Howard Dean was solidly leading in Iowa, Dick Gephardt was in second, and all of that John Edwards/John Kerry legwork was producing single digit poll numbers. The grassroots candidates surged late, capitalizing on their hard-won in-person recognition with a burst of TV ads and mail. And “late” is when you want to surge. When we see stories proclaiming Newt Gingrich “the comeback kid,” who forget that no one has actually voted for Gingrich yet – it’s like praising someone for his new gig when he made it through the first of five job interviews.
All of which is to say: I’m not going to same the mistake I did with Gingrich. I’m ready for the Santorum surge. To under-estimate the evangelical voter’s disdain for a Mormon/mandate candidate is to commit pundit malpractice.
I’m not sure that I would go that far. Besides Santorum’s Google problem (Google his name, I dare you), the man has so many other weaknesses that it would be hard for him to get the nomination. For one thing, in an election that will most likely be dominated by the economy, Santorum’s social issues candidacy will probably not be the most palpable. Michele Bachmann would be a better candidate to straddle both spheres, I would think. Not to mention that he has been out of office since 2006. Unless he has some Richard Nixon magic up his sleeve, I don’t see him going anywhere.
More importantly, Newt Gingrich is surging for a reason. First, he is the anti-Romney of the moment. Second, Gingrich is a skilled debater, Santorum is not. I think the GOP is looking for someone who can thrash Obama in a debate and a candidate that looks to have all the answers. Gingrich is known as the ideas man, the merits of the those ideas can be debated; nevertheless, his firebrand wonkishness could be a what the GOP is searching for at this current moment. That doesn’t mean he’ll win the nomination, it just gives him an edge for the moment.
