least buy some chocolates. newt gingrich offered this reassuring commander in chief-like explanation for his failure to qualify for the virginia presidential ballot. i had somebody who turned in false signatures. we turned in 11,100. we needed 10,000. 1500 of them by one guy who frankly committed fraud. well, all right then. hope you have better luck choosing a treasury secretary. today, rick santorum made a reenergized pitch to the anyone but romney republican voters. mitt romney s never proven to win in an election where he had to get democrats and independents as a conservative. when he ran in massachusetts, he didn t run as a conservative. i ve run as a conservative in a blue state of pennsylvania and won two elections. yes, i lost one in an election year where everybody lost but in the election years that were contested that are going to be
the santorum surge is now upolç us. the santorum surge in the polls follows the trump surge in the polls. the back man surge, the perry surge, the herman cain surge and gingrich surge. is the santorum surge the final one? is rick santorum where the anybody but mitt romney is going to end up or will the santorum surge turn into a collapse? joining me now is former pennsylvania governor ed rendell an nbc news political analyst. governor rendell, tell me what s crazy about rick santorum from a republican perspective because that s what happened to every other one of these people was surging in the republican polls, republicans discovered something they really didn t like about them. is there something they don t yet note about rick santorum? santorum is benefiting from the fact that he s surging so
has artfully managed expectations throughout this entire year, but just now because of his apparent strength, because of his team s confidence and because of these polls that show him in first, expectations are now starting to rise that mitt romney s going to win the iowa caucuses. if he were to fall to third behind either santorum and paul or paul and santorum, that would become a problem at this point especially if it was a distant third. that would hurt him going into new hampshire and might throw the door open to a more unexpected outcome than what i think most people are looking at right now which is romney wins iowa, new hampshire and pretty much puts the nomination away. howard, someone always gets left behind in iowa this they just can t make it up and continue to campaign. who will we not be talking about this time next week? probably michele bachmann for sure. and don t forget, she s another person who didn t even bother to submit signatures to try to get on the ballot in
bizarre are all in this ultraconservative kind of weird anti-sex, anti-gay zone that seems to play well with the evangelical voter. no question. even his performance on terri schiavo which i thought was a low moment in his career trying to capitalize on that and having the federal government try to intrude in the choice that a family was making, even that i think had the support of the vast majority of people who believe in the sanctity of life. so no, i think your point is well taken. there s nothing in his background that will disturb what is now his growing base of voters. and if he ever made it, if this candidacy did catch fire and overwhelmed the romney money and we ve seen money not do the trick for rick perry. so we don t know the how far money can go for mitt romney but if he ever did get to the nomination, how would president obama go after rick santorum in a general election. as someone who s wayç out o
little in this race rather than rick santorum who they see as somebody who really can t raise a lot of money, who remains rather obscure. if he finishes third, so what. he won t be able to raise the millions of dollars he would need right away because he doesn t have the connections, he doesn t have the ground game. he didn t even bother to try to submit signatures to get on the ballot in virginia, for example. they cite that as an example of the fact that they don t think he can go national. at least that s what they were saying to me. john, you wrote on new york ofma unearned good fortune and though the lack of affection for him in his party s base might yet come back to bite him, at the moment, he appears to be on the verge of proving an eternal verity of politics, better to be lucky than loved. how has mitt romney been lucky? well, lawrence, you just