Poll average showing santorum in the lead by just 2 points. is santorum just the latest nonromney? that is the question we re asking today or does he have lasting power here that everyone needs to pay attention to. charlie hurt is a columnist for the washington times a, and i guess you get to answer that question. what do you think about santorum, does he have lasting power, or is he the flavor of the week as the nonromney. reporter: i think the fact that santorum is still around after all the predictions that he won t be around this long is evidence that he s doing very well. he s not made any major mistakes, and very few kind of small mistakes, you know, kind of talking off script and things like that. he s run a very disciplined campaign and he s worked very hard and done it very much with not that much money, you know, compared to mitt romney. mitt romney should have completely cleaned up by now, but the problem is that there
Santorum s work in the influence industry broadly is one of those things that people just seem willing to overlook because he s not mitt romney and they re willing to forgive a lot for someone who is not mitt romney. indeed. anna marie, romney has been on the ropes many a time and many times escaped because the new nonromney has basically imploded and provoked their own descent. why does this time feel different? the national and state polls are slowing santorum ahead of romney. there is something going on here. pure research, 30 to santorum 28 to romney. yeah, i think there is something going on. i mean, there is an element here of just being the last man standing, this is sort of the musical chairs of the primaries and there s one chair getting remove each time the music stops. and it might just be that rick santorum is the person that winds up with that second chair next to mitt romney, which he bought and paid for, by the way. but you know, i think that
Pennsylvania is a little different. because of the catholic populist flair. actually like a bigger government there. and they don t mind social conservatives like bob casey, for instance. i think the arithmetic is there. and that is, that romney never made a break through anywhere. but he had six or seven opponents. now it s getting down to one or two. and if santorum really is the only other, the nonromney, he s really able to garner the votes now. so it is quite different. i mean romney never made a breakthrough in any of the earlier races. so it s kind of amazing. but how is santorum going to play if he gets the nomination and the general election, it s a completely different electorate that he s going to face. and this is where i disagree with the conventional wisdom. the conventional wisdom is a guy like rick santorum has said too many crazy things and he s too this and he s too that. i surprised a conservative
And gingrich collapsing. look at the numbers on the right. santorum is now tied at 30% with mitt romney and gingrich is, again, a distant third. david corn, this is stunning. it shows what a boring word volatility. this is a national poll by fox and it shows what happened. this guy wins three primaries and all of a sudden, the entire people in the country, the republicans like lemmings? they just all of a sudden say, oh, is that the word from the big boys? i guess we re all now for santorum. it s a shiny object. why are they doing it? if you look at the numbers, mitt romney dropped 5 points, but newt dropped 10 points. we get back to the same story we ve been talking about since last summer. what happens to the nonromney vote? and the volatility is like going from newt, basically stampeding to rick santorum after those wins. if you sort of factor it in and took a poll today, you d probably see even more running from newt to rick santorum. so mitt romney stays at about
Santorum, a distant third. look at the numbers for the last two days. wednesday of thursday of this week shows santorum surging, doubling his vote practically, and gingrich collapsing. look at the numbers on the right. santorum is now tied at 30% with mitt romney and gingrich is, again, a distant third. david corn, this is stunning. it shows what a boring word volatility. this is a national poll by fox and it shows what happened. this guy wins three primaries and all of a sudden, the entire people in the country, the republicans like lemmings? they just all of a sudden say, oh, is that the word from the big boys? i guess we re all now for santorum. it s a shiny object. why are they doing it? if you look at the numbers, mitt romney dropped 5 points, but newt dropped ten points. we get back to the same story we ve been talking about since last summer. what happens to the nonromney vote and the volatility is like going from newt, basically stampeding to rick santorum after those