According to Phillip Klein at the Washington Examiner, Santorum has a window this week to make a strong case that he should be the conservative going forward in this race, not Newt:
After his late surge to the top in Iowa, Rick Santorum had appeared to emerge as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. But Santorum decided to compete heavily in New Hampshire, where he did poorly, and suddenly Newt Gingrich was able to come back from the dead in South Carolina. After Nevada, however, we’re entering a stage where Santorum has another opening.
There are three contests tomorrow and Santorum has a chance to win two of them and to beat Gingrich in all three. Though we don’t have much data, Public Policy Polling survey taken Sunday shows Santorum with a small edge in Minnesota, at 29 percent, with 27 percent for Romney and 22 percent for Gingrich. PPP also showed Romney leading with 40 percent in Colorado, but at 26 percent, Santourm leads Gingrich, who was down at 18 percent. There’s also a non-binding primary in Missouri tomorrow that won’t actually allocate delegates. But Gingrich isn’t on the ballot, and Santorum was leading Romney 45 percent to 34 percent when PPP checked in last week. If Santorum has a strong showing tomorrow, he’ll build up a head of steam going into the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he can make his case to conservatives.
In an apparent recognition of this, Romney’s campaign has shifted from its regular attacks on Gingrich to going after Santorum — dispatching surrogate Tim Pawlenty to criticize his pork-barrel spending. But there’s a risk for Romney. To start, Santorum is a much more sympathic figure than Gingrich, so pursuing a scortched earth strategy against him is much more likely to backfire. Also, Santorum’s record is much more consistently conservative than Gingrich’s. …
But whatever Santorum’s deviations from conservatism, they pale in comparison to Romney’s — on abortion, guns, and health care among other issues. Romney can’t credibly attack Santorum on his prescription drug vote, is calling for automatic minimum wage increases during his current campaign anyway and supported No Child Left Behind.
Also, read Michelle Malkin’s take on Santorum’s chances this week: Santorum’s Got Game.
I’ve said all along that I’ll take whichever of the two, Newt or Santorum, that rises to the top. Santorum is a stronger candidate on the issues, but Newt has that flare of inspiration that can wow people. I guess we’ll see if Santorum can make the case this week that it should be him versus Romney instead of Newt.
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