Rich Lowry has an excellent column today about the real possibility of Santorum finally catching fire. And Lowry picks up on a too-little-noticed thematic element, in which Santorum ties together his social issues with his economic positions:
[H]e’s not a thoughtless culture warrior, in it for the bombast. Santorum links his social conservatism to the struggles of the working class in one of the few thematic departures in a Republican primary that has been more about personalities and past heterodoxies than substantive differences.
And Public Policy Polling finds that while Santorum hasn’t rocketed to the front yet, he is in the best position to catch fire late:
Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum continue to all be clustered right around 10%. Santorum actually has the best favorability numbers of any of the candidates at +27 (56/29). He’s also the most frequent second choice of voters at 14%. Whether he can translate any of this into a top 3 finish remains to be seen, but he’s someone who would seem to have the potential to grow his support in the final week…. And given all the strange twists and turns to this point don’t be surprised to see yet another surprise in the final week…and based on the innards of this poll the person best positioned to provide that surprise in the closing stretch is Santorum.
These last six days will be most interesting.
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