NASHUA, N.H. — Rick Santorum was onstage at a Tea Party event
Thursday night, talking about God.
“When we say ‘God bless America,’ do we mean it or do we
just say it?” he asked the crowd in the auditorium at Windham High
School. The former Pennsylvania senator then mimicked those
Republicans who, he says, advise him, “Don’t talk about those
things in New Hampshire.”
Santorum is unapologetically the same staunch conservative
in the Granite State that he was in Iowa and — judging from the
applause during the town hall forum sponsored by the Southern
New Hampshire 9-12 Project — God is still more popular here
than some Republicans may suspect.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the social conservative
message that fueled Santorum’s surge in the Iowa caucuses, where
evangelical Protestants are an influential constituency, will not
go over well in New Hampshire. Yet Santorum appears determined to
try to prove the conventional wisdom wrong.
During an afternoon appearance at a gathering of college
students in Manchester, Santorum was challenged on his opposition
to same-sex marriage, which the New Hampshire legislature approved
in June 2009. Instead of brushing off the question, Santorum
engaged in what the liberal blog
Think Progress called a “Socratic dialogue” with his student
questioner. “So, are we saying that everyone should have the right
to marry?” Santorum asked. “So, anyone can marry anybody else.… So,
anybody can marry several people?”
His implicit comparison of homosexuality to polygamy was,
of course, offensive to liberal sensibilities, and an annoyance to
many Republicans who nowadays view social issues as a distraction
or political hindrance that prevents their party from appealing to
independent voters. However, Santorum seemed confident to the point
of boldness Thursday, and there were good reasons for his
confidence. Since his unexpectedly strong showing in Iowa, his
campaign says, he’s been raising money at the blistering pace of $1
million a day. And Santorum’s refusal to trim his sails in regard
to his conservative stances on social issues may be much wiser than
the conventional wisdom.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who had been Santorum’s
strongest rival for evangelical votes in Iowa, quit the GOP
presidential race Wednesday after her sixth-place finish in the
Hawkeye State. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another evangelical favorite
who finished a disappointing fifth in Iowa, will not make a major
effort here, choosing instead to make his stand in the Jan. 21
South Carolina primary. That leaves Santorum and former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich as the major conservative challenges to
former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in next Tuesday’s New
Hampshire primary. In this environment, Santorum’s doubling down on
religious and cultural issues may actually be a quite shrewd
strategy. Leaving Romney to contend for moderate votes with Utah
Gov. Jon Huntsman — who has staked his entire campaign on New
Hampshire — and leaving the libertarians to Texas Rep. Ron Paul,
Santorum seems prepared to maximize his appeal to social and
religious conservatives. And if such conservatives are less
numerous here than in Iowa, their percentage of the GOP primary
electorate is probably greater than Santorum’s current poll
standing in the Granite State.
Polls are lagging indicators for a suddenly surging
campaign like Santorum’s, but the latest New
Hampshire poll — commissioned by the Washington Times
— showed him breaking into double digits for the first time. He is
still a distant fifth in the
Real Clear Politics average of New Hampshire polls, and it is
too early to tell if Santorum can replicate his feat in Iowa, where
his vote total on caucus night exceeded the final Des Moines
Register poll by a full 10 percentage points. And his campaign
is seeing signs of a similar surge here.
“We feel the excitement’s building out there,” Santorum’s
campaign manager Mike Biundo said Thursday afternoon. “The crowds
are getting bigger. More reporters are covering us. It feels pretty
good.”
Biundo is a veteran New Hampshire operative and, while
pundits have frequently asserted that Santorum had no organization
outside Iowa, in fact he has made more campaign appearances here
than any other candidate except Huntsman. While it’s nearly
impossible to imagine that Santorum could fare as well here as he
did in Iowa, he may once again exceed expectations, lending weight
to the perception that he is the conservative with genuine momentum
going into the South Carolina showdown.
Thoughts of political strategy, however, may have nothing
to do with Santorum’s insistence on standing firmly on his social
conservative stances. A devout Catholic father of seven, Santorum
can’t be accused of “pandering,” when he is simply stating his own
firm beliefs. And contrary to the conventional wisdom, his message
appeared to win him admirers in the Tea Party crowd at Windham
High. As they left the auditorium Thursday night, many of them were
carrying home the candidate’s yard signs emblazoned with his
campaign slogan, “Join the Fight.”
