Rick Santorum still hopeful in Iowa -- and why is that again?

By Richard K. Barry

My favorite headline of the day is "Rick Santorum predicts last minute surge." You almost never see headlines that read, like, "Rick Santorum says he's 'whistling past the graveyard in Iowa' and may drop out soon," although Pawlenty's wife pretty much said that kind of thing about Tim's campaign just before he went away. I thought that was refreshing at the time.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Santorum and Huntsman, who are the only two candidates not yet to have actually had a national breakout moment. Even undeclared posers like Trump and Palin have had those. (You might say that Ron Paul has also languished, but his consistent group of true believers at least gives him something to work with).

It's true that Santorum got the best news of his campaign a few days ago when Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz endorsed him. Speaking of his preferred candidate, Schultz said, "I tend to like underdogs, and slow and steady wins the race." If Schultz likes slow, he's got to love Santorum, whose campaign has also been steadily weak.

Just to pick one survey for the sake of illustration, The Washington Post and ABC News conducted a poll between November 30 and December 4, with a random sample of 858 potential Iowa Republican caucus-goers.

Among likely caucus-goers, Gringrich leads with 33%; Romney and Paul are tied for second with 18%; Perry is at 11%; Bachmann is at 8% -- and then comes Rick Santorum at 7%. He is ahead of Huntsman, but only Huntsman, who is trailing the pack at 2%. Huntsman does beat "none of the above" (barely) but trails "no opinion" by a point.

As I've commented previously, there are many reasons candidates with no realistic chance of getting a presidential nomination choose to run. It's always interesting to guess when each might drop out, or who is going to be next. Just guessing, but are Bachmann and Santorum out after Iowa and Huntsman after New Hampshire? Paul will stay in because he is a zealot with a message, and I have no idea what to make of Perry. They say he can always find money, so maybe that keeps him in past his due date.

Then again, they are all so addicted to seeing their names in the paper, there is no telling how long we'll have to suffer the larger pack.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)