Santorum targets South Carolina, a must-win primary

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He'll lose in New Hampshire, Romney's backyard, likely very badly, but the future for Rick Santorum is not granite but palmetto.

Yes, South Carolina is next up after New Hampshire. It will hold its open primary on Jan. 21, a long 11 days after the New Hampshire vote and a similarly long 10 days before the Florida vote.

It's on its own, then, and it will be the site of intense Republican campaigning. For Romney, a win -- and he's currently ahead in the polls -- would pretty much cement the nomination, though he could lose, win in Florida, Nevada, and Maine, and still be in good shape. For Santorum, it'll be make-or-break. Assuming he improves his sorry lot in New Hampshire, and the polls show him rising but still way behind not just Romney but Paul as well, he'll have to win South Carolina or at least come close enough to Romney to make it a one-on-one race (with Gingrich and Perry dropping out).

No wonder, then, that Santorum is taking his post-Iowa booty and plunking it right down in South Carolina:

Enjoying a wave of momentum from his near-win in the Iowa caucuses, Rick Santorum’s campaign is raising money faster than ever before. Donors have added $2 million to his campaign’s war chest in the last 48 hours alone.

And a Santorum aide tells ABC News that in the space of 10 hours — between midnight Thursday and 10 a.m. — the campaign took in $250,000 of that $2 million total. The quarter-million figure total represents online contributions only.

What's the campaign doing with that fresh infusion of cash?

For starters they are taking out a 1,000-point television ad buy in South Carolina ahead of the state's Jan. 21 primary.

The campaign is calling is a "major buy," and an adviser to the former Pennsylvania senator's presidential bid told ABC News the spot will play heavily on cable. According to a GOP source who tracks ad spending, the Santorum campaign has only spent $12,000 on the airwaves in South Carolina so far during the election cycle.

The Santorum campaign also plans a heavy mail drop in the state that begins early next week.

It may all be futile, as Romney is the likely nominee, but, then again, Santorum's whole campaign seemed futile as recently as just a couple of weeks ago. And while he faces an uphill battle in South Carolina, not least given Romney's excellent ground campaign (and Haley endorsement), it is just the sort of socially conservative state (with a Tea Party hostile to Romney), like Iowa (sort of), that suits him. If he can't do well there, he's done for good.

And make no mistake, while he may be a detestable bigot and theocrat who wants to keep women in chains, evangelize and/or eradicate Muslims, deny blacks access to government aid, and send gays to hell, I wish him all the best. I think he'd be a truly wonderful GOP nominee for president. Republicans would do well to kick Romney and his pandering faux conservatism to the curb and embrace this exemplary man, a man very much in tune with the Republican zeitgeist.

You think I'm kidding? I'm not.

(photo)