In Jacksonville Debate: Two Winners, One Loser (Townhall, January 27, 2012) , analyst Guy Benson comments
Rick Santorum – What a night for the former Pennsylvania Senator. In my view, he scored a hat trick: Focusing many of his attacks on President Obama, calling on CNN to cease asking petty non-policy questions about Romney and Gingrich (offering pleasant words about both of them), and flaying Mitt Romney on healthcare. Before the debate, I wrote that Santorum needed a breakthrough. It remains to be seen whether he achieved one, but he definitely made a very serious case that he might be the best Not Romney in the race. Santorum’s focus on manufacturing and the middle class speaks to a lot of swing-state voters, and his answers about his family and faith were fantastic. But was it enough? He has a lot of polling ground to make up; it also seems intuitive that Newt would be hit hardest by a late Santorum surge.
Well, we were interested in his role as a kingmaker primarily, ever since he actually won Iowa.
We’ve been told he can’t win because Big Money isn’t backing him. It strikes some here that Big Money didn’t build the United States; the situation was quite the other way around, actually. So if Big Money now decides, the wheel has come full circle after about 2.5 centuries.
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