Weeks after the 2010 midterms, Mike Biundo, a veteran New Hampshire political operative, met with a slew of presidential contenders. He was offered a couple of gigs but nothing piqued his interest. He mulled other options, including a bid for the state GOP chairmanship. But after talking with friends, he decided against it. Maybe, he told his family, it’d be best to take a break from politics, to try something else.
Earlier that year, the 43-year-old Biundo had managed a successful congressional race in the Granite State, and from 2007 to 2008, he’d been an adviser to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. Exhausted after two grueling cycles, he didn’t feel compelled to enlist. Since his early twenties, the Long Island native has been on the trail, first gaining notice in 1996 when he worked as an aide to Pat Buchanan. As he glanced at the emerging field, he didn’t see a Buchanan-type, an appealing insurgent.
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So Biundo went home to Manchester. But he kept an eye on things. He started reading about a fellow conservative Italian and Roman Catholic from the Northeast, a guy who was getting little attention from the pundits and big-dollar strategists. Biundo admired his underdog status and his blue-collar roots. He decided to get in touch with Rick Santorum, if only to give the senator a friendly thumbs-up. “I called them up; they didn’t call me up,” he says. “We had one meeting, then a second meeting. We just clicked.”
“I was going through some tough times with my family; my daughter was sick, she ended up having brain surgery. And he was so good about the whole process,” Biundo recalls. “I hadn’t decided whether I was going to work for him or not. But the compassion, in how he reached out to me as a man and as a person, not as somebody who was trying to hire me, convinced me that this is someone I needed to work for.”
“He would tell me about how he, Bella, and the family were saying the Hail Mary,” Biundo says. “As I dealt with my family, we went back and forth with stories, his experience with Gabriel, similar challenges in our own lives. There was a personal connection; it was different.” At first, Biundo started as Santorum’s state director, mostly working out of his home, connecting with activists. Santorum then began to search for a campaign manager. “There I was, working hard,” Biundo says. Santorum tapped him.
Early on, the pair agreed that Iowa, more than any other early primary state, should be their focus. As a longshot campaign, they had to surprise, to win over midwestern evangelicals. But they also knew that if Santorum began to pick up speed, to actually contend for the nomination, then they’d need to be ready to transition, in terms of organization and fundraising, from fledging wannabes to national players.
“We often talked about what happened to Mike Huckabee,” Biundo says, referencing the former Arkansas governor who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses only to fizzle in future primaries. “We knew that there would be perils, that while we based the campaign in Iowa, we had to be more than an Iowa-only candidate.”
Over a year later, Biundo and Santorum are still working together, debating strategy and messaging over late-night phone calls. John Brabender, a longtime Santorum confidant and media expert, is another integral part of the team. But it’s Biundo who manages the ground forces. At the moment, he and his candidate are facing the same obstacle they faced at the beginning of the campaign: scaling up, coordinating volunteers, and competing with Mitt Romney’s machine.
Vote Santorum!!!! And, how conservative is this? Santorum triple earned income tax credit. If u work 3 mo./year u get $3000/year for each baby u have. Vote Santorum!!! The true "CONSERVATIVE"!!!!!
You are confused. Santorum wants to triple the personal deduction for each child. As Yuval Levin explains, "The difference between tripling the credit and the deduction is no small matter. In fact, given lower rates Santorum proposes more generally, I’m not sure tripling the personal deduction is worth the trouble." External Link So, yes, it's a conservative move.
God help us if Santorum is the nominee. Of course, as allahpundit says, it will settle once and for all the question of whether a majority of the country wants to adopt the social agenda of the most conservative evangelicals and Catholics. I suspect a strong majority doesn't. Santorum vs. Obama would make the greatest case for the Libertarians yet.
Nice try Rook. No one wants to create any social agenda - people want to be left alone. They do not want Obama's abortion mandates and lack of religious freedom. Americans do not want the big Obama liberal government telling people what to do. Give it up Rook - it is obvious you are using the lib talking points.
Rick Santorum is connecting with young people like Ron Paul has. Young people want opportunity and a future - not welfare. Obama and the Democrats have destroyed the future for young people with debt and no jobs anywhere. Seniors and baby boomers do not want to be wiped out by the Democrats redistribution of wealth.
Rick Santorum will win the nomination and will win the presidency. Obama will lose the Catholic vote to Santorum. Obama got +50% of the Catholic vote in 2008. He will not get near 40% this time. I would guess 30% or less. Just watch and you will see. Rick Santorum is going to win.
If nothing else, it looks like the nomination is boiling down to two candidates without any known personal baggage to carry into a Presidential race - a race where Obama's baggage will continue to be buried by the media deeper than whale poop.
In talking to my liberal friends, it is clear that they perceive Santorum as a homophobic, bible thumping bigot. He should talk to Dick Cheney about how to enunciate a palatable and humane position on that issue - it would go a long way towards dissolving a lot of negatives that he will need to overcome to appeal to the muddled middle without selling out the Evangelical base that's his for the asking. As a nation we need social peace, as human beings we need to respect innate differences, and as a Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum needs to keep the message positive. If he can do that, he can win. On abortion, the other big lightning rod social issue, he merely needs to stay on his dignity of all life message. Most liberals I know, particularly the younger ones, want some accomodation with gays (whose influence far exceeds their numbers), but would rather change the subject when it comes to abortion. If nothing else, younger voters, naive as they are on so many things, try to think seriously about human rights across the board.
"In talking to my liberal friends, it is clear that they perceive Santorum as a homophobic, bible thumping bigot."
That would be a pretty accurate perception, it seems to me. Though instead of the word homophobic I would say powerfully homo-averse. I think Rick takes all the most conservative teachings of the Catholic church very seriously indeed. I suspect that on a personal level, you might throw in, besides opposition to birth control, a marked hostility to women in non-homemaker roles (recall his attack on Sarah Palin).
Rick might have been a strong candidate in 1948 (well, except for the Catholic part). But in American 2012, I fear not. He has made so many impolitic statements on social issues that Team Obama should have a field day running against him.
It's odd to see so many liberals commenting at National Review Online.
Santorum is clearly the most conservative candidate in this race. It's strange to see him derided here simply because he doesn't fit with the media and entertainment industries' opinion of what is mainstream.
Aside from what might emerge at a brokered convention there are 2 viable candidates, Romney and Santorum.
Romney is like the anti-Sarah Lee, nobody does like him. OK, not nobody, 25% of republicans (or republican primary voters) like him. Can he appeal to the mushy middle? I don't really see how, he lacks even an iota of charisma so how does he capture the imagination and trust of those who barely pay attention?
Santorum's potential negatives with the mushy middle are easy to see, however he brings to the table two qualities that will serve him and our side quite well in the general election.
The first is he has a REAL ability to connect to working class voters as real people, not as data points.
Second, Santorum has the #1 single most important trait most important to Republican politicians, he doesn't care, he sincerely DOES NOT CARE, what the NY Times, the WaPo and all the rest of the MSM says about him.
You can't convincingly say either of those things about Romney or Obama.
Santorum is a decent man. He has ZERO chance of being President. His positions are too extreme for the mainstream - even average Americans who generally oppose abortion think it's permissible in cases of rape and incest, and when the mother's life might be at risk. He is not even consistent with the Catholic Church's position on the death penalty and war. So he has a brand of extremism that doesn't really relate across the board with anyone except the most out-there evangelicals.
Steven Gerrard, I understand where you are coming from. You are a liberal, no? And all your friends are liberals. That is the source of your "ZERO chance" estimation.
I do not believe Santorum has ever said he would outlaw abortion where the mother's life is at risk. Like Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, and Paul, Santorum signed the "Personhood Republican Presidential Candidate Pledge," which provides that "in cases where a mother’s life is at risk, every effort should be made to save the baby’s life as well; leaving the death of an innocent child as an unintended tragedy rather than an intentional killing." The no-exceptions other than the mother's life is now the mainstream view in the GOP race.
After hoping for a bombastic serial adulterer Trekkie to run against....the other great hope for the Obama campaign and Dems is to run against a guy who is obsessed with gay sex, wants states to ban contraception, wants to immediately start Yet Another War in the Middle East over some weapons that don't even exist....and who lost his last election by 17% in his home-state.
Please help the DNC and the President...and give generously to the Santorum campaign.
I'm conservative and Catholic. There is no way I'll vote for Santorum. He has so many baggages that need to be exposed. He is the same as Gingrich.
America don't want a loony and ultra-right wing president. If GOP insists on Santorum, then Obama's reelection is assured.
My vote goes to Mitt Romney. The hope of America. He can fix this mess. Our pressing issue is the economy. Gingrich nor Santorum never turned around anything. They are only good in talking and convincing people. Only to those that can be conned. But me? I vote with my head. America needs Mitt Romney!
External Link Both Romney and Newt attacked each other from the left...Santorum didn't (to his great credit) but Jonah has some serious concerns about Rick's big government social conservative agenda.
If Rick Santorum embraced a tea party position in promoting smaller government, libertarian ideals, and liberty: he would be a far stronger candidate.
The evidence from Rasmussen clearly suggests that, at least for the moment, Mr. Santorum is the most electable Republican.
Perhaps this is because, while he certainly excites social conservatives, Mr. Santorum has also been making the case for more freedom in health care, less business regulation and reduced government spending and taxes. Voters are still waiting for Mr. Romney to make a persuasive case for economic liberty.
Santorum is the better choice for libertarians. They may not come along, but they're not going to scare the rest of us off by calling names and obsessing about homosexuals.
Who is doing the homosexual obsession scare? I don't like Santorum because he acts like libertarians are anarchist, which goes contra Reagan, who was what Jonah Goldberg would term a "fusionist". Furthermore, its just intellectually dishonest. No candidate wants "no government". Some say Romney is guilty of not simply owning "RomneyCare" and doing a Perry-style "oops", apologizing, and saying, "I've learned my lesson, too bad Obama hasn't."
Santorum is guilty of the same thing: When he voted to double the Dept of Education and vote for Medicare Part D (Prescription Drugs) without a funding source - which Ted Kennedy called "a good down payment" - he knows he's stuck with the W-era failings. His libertarian jabs are an attempt to say, "well, yeah, I voted for government, but only a little bit because....I'm not a spooky senseless anarchist!!!!!" It's a detraction from what he needs to say, which is, "I got caught up in the spending spree and I'm very sorry. I want a smarter America that is less dependent on government, but I should have remembered that's Harrisburg, Augusta, Austin, Atlanta and Boston's jobs - not the job of the Federal government."
"My heart went out to seniors, and I lost my political gumption with all those Democrat ads about seniors choosing dog food for dinners so they could have their pill - but I should have stood firm against an unsustainable program that just drives up costs." Who is he to act like Newt & Romney got caught with their hands in the health care meddling cookie jar when I see the purple ink on his thumb of someone who voted ...for quick government fixes instead of cost-reducing, consumer-oriented reform!!!
Santorum is a no-go. He achieves something: Making Romney look good. Where's his plan to cut government? Or is he still "no longer a deficit hawk"?
Wait till the polls catch up with Santorum's radical remarks. I predict that give it a week and he will no longer be at the top and may even go below Nuclear Newt.
Romney is the worst frontrunner ever in American politics - way, way, way worse than McCain. He cannot win a primary election against: 1. A libertarian who is running for fun and has zero chance or winning (he even says that he is not running to win and would not really want to win) the nomination or the general election. 2. The most divisive speaker in US history who cheated on his three wives and who's main plan is to colonize the moon. 3. An ex US representative who lost reelection by 17 points in a conservative district, and who has no organization and no money. And Romney cannot win!!!
Romney is the best possible choice for the Republican Presidential candidate. He will beat Obama and turn this economy around. He understands balancing budgets and with a 16 Trillion Dollar Deficit that is what this country needs. Look what a mess "Mr. Personality" Obama has gotten this country into. Santorum hasn't run anything and all Nuclear Newt did was pass budgets, he never had to actually balance a budget.
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