Des Moines, Iowa – Over on the home page, I chat with John Brabender, Santorum’s own Karl Rove — the senior strategist who has been with him since his first House race in 1990, when he toppled Democrat Doug Walgren, a seven-term incumbent from the Pittsburgh suburbs. Brabender tells me to keep an eye on seven factors as the Iowa HQ closes and the plane for Manchester is fueled.

Santorum will make a play for the Granite State: “We’re not like these other campaigns that look at New Hampshire, surrender, and say ‘We can’t be competitive there; we’re going to the south.’ We think South Carolina is extremely important, and we’re the only ones who’ve won a straw poll there. But we think that to be a legitimate presidential candidate, you have to, at the very least, be willing to compete in each region of the country,” Brabender says. “And that includes the Northeast. We’re not expecting to walk into every place and feel like we have to win, but by going to New Hampshire, it lets us continue a dialogue with the country. That’s where the press is, that’s where people are paying attention, and we want to show we have national strength.”
Santorum staffers are prepping for the long haul: “We knew this day would come,” Brabender says. “There is this perception that the senator, duffel bag in hand, has been wandering around Iowa, but behind the scenes, there is a lot going on.” In coming days, many of the top Iowa field staffers will be shifted to new roles in other early primary states, taking the turnout strategies and outreach techniques they honed in Iowa to South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida. “We’re not an expensive campaign, not a huge bureaucracy campaign,” so there is flexibility in terms of personnel, he says. Regarding payroll, “we don’t need to bring in the same amount as other campaigns.”
New hires will begin in the finance department: “We’re probably going to make a few small hires,” Brabender says, and they will mostly be money raisers, “due to the uptick in donations that has really picked up in recent weeks.” Beyond that, “you’re not going to see some wholesale expansion. The biggest mistake we think we could make right now is simply trying to become the other candidates, running the same type of model that’s outdated. You can be sure we’re not going to do that.”

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