Sources Of Santorum Skepticism

1.  It looks like many of the delegates selected by Pennsylvania will not be Santorum supporters even if Santorum win the popular vote in his home state.  One of the wonders of the race is how little support Santorum has gotten within the institutional Republican Party.  The Pennsylvania Republican Party establishment seems to be doing its bit to make sure that Santorum doesn’t get the nomination.  Santorum is also giving them a little help with his own campaign’s incompetence and disorganization: 

The ranks of delegate hopefuls are littered with Republican state committee members, elected officials and others with close party ties, who will ultimately be more beholden to a state party leadership that, while officially neutral, is visibly leaning in Romney’s direction and increasingly vocal in its fear that Santorum could hurt the party in a general election — especially after witnessing his 18-point drubbing in 2006.

Romney, Ron Paul and even Newt Gingrich got some of their supporters on the ballot as delegate candidates. But Santorum’s campaign officials, who have struggled with ballot organization issues across the country, privately concede that they just didn’t have the time, nor resources, to organize their own supporters to run as delegates when the paperwork was due earlier this year.

“At this point the delegate candidates are lined up everywhere but with Rick,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime GOP strategist supporting Gingrich.

2.  It also appears that the Santorum’s campaign is having trouble properly organizing his speaking events. The lack of support for Santorum from the institutional Republican Party is disturbing but hardly disqualifying.  Sure he has only a couple more congressional endorsements than Ron Paul and half as many as Newt Gingrich, but no one ever said that the Republican congressional caucus has a monopoly on political wisdom.  But look at the picture.  The two groups of politicians who know him best are in Pennsylvania (where he is from, and the state he represented in Congress) and Washington D.C. (where he has largely been based out of for the last twenty years.)  The Republican politicians from those two places are, at best, very cool to him.  Maybe that tells us something important about what kind of general election candidate and President they fear Santorum would be.  Santorum is a professional politician who has never held an executive position.  His campaign   so far has not done much to allay concerns about his executive competence.     

3.  So how has Santorum gotten this far?  Because he has his virtues.  He seems like a personally very decent guy (unlike Gingrich and Cain.)  He seems to have a set of firm principles (unlike Romney and Gingrich.)  He is knowledgeable about national-level policy (unlike Cain, Perry, or Bachmann.)  He doesn’t quit after a few reversals (unlike Pawlenty.)  His campaign doesn’t ooze contempt for Republican primary voters (unlike Huntsman’s.)  He just doesn’t seem to have the rhetorical discipline and organizational ability to go all the way.