Here’s Jonathan Alter on Wednesday night on MSNBC explaining why Rick Santorum could end up beating Mitt Romney in South Carolina:
I think he’s in very good shape going forward. You know, in presidential politics, money follows momentum. So as long as he can keep things going, he’s going to have the resources to be competitive. He’s not going to match Romney dollar for dollar, but he sure didn’t in Iowa and he matched him in terms of votes.So if he can beat the expectations gap spread in New Hampshire, which is not going to be difficult — that doesn’t mean winning New Hampshire. It means doing better than single digits, which is where he is now. And then South Carolina will be a good state for him. That is a Mormon unfriendly state. I hate to say it, but that`s the facts.
I’m not giving a pass to religious bigotry. But just to be clear, if folks in South Carolina settle on a Roman Catholic because Romney is a Mormon, well… in the context of American history, that’s progress. Sort of. The folks at Bob Jones University must be pulling their hair out.
