Santorum campaigning in NH, but talking to South Carolina voters

Alexis Levinson Political Reporter
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SALEM, N.H. — Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum may be physically in New Hampshire, but he’s already starting to talk to South Carolina voters.

At a Monday morning town hall event in Salem, Santorum made several jabs at Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Perry is all but a non-entity in the Granite State. He has barely campaigned here, and the latest poll has him placing behind former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, who is running a quixotic reform campaign against money in politics and refusing to take donations larger that $100.

But in South Carolina, where Perry has been lodged since his surprise decision to stay in the race after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, the Texas governor is a threat to Santorum because they pull from the same group of voters.

At the town hall, Santorum rattled off the five deductions that comprise his tax reform plan — “children, charity, pensions, health care and housing” — without missing a beat.

“Notice I did all five, I didn’t miss any, I didn’t hesitate, I got all five down,” Santorum said to laughter from the audience. “Thank you. You know, [after] almost 500 town hall meetings you better be good at these things.”

The comment was a snipe at Perry’s infamous “oops” moment, when he froze in a debate listing off the government departments he would get rid of as president, unable to remember the third one: the Department of Education.

As he advocated for drilling for oil in Alaska, Santorum noted, “I’m not an oil man from Texas. I’m the grandson of a coal miner. So when I go out and say, ‘well, we need to drill for oil,’ I’m not doing it because, you know, me and my friends are going to benefit from this. I’m doing it because I’m looking at objectively what’s in the best interest of our country.”

Santorum will begin running ads in South Carolina tomorrow, and the New York Times reports that his strategists believe they should be focusing more attention there than in New Hampshire.

Nonetheless, Charlie Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center, a New Hampshire-based think tank, explained that being in New Hampshire this week instead of skipping straight to South Carolina as Perry did was “sensible.”

“The attention’s here, and so if you’re campaigning here, you’re going to get much more press coverage nationally than you are if you’re campaigning somewhere where the national press isn’t … and so much of the national press is here today,” Arlinghaus said.

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Alexis Levinson