Santorum Calls on Clones for Help

1/26/2015
Ben Jacobs

Rick Santorum is starting to tap a network of former staffers and proteges in his home state of Pennsylvania as he contemplates another run for president.

SANTORUMS EVERYWHERE

If Rick Santorum wins the Republican presidential primary, Pennsylvania may be just as important for him as Iowa.

The Keystone State’s April primary may be very late in the election cycle, but the resources Santorum can tap into from the state have the potential to make a significant impact in 2016 and enable him to run a much stronger campaign than he did four years ago.

The former Pennsylvania senator has already taken key steps to establish a base in the Keystone State, lining up support from important trade groups and former protégés who now run state government.

Santorum confidant Greg Rothman said that during his last race in 2011, Santorum didn’t really ask fellow Pennsylvania Republicans for help or call in any chits because he didn’t think there was enough of a chance he could win at first.

He welcomed help if people “stepped up but there was no ask.” While Santorum “was ok putting himself out there” in 2012, Rothman said, he wasn’t going to ask people to leave their jobs to work for him.  

In contrast, Rothman said, “this time around, they’re asking.”

Luke Bernstein, a longtime Republican operative and former Santorum staffer, added, “You look around in state government today and other folks who are influential in political circles, and all of them are connected in some way to Rick Santorum.”  

“You look around in state government today and other folks who are influential in political circles, and all of them are connected in some way to Rick Santorum,” —Luke Bernstein, a longtime Republican operative

One of the biggest gets for Santorum is Fred Anton, the head of the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Association (PMA), one of the most important groups in state Republican politics. One veteran Democratic operative in the state described the group as well-respected and having a “pretty big footprint” in state politics.  

David Taylor, the executive director of the group and a former Santorum staffer, noted that while the organization did endorse Santorum’s manufacturing plan in 2012, they otherwise stayed out of the presidential primary.

Taylor described things “palapably different” this time, and Anton has already hosted a meet and greet for Santorum in the PMA’s offices.

Taylor noted many Pennsylvania political regulars found Santorum’s success in 2012 to be “astonishing and really unexpected.”

He told The Daily Beast that while those in Pennsylvania politics “who were familiar with Rick, knew that nobody would outwork him” they  “didn’t know what to expect” from Iowa or the other early states.

Not only have a number of important operatives in state politics worked for Santorum, but the top two Republicans in the legislature, House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, have also worked closely with Santorum in the past.

The bond is particularly close with Corman---Santorum got his start in state politics as an intern for Corman’s father and Corman is a close family friend of the former Senator.

This was described as a deliberate goal of Santorum, which the former senator called “the Al D’Amato model.” As Taylor explained it, Santorum “has always been always been very positive and very helpful when a member of his team had the chance to move on to something better,” and that “it strengthened him to have his people in key posts in the private sector and in government.”

Santorum’s political legacy in the Keystone State isn’t totally untarnished. He lost his 2006 bid for a third term in the U.S. Senate in a near landslide to the current Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey.

And, as Terry Madonna, a professor at Franklin and Marshall College and longtime pollster in state politics pointed out, Santorum withdrew in 2012 on the eve of the state’s Republican primary, which was a sign of weakness as well.  

Yet, Madonna said, Santorum had long held a powerful position in the state GOP. Santorum played an integral role in state politics when he served in the U.S. Senate, in contrast to his fellow Republican (turned Democrat in 2009) Arlen Specter who paid “precious little attention” to party matters.

Madonna cited a story from the 2000 redistricting process where Santorum singlehandedly got the Republican party leaders to redraw district lines in order to create more opportunities for Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs.  

Santorum certainly won’t have the support of every Pennsylvania Republican.

Ironically, while Bernstein described his former boss to as “being Tea Party before the Tea Party existed,” the former senator is in many ways more of an establishment candidate in the Keystone State than an insurgent.  Further, he’ll still struggle to win the support of moderate Republicans in the Philadelphia area. But he doesn’t need to win every Republican in the state.

In his last campaign for Senate, Santorum raised $8.5 million from individual donors in Pennsylvania alone, roughly four times the total that he raised nationally between the start of his presidential campaign and the Iowa caucuses in 2011.

By shoring up his base in the Keystone State and actually making the asks, Santorum should be able to tap into many in-state donors who gave to him in 2006 and not in 2012, as well as be able to benefit from increased institutional resources and a strong volunteer infrastructure.

Still, this support won’t be enough to win the nomination or even solidly place him in the top tier of Republican candidates, but it should help keep Santorum viable and ensure that he runs a far more robust campaign than he did in 2011.

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