Pennsylvanians have seen the Real Rick. And they don't like him much.
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has big problems in Pennsylvania, a state he represented in the House and Senate for 16 years. He's now locked in a dead heat with Mitt Romney with less than a month to the state's April 24 primary after seeing his double-digit lead vanish into this air.
What happened?
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It's pretty simple, according to political analysts watching the Pennsylvania race: the Real Rick, that sometimes-abrasive cultural warrior who has a propensity to say some pretty outlandish (many would say offensive) things, has returned. Political journalist Byron York aptly describes Santorum's perception among some voters as "arrogant and headstrong, preachy and judgmental."
And in a state that has a pretty diverse Republican electorate, including a solid moderate presence in the Philadelphia suburbs, the Real Rick isn't sitting well.
"Santorum ran a disciplined campaign for eight months, but a month ago he began veering off message into all these cultural and social issues," Madonna said, referring to flare-ups over women in combat and contraceptives. "That may help with his core voters, but they're already with him. This is supposed to be about expanding your base."
"The real Rick Santorum has emerged," G. Terry Madonna, a political analyst and head pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., told The Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh this week. "Santorum ran a disciplined campaign for eight months, but a month ago he began veering off message into all these cultural and social issues. That may help with his core voters, but they're already with him. This is supposed to be about expanding your base."
The latest statewide poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall, found Santorum leading Romney by only 2 percentage points, 30 percent to 28 percent among Republican voters. That's within the poll's 4.4-point margin of error. A month ago, when Santorum was focused on job creation and the economy, the same poll had Santorum up by a whopping 29 points.
Santorum, of course, has a long and not so pretty record in the Keystone State. Voters here have long memories. They do not forget that Santorum waded into the bitter 2004 Republican primary between incumbent U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and conservative hero Pat Toomey. Santorum angered and alienated much of his base by endorsing the moderate Specter, who years later would switch parties to become a Democrat.
Voters in the western part of the state, where Santorum used to live, remain painfully aware the controversy surrounding his decision to bill taxpayers there for his children's charter-school tuition - even though he had moved to Virginia.
Santorum was rejected by Pennsylvanians once before, in 2006. He's in jeopardy of being handed another harsh judgement by those who know him best on April 24.
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