At last, the candidate arrived, eliciting applause and cheers from his waiting supporters. Santorum answered a couple of questions from the press gaggle, then did a brief TV interview with Andrea Tantaros of Fox News, before the crowd outside was led in to get their “grip-and-grin” moments with the candidate. While the candidate shook hands and posed for photographs with the CPAC attendees, I walked over to talk with his campaign’s finance director, Nadine Maenza, who confirmed previous reports that Santorum had been raking in online donations at a pace of $1 million a day since Tuesday’s trifecta. In fact, Maenza said, she had been informed that the campaign had already collected a half-million dollars that morning, so that total donations to Santorum since Tuesday were already more than $3 million.
Such a windfall of campaign cash, like the crowds of supporters and the swarming media coverage, is further evidence of Santorum’s status as the top rival to the Republican presidential field’s longtime frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
► Santorum’s Second Surge
I just want to keep His Electable Inevitableness from screwing up our chances of getting the peewee leaguers out of the White House. If that means nominating Santorum, so be it.
