Santorum’s Georgia Volunteers Look to Seize Opportunity

Since a string of largely symbolic victories in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota earlier this month, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has surged in national polls. Now in position as Mitt Romney’s chief national rival, Santorum’s Georgia supporters are quietly laying the groundwork for a strong Super Tuesday. 

It was Jeff Jeremiah’s first day volunteering with the campaign. He felt a little guilty it took him so long. 

“I should have been here two weeks ago.”

Sitting at a fold out table in a sparsely furnished office, Jeremiah is one of a handful of volunteers dutifully calling prospective Georgia voters. 

Off Highway 78, about 10 miles east of Stone Mountain, Rick Santorum’s headquarters still feels like a work in progress, but one rapidly gaining momentum. 

When I visited late last week, volunteers were feeling out a call list that had just been sent down from the national campaign office in Pennsylvania. 

“What we’re working on right now is identified Christian voters. We have a little short survey that we’re giving them. They’re not necessarily Republicans, they’re not necessarily leaning for any candidate or the other,” said Marietta resident Don Towers, the campaign’s volunteer phone bank coordinator. 

It may be a sign that the Santorum camp is increasing efforts to appeal to pro-life, blue collar social conservatives. 

Speaking recently before thousands at a church in Forsyth County, Santorum blasted President Obama for attempting to force the Catholic Church to include contraceptives in its health insurance coverage. 

“Thank god the leaders of the Catholic Church have said they will not comply,” said Santorum. 

He spoke of lifting burdensome regulations and reducing the size of government.

“When my grandfather came in 1925, there was no government benefits. The government benefit was one thing – freedom,” said Santorum.

Most recently, Santorum called President Obama “a snob” for saying all children should aspire to a college education.

“They’re good decent men and women that work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor that are trying to indoctrinate them,” said Santorum. 

Santorum as culture warrior is certainly nothing new.

In 2003, he sponsored legislation banning partial birth abortion. In 2005, Santorum led a Republican crusade to save the life of Terri Schiavo. The Florida woman had been living in a vegetative state and her family was fighting over whether to remove her feeding tube.

Echoing complaints by the national campaign, Kathy Hildebrand, Santorum’s chief organizer in Georgia, says she’s tired of the constant focus on her candidate’s social views. 

She says Santorum has learned to separate personal beliefs and public policy.

“Even if you’re president and you’re a pro-life president, you have to enforce the law of the land. As long as the law of the land is pro-choice, it’s the law of the land and we respect that.” 

At the same time, Hildebrand says she does appreciate Santorum’s convictions on thorny social issues. 

“Everybody – I don’t want to say masquerades – but certainly puts forth the ‘I am a man of faith’ in the primary, but it’s funny to me when someone is very genuinely what everybody else is trying convince people that they are, to be serious about it, well that’s concerning.” 

While religion has no doubt played a central role throughout Santorum’s political career, each volunteer I spoke with insisted the candidate’s appeal went beyond just his faith. 

“Obviously he’s very popular among evangelical Christians – that’s they’re entry point and then they find out that Rick Santorum is a full spectrum conservative: fiscal, social, and national security,” said Don Towers.

Many of the volunteers see Georgia as an opportunity to deflate the candidacy of Newt Gingrich, the former hometown congressman. Gingrich is currently leading in statewide polls, but volunteers see him as highly vulnerable.

Over the next week, the campaign will be making 70,000 calls to potential voters, making the case for Rick Santorum as the champion of traditional American values.