Rick Santorum says South Carolina his ‘best chance to win’

Rick Santorum’s campaign continued to gain momentum Sunday as he made two campaign stops in South Carolina, where he was met with cheering crowds and picked up an endorsement from conservative leader Gary Bauer.

“For me, Ronald Reagan has always defined what the right political position was in the U.S. I gave up on the idea that I would ever find another Ronald Reagan,” Bauer, a former Reagan advisor, said at a Republican fundraiser in Greenville. “Over the last year I’ve watched [Santorum] as he’s gone out and talked to the American people.... I realized the next Ronald Reagan was standing in front of me the whole time.”

The endorsement is another feather in the cap of Santorum, who has seen his poll numbers surge in the past two weeks. Recent polls show Mitt Romney leading the state with about one-third of the vote, with Santorum and Gingrich tied for second with about 20% each. But even that is a surprising change for Santorum, who had polled as low as 2% in South Carolina in December.

The surge in popularity follows his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and is a strong contrast to just a few weeks ago, when many of Santorum’s events drew only a few dozen people and little media attention.

“People were always saying to us, ‘We like him; he’s just not doing well in the polls and we don’t want to throw our vote away.’ ” Santorum said Sunday. “As soon as it became apparent that we could actually do well, our numbers went from, in the last five days, from 15 to 25, and that’s momentum.”

Santorum, his wife, Karen, and 16-year old son Dan started the afternoon in a packed sports bar and grill, where the parking lot was so full that cars and vans spilled into a bank parking lot next door. Hundreds of fans wearing blue and red Santorum stickers cheered and clapped as soon as the former senator from Pennsylvania walked in the door. Santorum was asked to hold babies, take pictures, and even sign a high school civics textbook.

He then traveled a few miles to a Republican fundraiser, where he was met by more crowds and by Bauer, who endorsed him to applause as waiters served up fried chicken and sweet tea.

“It’s a big leap,” said Sarah Metcalf, 17, a Santorum supporter who had recruited more than a dozen friends to wave signs outside the restaurant, about the contrast with a few months ago. Past events where Metcalf volunteered last summer had only a few volunteers, she said, and much smaller crowds.

Santorum tacitly acknowledged his change in fortune in a speech.

“It was a lonesome journey many times,” he said to the crowd.

Now, Santorum’s campaign is focused on South Carolina, where he has temporarily moved his wife and seven children. He says he’s spent more time in South Carolina than any other Republican candidate and is hoping that his conservative values will appeal to voters in this Southern state.

“Of the three early states, we thought this was our best chance to win,” he said.

Santorum echoed Bauer’s Reagan comparisons, exhorting the crowd to upset the front-runner, just as Ronald Reagan did to George H. W. Bush in the state in 1980.

“You can send a message out of South Carolina that you are going to stand behind what America needs, you’re going to be bold,” he said.,

Santorum also got in a dig at Romney as he talked to journalists packed into the small foyer of the sports grill.

“A lot of folks in the Republican party are concerned that the front-runners up there don’t have what it takes to be that strong candidate against Barack Obama and win the key of support in those key swing states that we need,” he said. “And I do. We can get those votes in the Floridas and Pennsylvanias and Ohios and Missouris that are absolutely essential for us to win.”

Santorum heads back to New Hampshire on Monday for more events in advance of Tuesday’s primary. Various polls also show him gaining momentum there, although Romney is still the front-runner.