A communication from a good friend who LOVES Rick Santorum:

Thought you might be interested to see how Senator Rick Santorum is making headway in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

New Hampshire:

• Rick Santorum has been to NH 14 times. More than any other candidate. He just won a NH Tea Party Straw Poll with 26%.
• He is putting together a broad spectrum coalition of supporters that include social conservative, tea party members, old guard conservatives, fiscal conservatives, second amendment supporters and establishment party folks.

South Carolina:

• RJS has been to SC 15 times. More than any other candidate.
• The Senator just won the largest SC straw poll (Greenville County), April 9^th. Rick appeared with Gingrich and Barbour at the straw poll and defeated them both. Rick defeated Gingrich 31% – 14% and Barbour 31% - 5% of the vote. The Greenville Straw poll was won by Huckabee in 2008.
• Santorum finished 3^rd in the Charleston County straw poll a week later (4/15). Rick did not appear at the Charleston Convention and managed a strong 3^rd place finish. Barbour, who appeared at the convention won the straw poll with Romney finishing 2^nd (1% higher than Rick). Romney finished 2^nd in Charleston in the 2008 primary. Especially strong finish as Charleston is a fiscal conservative town where social conservatives typically do not fare well.
• Rick finished 2^nd in the Dorchester County straw poll on 4/16. Impressive showing for the Senator since he hasn’t visited Dorchester County since May 2010 with Gresham Barrett (Dorchester went heavy for Nikki Haley).
• Compared to Haley, Newt, and Bachman, Rick has spent 1/10^th the resources in SC and still has managed to win and run strong in the heavy GOP counties like Greenville, Aiken, Horry, Charleston and Dorchester.

Iowa:

• Senator Santorum has been to Iowa eleven times since late 2009 and will be returning again on Monday, April 25.
• "Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) announced today that Cody Brown, former campaign manager for Ben Lange's congressional run (IA-1) will manage Senator Santorum's testing the waters effort in Iowa. Cody will be joined by Lucas Draisey, former Chairman of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans, who will serve in a field director role. Cody and Lucas will join consultants Nick Ryan and Jill Latham of the Des Moines, IA-based Concordia Group LLC who have served as advisors to Senator Santorum for the past several months."