Rick Santorum Surging in Iowa Polls
SESAY: Mitt Romney is still the front-runner in Iowa according to the latest CNN-TIME-ORC poll. And people are greeting him everywhere he goes on the stump there. Our Jim Acosta joins from one such stop on the trail, Nathan City. Jim, it would appear Romney's having a good week with Iowa voters leading into these caucuses?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He really is, Isha, there is no other way to put it. That CNN-"TIME" Magazine-ORC poll that came out showing him the front-runner, the former Massachusetts governor just said in this room behind me, he's only visited this state eight times leading up to the Iowa caucuses. When you think about that, get your mind around the fact that he's visited the state a little more than half a dozen times and yet he is in the lead when other contenders like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have visited virtually every county in this state, it is quite a feat. I should tell you where we are right now. I should tell you where we are right now. It's very interesting. We're inside a museum that is dedicated to the musical "The Music Man," and Mitt Romney just a few moments ago made reference to it, saying, he feels so good right now he could sing "76 Trombones" or something. I'm probably butchering that line, but he made a reference to the film. That shows you the confidence he's feeling right now. He's definitely having a good week.</s>SESAY: Let me ask you this. What is your sense as you speak to people, as to the reason he's holding so steadily in that number one position in the polls?</s>ACOSTA: Well, you know, part of the reason why is because his rivals have been attacking one another. If you're looking at what's happening in the last couple days, Michele Bachmann has been going after Ron Paul. Rick Perry has been going after Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich is insisting on staying positive in his campaign. All of that has directed the political fire away from Mitt Romney, and that has only helped his campaign. That's basically allowed him to go after President Obama, something he did earlier this morning at a stop just after sunrise.</s>MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a choice in this coming election of what kind of America we're going to have. It's not just about replacing the president. It's about saving the soul of America.</s>ACOSTA: So it's that kind of rhetoric directed at the president, saving the soul of America, those are pretty harsh words to be saying on a presidential campaign trail. But he does it just about every campaign stop. The other thing he's been doing out here Isha is really sort of burnishing his Tea Party credentials. At this stop just a few moments ago, and earlier yesterday, he was talking about cutting federal programs that Tea Partyers would love to cut, like Federal Funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which is PBS. He repeated the comment here today, which has sort of made the rounds in the Twitter verse that he's not going to kill Big Bird, he's just going to make "Sesame Street" run ads. That's the kind of red meat Tea Partyers love to hear out here, Isha.</s>SESAY: Thank you, Jim. Let's go back to that poll. Remember yesterday we talked about the race to finish third in Iowa? As if on cue, our latest survey out of Iowa includes a really big surprise. Let's look at that list. See the third name there? That's Rick Santorum, the former two-term senator from Pennsylvania. Suddenly he is making a push to finish third in Iowa and thus join the packs of the upper echelon. Joe Johns with us from Iowa. Joe, we're going to get to the horse race element of this in a moment, but first, let's listen to Rick Santorum on the campaigning trail today.</s>RICK SANTORUM, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have an administration going out and undercutting -- it's a war against poor children. It's at war against children who need moms and dads.</s>SESAY: OK, some harsh words for the Obama administration. But Santorum has got to be happy with his third place right now, right Joe?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: I think he's happy. I talked to him a little while ago. He's not just surging in the polls. He's also getting a fundraising boost too. He told me he had his biggest fundraising day online yesterday apparently after this poll came out. So that's all good news for him. But the other thing that come as long with moving up a few notches in the polls here in Iowa is you also come under attack by some of your rivals. That was evidenced today, an attack from Rick Perry, talking about the fact that Rick Santorum, number one, asked for something like a billion dollars in earmarks, when he was in the United States Congress, which is something that Santorum says, yes, I did it. And also questioning the fact that Rick Santorum lost by a wide margin his last reelection race in 2006, which raises the question if you can't win your own home state, how do you expect to be the nominee and win all of the United States? So Rick Santorum is having a good day today. Nonetheless, just like all the other people who have gotten their day in the sun, he's also seeing some of the problems associated with that, Isha.</s>SESAY: Indeed, you're in the spotlight, you open yourself up. Let's take a closer look at who the man himself is. He calls himself the race's true conservative. He's 53 years old. H he served four years in the House of Representatives, then 12 years in the Senate. He is married, he has seven children. And he's quick to talk about his family's modest roots in western Pennsylvania.</s>SANTORUM: My grandfather used to say they lived in a company town, got paid with company stamps to shop at the company store. I remember going back and visiting that house, and they lived at least a quarter mile walk from any fresh water, an outhouse, the whole nine yards. They really grew up obviously very humble.</s>SESAY: Joe, it seems as if the calculation is to play the role of I'm pretty personable. I'm a guy just like you. How does it strike you?</s>JOHNS: Yes, and he speaks the language of conservative voters, especially in Iowa. Those Christian conservatives, if you will, the social conservatives, the evangelicals, they understand where Rick Santorum is coming from. He understands where they're coming from, which makes it fascinating that he's languished in the cellar of the polls for as long as he had. He's moved from five percent all the way up to 16 percent on our latest poll. But you have to ask, what took so long for these voters here to get there? I quizzed him a little built about that today. He says it's a weeding out process, and he says Iowans are doing what they're supposed to td, which is look at him and compare him to some of the others in the field, and they're coming to the conclusion that perhaps they like him better now than they did when they were first introduced to him.</s>SESAY: Yes, and to put a finer point on that, he's training his sights on the big game, and now he's not pulling punches. Here he is again today.</s>SANTORUM: There is a very stark contrast with Governor Romney and on the issue of health care, and the issue of cap and trade and global warming, moral cultural issues, and with Ron Paul on national security. There's a lot of contrast. I've said from the very beginning, we're the consistent conservative who has the track record.</s>SESAY: Well, he's clearly peaking at the right time. He's confident and says that, you know, they're the right people to surge. But did anyone else see this coming? As you speak to analysts and other folks on the ground there, has this come as a surprise?</s>JOHNS: Yes, it's come as a surprise to a lot of people, particularly the people who didn't watch very closely, but the fact of the matter is a lot of people thought he was really underperforming in the polls, and given the Iowa demographic, a lot of people expected him to do better. That said, you know, the big question for him is, if he does have a good performance here, what's his path. He's been out there in some of these other states, New Hampshire, certainly South Carolina. And he's hoping to do well certainly in South Carolina, because there like here, there are a lot of Evangelical voters who may be taking a long look at him, especially given what's happened to the other Republicans in the field so far -- Isha.</s>SESAY: Joe Johns joining us there from Iowa. Thanks, Joe. This reminder, tune in next week for the country's first vote in the presidential race. America's Choice 2012, live coverage of the Iowa caucuses begins Tuesday night, January 3rd at 7:00 Eastern. Well, courage doesn't even begin to describe this next story. A pregnant 17-year-old fighting brain cancer decides to stop chemo in order to save the life of her unborn child. That teenage girl died. We're going to hear from her mother that's coming up next.