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"FacebookPinterestsantorum-watchparty.490.jpg\n\nThe whole point of a final-weekend debate is to shake things up. And holding two debates in a 12-hour span in New Hampshire should have doubled that chance. Demoliton Derby!\n\nIt didn't happen. Nothing did, not really. The closest we came to news during last night's hour-and-a-half was Jon Huntsman saying something in Mandarin. Few attacks and few stumbles. During this morning's rematch, the candidates were sleep-deprived and cranky, yet somehow sharper and more appealing, too. But if you had high hopes that one of them would roll a grenade under Mitt Romney, you likely switched off the TV disappointed. The apparent unwillingness of the GOP candidates to train sustained fire on the dominant front-runner is one of the great mysteries of this primary\u2014and it underscores the feeling out on the trail with everyone from the voters to the contenders themselves, that this thing is pretty much over.\n\nThe political press, loath to give up on a good horse race, still wants you to think that Santorum or Huntsman can a work a miracle here and ride a surprise finish in New Hamsphire to an upset in no-holds-barred South Carolina. But my visit to a Santorum watch party at campaign headquarters last night didn't exactly show me a surge in the making\u2014or much energy or faith at all.\n\nOut in a commercial office park in the burbs, a smattering of about 20 people, mostly of the grey-haired variety, sat in rows of folding chairs, the room darkened to vivify a projected feed of the event. The supporters cheered earnestly for Santorum, but I was surprised to find them clapping nodding for the other candidates, too\u2014even the man I thought they'd be booing, Mitt Romney.\n\nThe debate-watch party is a staple of the campaign trail, the kind of thing you do because campaigns have always done it. Like waving signs on street corners, it's a reflexive demonstration of support that mostly reaches no one but the supporters involved. Back when I was an Obama staffer I staged plenty of rinky-dink watch parties, and found them useful only as a way to bait press into your headquarters. Or, it was for us: Santorum's staff actually asked me to leave. A twenty-something manning the reception desk told me that they just wanted the supporters to be able to watch in peace. (She eventually relented when a reporter from the right-leaning Daily Caller got the okay from a national-level spokesman\u2014on the condition that we not talk to staff.) It tells you something that Team Santorum is shooing off coverage of such a feel-good event. This is Campaigning 101.\n\nThe audience here, such as it was, seemed to like what they saw of their candidate. But they filed out nearly as soon as it ended, and they were realistic about Santorum's chances: which is to say, quietly pessimistic. I talked to state Representative Gary Hopper, of nearby Weare, as he stopped by the food table to pick up a pinwheel turkey wrap. Hopper, a toolmaker by trade, had donned for the occasion a sweatshirt showing the Republican elephant under the words \"PARTY ANIMAL\" and a large button reading \"Don't Trust the Liberal Media!\" His number-one issue, he told me, is gay marriage. \"If you don't have a strong family structure in the country, society starts to break down, and government starts to compensate for it,\" he explained. \"Senator Santorum seems to be the only one running for office who even understands that that's one of the fundamental, root problems.\" (Santorum's answer about loving a hypothetical gay son probably resonated with Hopper, too\u2014he was quick to tell me that he has nothing against gay people; he just fears what the decline of the family means for the country.)\n\nSupportive as he is, though, Hopper is less bullish about Santorum's chances here on Tuesday, owing to the extreme time crunch and the state's socially moderate outlook. \"I don't think it's his strong suit,\" Hopper said. And though he longs to be able to vote for a candidate he truly believes in, if Romney wins the nomination, \"I'd hold my nose and go to the polls anyway.\"\n\nJim McConaha, a friendly-looking Concord resident in the vernacular barn jacket, seemed to be of similar mind as he grabbed a few Santorum yard signs to wave in front of this morning's debate in Concord. \"I don't agree with him on a lot of things,\" McConaha said. \"But he's different. He's very refreshing.\" (There seemed to be another reason, too: \"My wife's been a fanatic for about a year,\" he added.) Like Hopper, McConaha appeared to have made a sort of peace with an eventual Romney win. \"I don't know,\" he said, chuckling softly. \"He's the kind of who guy could be president, and probably do a reasonably good job. But he's not really very inspiring.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/at-santorum-hq-nobodys-getting-their-hopes-up>