spending that time in SC.

If he came in 2nd then the perception of a 2 man race with Rick as the anti-Romney would be cemented before SC. And a lot of free media, which he needs.

He's Catholic, and Mittens is Mormon. More Catholics in NH than Mormon. It shouldn't matter, but it does.

He's got to try to portray his campaign as being national in scope, Hucksterbee was only some dumb-ass Southern preacher who would have had no appeal in coastal areas, or in the Mountain West. As a Northeasterner, he has a plausible claim, but he has to at least make a show of defending it.

He can bloody Newt and pRick as the anybody-but-Romney-who-is-not-a-Mormon-or-Paul candidate, and I think he'll do OK as long as he can beat both of them. I can't see Huntsman beating him in NH, but if that happens, it's not going to be good for Santorum in the short run. However, unless Huntsman comes in at a virtual tie with Romney, he's ultimately finished, because he's just Mitt-lite, and people who like both of them will simply vote Romney since he's got the money and the organization to go the distance.

He stands a reasonable chance of coming in second, and it doesn't have to be a close second in a state that everybody's already ceded to Mittens. If he avoided it, he'd look scared, and that wouldn't appeal to the South Carolina voters who want some display of conviction.

Nobody's going to win them all, until a first ballot victory is inevitable, and Santorum can find enough votes to outlast Perry and Newt. Once they're out of the way, it's a two-man race, with Paul as the sideshow, and Santorum has enough ways to appeal to the tea partiers and the fundies, they're two legs of the Republicon stool.