Questions about whether Santorum can sustain his rise in the polls come amid signs of stress within his campaign, mainly disorganization. Romney's machine, coupled with new scrutiny for Santorum's view of social issues as well as governmental policies, will give Santorum little margin for error.
As an example, one misstep by a Santorum supporter kept the former senator off message at times for two days.
Foster Friess, the main donor behind Santorum's "super PAC," created a stir Thursday when he related on MSNBC an old joke about how aspirin used to be a method for birth control. "Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception," Friess said with a grin. "The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly."
Friess apologized Friday in a blog post. But Santorum was repeatedly forced to distance himself from his surrogate's comments, which Santorum described as "a bad joke." The comments drew unwanted attention to Santorum's own musings about contraception and women's issues.
"Santorum has been in the position of explaining on all of these issues. And when you're explaining in politics, you're losing," said Phil Musser, a GOP strategist who doesn't work for either campaign.
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