"People ask me why I am the best candidate to run against Barack Obama. I feel like in many respects like I am running against Barack Obama here in this primary because Mitt Romney has the same positions as Barack Obama in this primary," Santorum said Saturday in Effingham, Ill.
Santorum hopes to benefit from the deep skepticism among social conservatives about Romney, a Mormon who has struggled with this group of voters since his failed 2008 bid.
According to exit polls conducted in Alabama and Mississippi, only about 1 in 5 very conservative voters backed Romney, while 7 in 10 said his positions on the issues were not conservative enough.
Romney has won among "very conservative" voters in just four states where exit or entrance polls were conducted: Two where he's lived (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) and two with a significant Mormon population (Nevada and Arizona).
Still, it takes money and manpower to seize the moment. Santorum is raising money, but far less than Romney, and he has virtually no organization.
In the end, Santorum is counting on the GOP base's apparent demand for ideological purity in the nominee to trump time-tested techniques for winning the nomination.
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Dan Johnson of AZ 9:15PM March 17, 2012