SC primary January 21, 2012, Retired teacher undecided, I don’t want Obama for another four years, Rick Santorum endorsement

From the Wall Street Journal January 12, 2012.

“A Lesson on the S.C. Primary”

“After 30 years of running the mock elections at a public school in Orangeburg, S.C.,  retired teacher Linda Davis is enjoying the first Republican primary race where she can show her true colors.”

““My students never knew I normally vote Republican,” Ms. Davis said Thursday at a campaign stop in Orangeburg for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. As a teacher of third, fourth and fifth graders, “I couldn’t put a yard sign out — the kids knew where I lived,” she said. “Now I have the opportunity to go out and speak my mind.”

Ms. Davis hasn’t yet decided who she will support in the state’s Jan. 21 primary, even after watching every debate.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has “a lot of baggage,” and she worried about Mr. Perry’s ability to beat President Barack Obama in a general election. “I’m leaning toward [Mitt] Romney because I don’t want Obama for another four years,” she said. But he hasn’t sealed the deal.

“I probably won’t make my final decision until the morning I go to vote,” she said.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/01/12/a-lesson-on-the-s-c-primary/

From the Chicago tribune January 8, 2012.

“Rick Santorum says South Carolina his ‘best chance to win'”

“Rick Santorum’s campaign continued to gain momentum Sunday as he made two campaign stops in South Carolina, where he was met with cheering crowds and picked up an endorsement from conservative leader Gary Bauer.

“For me, Ronald Reagan has always defined what the right political position was in the U.S. I gave up on the idea that I would ever find another Ronald Reagan,” Bauer, a former Reagan advisor, said at a Republican fundraiser in Greenville. “Over the last year I’ve watched [Santorum] as he’s gone out and talked to the American people…. I realized the next Ronald Reagan was standing in front of me the whole time.”

The endorsement is another feather in the cap of Santorum, who has seen his poll numbers surge in the past two weeks. Recent polls show Mitt Romneyleading the state with about one-third of the vote, with Santorum and Gingrich tied for second with about 20% each. But even that is a surprising change for Santorum, who had polled as low as 2% in South Carolina in December.

The surge in popularity follows his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and is a strong contrast to just a few weeks ago, when many of Santorum’s events drew only a few dozen people and little media attention.

“People were always saying to us, ‘We like him; he’s just not doing well in the polls and we don’t want to throw our vote away.’ ” Santorum said Sunday. “As soon as it became apparent that we could actually do well, our numbers went from, in the last five days, from 15 to 25, and that’s momentum.””
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-pn-south-carolina-best-chance-santorum-20120108,0,4930274.story