A Last Big Push for Santorum

Only trailing Empty Suit Bob Casey, Jr by 8 points!

First, Peggy Noonan sings Santorum's praises in the WSJ:

PEGGY NOONAN
We Need His Kind
In praise of Rick Santorum.
Friday, November 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

It has been hard not to experience the election as a brute-force clash between two armies struggling over terrain their soldiers have come to see, inevitably--they are at war, they are exhausted--as the location of the battle, but not its purpose. The nation is where the contest takes place; you can forget, in the fight, that its actual future is what's being fought for.

But here's an exception: the state of Pennsylvania, which has been this year a bright patch of meaning. Its U.S. Senate contest has been the great race of the cycle, the one about which conservatives in their hearts most care. And not only conservatives, but those who know, for whatever reason and in whatever way, that there is something truly at stake here, something beyond mere red team and blue.

That would be Sen. Rick Santorum. The sense among so many people--including politicians and journalists--is that the Senate needs his sort, his kind.

The other day I called a former senator, a crusty old moderate Republican, and asked him if he liked Mr. Santorum. "No," he said, "I love him." When Mr. Santorum was new to the Senate, in 1995, he, the elder, seasoned legislator tried to mentor him. He wanted to help him survive. Mr. Santorum was grateful and appreciative, "but he kept speaking his mind!" The former senator: "The political scientists all say to be honest and stand for principle, that's what people want. And he was exactly that, and he's about to get his head handed to him." He chuckled then with what seemed the reflexive pleasure of one pol about to see another take a tumble. Then he stopped. It was sad, he said.

Then, his latest commercial (courtesy of GrassrootsPA):