Sorenson Defection Helps Santorum More Than Paul

My twitter feed was a regular telenovela last night, with the greatest tale of betrayal since:



Senator Kent Sorenson, Iowa's earliest and loudest Michele Bachmann backer, deserted the sinking ship and jumped to Ron Paul. Sorenson appeared at a Bachmann event earlier in the day, then showed up with Paul in the evening, in the fastest turnaround since the Cubs and Cardinals traded Max Flack and Cliff Heathcote in the middle of a doubleheader in 1922.

Why change this late in the game, O bald one? Here's the whole statement but the meat is:

As for conservatives who are rightly concerned with defeating establishment Republicans Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and – even more importantly – Barack Obama in 2012, Ron Paul has established himself as the clear choice.

But Bachmann herself offered a different interpretation: "Kent Sorenson personally told me he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the Paul campaign."

Does that charge hurt Paul? Naah. His support is indigestible and, as Nate Silver noted yesterday, understated in yesterday's CNN poll that showed Mitt 25, Ron 22:

What’s wrong with using a list of Republican voters for a Republican caucus poll? The answer is that it’s extremely easy for independent and Democratic voters to register or re-register as Republicans at the caucus site. Historically, a fair number of independent voters do this.

Most of Mr. Paul’s slim lead in Iowa comes because of these independent voters. In the Public Policy Polling survey, Mr. Paul trailed Mr. Romney 22-20 among voters who are already registered as Republicans. However, because Mr. Paul performed very well among independents (and Democrats), he held a 24-20 lead in the poll overall. The CNN poll is quite simply missing these voters and therefore will probably underestimate Mr. Paul’s support, perhaps by several percentage points.

So Sorenson defects from Bachmann to Paul to screw Romney and Gingrich, and this helps who the most? Rick Santorum.

Maybe it's because he worked the old fashioned grassroots route, maybe it's because he's the only one who was never Flavor Of The Month with the accompanying scrutiny. But Santorum is suddenly on the move. Yesterday's CNN poll has Santorum jumping to third with 16 percent, his highest showing anywhere in anything. The rest of the poll has Newt down to 14, Perry stalled at 11, and Straw Poll winner Bachmann slumping all the way to sixth place and 9 percent.

(Tangent: Does Bachmann's meltdown -- and there's no other way to spin it -- kill the Straw Poll? Maybe, unless the Iowa GOP can retroactively call it a draw with Ron Paul. And the odds are they won't say ANYTHING that helps Ron Paul. They'll blame his likely win on crossover voters -- then brag about their jump in voter registration when the statistics come out.)

Bachmann's support won't follow Sorenson en masse to Paul. Some will stay with Bachmann and Brad Zaun, of course. But if, as I suspect, the SocCons' priority is blocking Romney (and Paul) plenty of them will shift toward Santorum in the hopes of pushing Mitt into third. Strategically the social conservatives need to be united and alive through the friendly ground of South Carolina.

Santorum himself spins it well in describing Iowa as three separate races: the Ron Paul thing by itself, Mitt vs. Newt for the Establishment crown, and himself, Bachmann and Rick Perry (an afterthought in yesterday's drama) for the social conservative crown.

The months-long struggle to identify THE social conservative candidate seems to be shaking itself out at last in a most improbable way, in favor of the the Some Dude who lost his senate seat by 20 points. Pass the popcorn, this'll be fun to watch.