GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has had a successful week. The former Pennsylvania senator is fresh off of winning the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, as well as the Missouri primary.
So what's behind his momentum? Our political analysts say his relatively positive campaign could be the reason.
And as we found out Santorum is reminiscent of another political underdog from South Dakota.
Rick Santorum is a relative dark horse in the GOP campaign, especially compared with his well-known opponents, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, but KSFY's political analysts say Santorum has something going for him, he's staying relatively positive while Gingrich and Romney attack each other. South Dakota Democratic Party Chair Ben Nesselhuf says, "I do think there's a danger that in all the negativity, that you're gonna be turning off, not necessarily the republican primary voters, but you're gonna be turning off the general election voters."
Santorum's progress is even serving as a reminder of the 2002 gubernatorial elections right here in South Dakota. Republican Political Analyst Kermit Staggers says, "between Mark Barnett and Steve Kirby. they ran some tough ads against each other, they were fighting back and forth, and guess what? Mike Rounds comes on the scene, wins the republican primary and eventually becomes governor of South Dakota."
Mike Rounds says, "we talked about the reasons we wanted to work as governor and we didn't have to go back in and talk about the other person."
Rounds tells us it clearly served him well, as the underdog, to focus on his own strengths instead of his rivals' weaknesses. He says, "so many cases, the individual that you're running against, they're really good people."
The voters here in South Dakota responded to Rounds' confident campaign and Rounds says republican primary voters seem to be responding to similar efforts from Santorum. He says, "I think the fact that he has stayed positive, for the most part, has helped him in the upper Midwest."
The question now is, can Santorum keep up the positive momentum?
