Rick Santorum Levels Attacks on Newt Gingrich to Prevent Him from Becoming the “Anti-Romney” Alternative – Video 1/19/12

Rick Santorum went into last night’s GOP Debate with a clear goal: Take down Newt Gingrich. He went after him, and from a political standpoint, he had no choice.

Despite Santorum’s better finish in Iowa and by a hair in New Hampshire, Gingrich is the one who has emerged in South Carolina as the viable alternative to defeat Mitt Romney. Right now, Gingrich is polling 20 points better in South Carolina that Rick Santorum, but you would not have known that from the attacks Santorum leveled against Gingrich again and again last night. He tried to paint Gingrich as essentially unstable and without the courage to do what is needed to defeat Barack Obama. Here is one of his attacks on Gingrich:

What we don’t know is whether Santorum’s offensive against Gingrich was enough to bring down Gingrich’s vote totals in South Carolina to prevent him from winning. It’s possible Santorum could get a huge surge going into the voting tomorrow based on his performance last night – but it would have to be a really huge surge for him to win. The more likely outcome if his attacks worked with voters is that Gingrich will lose enough steam for Mitt Romney to eek out a victory. If so, depending on how close Gingrich and Santorum wind up to each other, the battle for the “anti-Romney” slot moves to Florida. But if Gingrich goes on to win in South Carolina, despite Santorum’s best efforts to bring him down, and Santorum finishes a distant third or fourth, then he will have little claim that he – and not Newt Gingrich – is the guy who can defeat Mitt Romney for the GOP Nomination. If we get any polls later today or in the morning done AFTER this debate, we’ll see if it shows downward movement with Gingrich and upward movement for Santorum.